Mt. Carrigain - 4700' (5/48)

At around 7:20AM on Sunday, August 12th, Paloma, Joe, Julie, Pat, Tyler, and I departed Somerville for Mt. Carrigain.  Paloma and I rode in Pat's car - Joe, Julie and Tyler in Joe's car.  After fueling up and picking up the obligatory ice coffee and breakfast sandwich from Dunks on the way, we finally made it to the "trail-head" of Mt. Carrigain at approx. 10:25AM.

Sawyer Road...

In the above paragraph, you may wonder why "trail-head" is in quotations.  Maybe not.  But regardless, let me explain.  Typically, you would take Sawyer Road off of route 302 to reach the parking lot at the Signal Ridge trail-head.  That was our plan.  But low and behold, when we arrived Sawyer road was closed to traffic.  We spent about twenty minutes looking at the map, researching other nearby hikes and weighing our options.  From where we parked (right off of 302), the trail head was two miles away.  Did we really want to add an additional four miles (two out, two back) onto an already long ten mile hike?  No.  Did we man up and do it?  Yes.

The weather forecast for the day was iffy.  Scattered thunderstorms, fog, rain, clouds.  Sounds like an awful day for a hike.  Oh well, we drove this far.

Signal Ridge Trail-head

We left the parking lot on 302 at just before 11:00AM.  We walked the two miles to the trail-head, arriving at 11:30AM, and were finally on our way up the Signal Ridge trail to the summit of Carrigain.  New Hampshire has had some wet weather lately so the ground was relatively soft off the start - I appropriately dubbed this "Marshmallow Land," as it felt that you were walking on, well, marshmallows.  The first couple of miles were relatively easy and followed along a beautiful river with some small cascades along the way.  A few sections were washed out a bit but overall it was in good shape.

Stinky Snake

At approximately the two mile mark on the Signal Ridge Trail (four miles total this point with our nice addition), we came to our first serious stream crossing.  There was no easy way across so we all ended up taking off our boots and walking through the water.  Damn it was cold, but it was also refreshing.  While waiting for the others to finish getting their feet dry and boots back on, I caught a tiny garter snake who left some delicious (read terrible) smelling pheromones on my hands.  Last time I pick one of those up.

In the Clouds

We crossed a few more streams and began gaining in elevation.  This trail doesn't mess around.  You begin climbing, and climbing, and climbing, and just when you think you are close to the top, you climb some more.   The cloud cover was very low and in a few minutes all you could see was the trail in front of you, no view through the trees, nothing.  It was somewhat eerie.  It was pretty humid lower on the mountain and even though the temperature was cool we were all dripping sweat.  We wolfed down some candied ginger and continued on our trek up.  We didn't see many people on the trails until a bit further up the mountain.  We asked one group how much further we had, "about an hour" they responded.  About thirty minutes later we asked another group coming down, "about an hour" they said.  What the hell?  How could this be?  We knew this was going to be a long hike but come on, we had to be getting close.

False Summit

We finally broke through the trees at around 3:00PM.  We were all exhausted.  This was only the false summit.  We had about another thirty or so minutes until we reached the REAL summit, the one with the awesome views and fire watchtower.  The views from the false summit were actually pretty sweet - especially with the crazy clouds that we were in.  The clouds were moving fast so you could catch awesome views for a second before the clouds ate them up.  Realizing that it was getting late, we hurried off towards the actual summit, reaching it at almost 3:30PM on the dot.

Tyler IDing Mtns.

Luckily, we were the only group up here, and it remained that way the entire time.  The summit is entirely wooded, but there is a giant watchtower that you can climb up on which offers unbelieveable views.  We ate lunch up there, cooled off, dried off, and rested up for the seven mile descent to the car.  The sun had broken through at this point so it was great at the top.  After getting our fill of PB&J sandwiches and "fishes," we left the summit at around 4:10PM.

The Summit Marker

We decided to keep a quick pace going down, not just because we were all exhausted, but because we wanted to get to the car before dark.  The descent seemed to drag on forever and ever.  Everything was wet so we had to be extra careful.  At some points we had to help each other down because of how slippery it was.  After a few hours we made it back to the original river crossing (where we took our shoes off).  At this point the sky had turned dark, and we were officially caught in a thunderstorm.  It began to pour.  We all took a moment to get our rain gear on and continued our blistering pace towards the car.  All that was left was two miles of trails, and two miles on the access road.  The trail was a muddy mess at this point, and all of us were slipping and grabbing onto trees etc. to avoid face planting in the mud.  We finally made it to the road just before 7:00PM.  Two miles to go.

My New Sister and I at the Top

I had mixed emotions at this point - I was pumped that we were on the home stretch of a tough fourteen mile, eight hour hike, but all I could think about was how thirsty I was and how I could hardly control my legs.  Being an idiot, I decided that I would try to run the last half mile.  Why?  I don't know.  Maybe it was the lack of oxygen going to my brain.  Anyways, a few of us took off and jogged the last half mile.  It actually felt great - anything but a walking motion at this point was welcomed.

The Rain Storm

We made it to the car at 7:15PM.  Long day.  After changing into some new clothing we all set off to grab some quick food so that we would be home at a decent hour.  Along the ride we drove through a ridiculous thunderstorm, encountered a closed exit ramp that required us to take a detour, and had to deal with the idiots driving home from a weekend away.  We made it back to Somerville at 11:00PM, showered, and went to bed.  What a beast of a day.

As bad as I made it sound in this post, I actually had an awesome time.  Though it seemed that God was punishing us for something, we all had a blast.  The hike was long but the sense of accomplishment after finishing a difficult hike in sub-par conditions is amazing.

Check out the rest of my photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/twstandley/.

Leave me some comments!  Have a good one!

Hike Stats
Trails: Sawyer Road, Signal Ridge
Total Time (Including Breaks): 8:15
Distance: 14.0 Miles
Elevation Gain: 3250'