Passaconaway and Whiteface

August 2, 2014

Andy and I awoke at 04:00 in a little motel in Orford, Quebec, and ate a stale croissant and some coffee that was provided with the room. We hit the road and in about 30 minutes arrived at the border, where after a few questions, the bored looking early morning guards sent us on our way. We arrived in Conway a little after 07:00, met Hai and Carole, and packed into Hai's car for a 30 minute drive to the trailhead. There were quite a few people here and we managed to squeeze into the last available space in the lot. A big group of teenagers took off up the road, and since we were planning the longer loop over Wonalancet, we were not to see them again until the end of the day. We hiked along a lovely trail through the forest with a nice feeling of soft soil instead of the usual rocks under our feet. We enjoyed checking out the variety of colourful mushrooms along the trail, and before long topped out on the summit of Wonalancet in the fog. We had a brief snack before continuing over several small bumps along the ridge, finally doing a nice scramble up Passaconaway. We arrived at an open expanse of rock which looked like it might be the summit so we sat down, had some lunch, and enjoyed the views into the fog. It started raining a bit so we headed onwards and a short while later found a cairn in the woods marking the true summit. Now we descended a fairly steep trail for about 200m and then started heading up again along the Whiteface ridge. The fog also cleared so the next while was spent hiking along the top of the horseshoe ridgeline, stopping at each lookout and enjoying the views of the route we had come up on. It was along here that we began to see the first people of the day. We passed over the summit which was simply a pile of rocks in the middle of the woods, and then stopped at a nice looking campsite at the trail junction for a second lunch. Pushing on a bit further brought us to a much better looking open summit, which was approximately the same height as the cairn in the woods, but had some fantastic views to the east into the bowl, and also to the lowlands of the south. We next descended the Blueberry Ledge trail, which did not dissapoint. It was full of ledges, most of them with a nice view, and also plenty of blueberries which we snacked on during our way down. Some incredibly well built stone staircases along the trail took us through the woods and we finally came out on an easement trail hrough a bunch of houses and old farms. A short road walk brought us back to the parking lot bring an end to a very successful eight hour day.

Some easy scrambling up Wonalancet.