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June 20, 2014 / Comments (0)

Mount Carrigain (Spring)

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Allison is the founder of trailtosummit.com which she began as a way to track and share her first round of the NH 4000 Footers. Now on round 5 (the first round for her dog Ruckus) she has been honored to have taken part of many people’s firsts. She is an experienced trail maintainer, speaker, and passionate member of the outdoor community. In New England, Allison enjoys trekking along the highest peaks, bushwhacking to less traveled areas, and has a fondness for sunrise and sunset trips. Outside of New England Allison has also thru hiked the John Muir Trail and explored mountains in the German and Austrian Alps, Israel, and the Azores. Her goal is to share her passion for hiking and backpacking with others, especially with women, to inspire them to experience the freedom of the trail!
This week I had a three day adventure in the Whites planned (during the weekday too!) I had a couple goals in mind. The first was to try out my gear that I’ll be using for the JMT in just over a month. I also was very close to finishing the 4Ks in Spring. There are 48 4000-foot peaks in New Hampshire and I had finished two years ago. Last year I spent some time in Vermont and Maine hiking the New England 67 list. I decided to work on my own list, hiking the NH4Ks in each season. I’m calling it the Seasonal Grid AKA the Grid lite 🙂 For those that are not familiar with the grid, it’s when a person hikes each 4000-footer in every month. 48×12. Yikes.
 

Carrigain is 10 miles round trip when Sawyer River Road is open. I waited far enough into the Spring when it would be. I’ve already done the road walk twice. With the road closed, it’s an additional 2 miles each way of flat dirt road.

The trail is very moderate and definitely deceiving for the first half, saving all the elevation for the second half.

The major stream crossing was not looking good. The water was really moving and there were not nearly enough exposed rocks. I was curious to see how long it would take my trail runners (Salomon Speedcross 3’s) to dry out so I just walked through. An hour later (even being below treeline) my shoes were dry.

 

 

 

There were tons of Lady Slippers along the trail!

After a lot of uphill I finally got some views. When I decided to take all my JMT gear with me, I took it all. I carried up a sleeping bag, shelter, and even my bear canister. I was ready to throw the Bear Vault 500 off a cliff! It was hot and the bugs were relentless which is doable, but not with a 2 pound plastic barrel in your pack!

Carrigain has one of the nicest views in the Whites and I tried to enjoy them while spraying myself down with another layer of bugspray.

 

The tower atop Carrigain was recently renovated and this was my first visit to the new and improved tower. It was looking good!

 

 

 

On the way down I saw a Grouse, but it was camera shy. I did manage to sneak a picture of the fellow below.

I spent the next two days in the Pemigewasset Wilderness but decided to leave the BV500 in the car. I need to come up with a solution for the bear canister issue!

Last modified: September 2, 2017

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