Mahoosuc Notch - Appalachian Trail

imported
#1

This is just a quick post about the Notch and a few adjoining side trails.

I guess I’ll start by saying that I hiked through the Notch for the second time on friday and it was just as much fun as the last time. This time I did have a daypack and the prospect of a shower at the end of the day, and it wasn’t the beginning of winter like last time. What an enjoyable hike, well recommended to anyone fit and able.

Myself and my father chose to hike in from Success Pond road up the Old Speck trail to the summit of Mahhosuc Arm, down into the notch then out to the road by way of the Notch trail, about 12 miles in all. There was some heavy logging activity on our ascent of the Arm. The first clear cut looked like a clearing for a powerline but the trail crossed several of these. It almost appeared that they were ski runs, definately not stands of pulp wood, not cut that straight anyway. Does anyone know what’s going on with that? Will this encroach onto AT land? Do the AMC know about it?

Lastly, I took with me the AT map from 1996, not so smart I know, but it’s all i had. Just to let anyone else know who hikes this loop that when you hit the road at the end of the Notch Trail, the map becomes useless. You must turn right and hike 0.1m to a “T” then turn left (although this appears to be Success Pond road it isn’t, this is where the map is wrong). At the next “T” you will meet Success Pond Road, turn right here and head northeast approx 1.5 miles to the Old Speck trailhead.

Hope that info is of help to any potential Notch dayhikers. I can’t wait to go back in the late fall.

Happy hiking

Cheers

Cheers

#2

it wasn’t the beginning of winter the last time you went through that notch man. that was shorts weather if i’ve ever seen it.

grizzly adam

#3

Dude, you’d wear shorts up Mckinley in february.

Cheers

Cheers

#4

that’s probably true

grizzly adam

#5

You should’ve seen Grizz in mosquito country on the JMT though. I think he must’ve been praying for long pants as he sat cocooned in his bivy sack around dinnertime while they were a-swarming!

Cap’n

#6

Does you have a JMT trail journal that I am missing out on, Grizzly Adams? I have very much enjoyed your past journals and photography and being from Charlotte I needs to get me over to Asheville next time you have an exhibit.

windblue

#7

maybe I should go LOOK first before I reply, now I see the JMT journal.

windblue

#8

the JMT journal is coming along slowly. where were you during my last show windblue? i could have used the support. it more or less turned out to be a disaster.

grizzly adam

#9

the ass clowns! maybe if i ever get my stuff together and make a jmt journal, you can see the very picture of grizz retreated into his bivy to escape the ass clown hell!

jerm

#10

There has been a lot of new logging in the Mahoosuc in the last year. The AMC and the ATC do know about it. Most of the land in the Mahoosuc Range is privately owned and the newest owner seems to want to get the quickest return on his investment without much concern for sustainable logging. The AT corridor, the public land, is very narrow through this area and even the heavy logging Cheers saw is no where near encroaching on the AT. Although most of the side trails in the Mahoosucs are mostly on the private land thus explains the bad condition of said trails this summer. I recommend the AMC map for the Mahoosuc Range for any hiking on these trail.

Celt