Marshall

September 19, 2009

I was a little nervous about this hike as I had aggravated an old knee injury the weekend before while hiking and mountain biking, but set off anyway. I was the hike leader of a group of eight from the Ottawa ACC section. We all met down at Keene Farm on Friday evening, and then got up early to drive to the Upper Works trailhead which is almost 100 km away from Keene. We got to the trailhead at 08:00 and began our hike. The hike in to the base of Marshall is flat and fairly long. The day was beautiful. Cool, sunny, and not a cloud in the sky. We stopped at the Henderson monument for a quick break, and then again at the Flowed Lands to take in the view of Mt. Colden. Although we spent the entire day walking around Mt. Marshall, we never did get a good view of the mountain we were climbing itself. We ascended via Herbert brook. A clear but unmarked trail followed the stream, occasionally crossing from side to side. This part of the hike was absolutely gorgeous, with lots of small waterfalls amid a lush green mossy forest. At one point, we accidently began following another trail which left the creek bed and then finally petered out. We bushwacked back to the creek and picked up the main trail again. One more food break and the final summit push was on. A few places had some light scrambles, and finally we reached the summit after about 4.5 hours into the hike. Slightly below the summit there is a south-east facing lookout, where we decided to take our lunch, lounging around in the sunshine and enjoying the views of Colden, Marcy, and Gray, and a few others for the next 45 minutes. I polled the group whether they would like to complete a loop via Indian Pass, or just go back the way we had come in. I got a unanimous vote for the loop, so we descended down to the col, and then started heading northward towards Cold Brook Pass. There is apparently a trail here, and we started off by following a faint one, but it quickly disappeared so we just followed a compass bearing through the woods. The way was tough going in spots as the vegetation was fairly dense. After about 500 m of this I spied what I thought was a tent. As I got closer I thought it was a car. As I got even closer it turned out to be the wreckage of an airplane. Explained to us by a bartender in Keene later in the evening, the airplane crashed in the sixties. The pilot although severely injured, was successfully rescued some thirty hours later. After exploring this for a few minutes, we found a path that took us to the Cold Brook trail. To find this wreckage again, locate a very large boulder (about eight feet in diameter) sitting on the south side of Cold Brook trail right near the summit of Cold Brook Pass. Go in behind this boulder, and walk into the woods about 15 to 20 meters and you will find the plane. About 300 meters west we found a cairn marking the trail we were supposed to take from the beaver ponds, but we were glad we missed it as we would not have found the wreck. We descended down Cold Brook pass, and then up through Indian Pass. The trails here are much more rugged than the trails on the southern approach to Marshall. Indian Pass is full of fun scrambly bits, and the view of Wallface mountain is spectacular. Lots of giant house size boulders are present that the trail winds over, under, and around. The group was beginning to get strung out, so I decided to split the group into two; a faster group of four to go ahead, and a slower one which I stayed with to continue on at our own pace. We agreed to meet back in Keene at the Tip-a-Canoe restaurant. Once we got down from Indian pass, a long flat plod remained to get back to the parking lot. We got out just minutes before being plunged into darkness, just over 11 hours after we had started. A long drive back to Keene, and then a big, delicious supper washed down with good beer was to be had at the Tip-a-Canoe. Surprisingly, my knee held up just fine with no pain at all.

Starting out on a cool but beautiful morning.