Battling Nancy

In a very recent blog post we mentioned that we will gladly guide folks to myriad places… including the New England Hundred Highest peaks. That’s what Redline Guide Ken Hodges was doing just yesterday. Ken was leading a custom tour for a gentleman from Maine, Bob, who is working on that list. Specifically, Redline Guiding is helping him with the trailess summits on that list — including possibly those outside New Hampshire as well — at the behest of Bob’s wife. We’re full service and all about safety, so we’re really a perfect match. Ken wrote this short summary of the trip, which unfortunately ended up not leading to a summit, but is explained in his text, as follows:

Bob and I set out for Mt Nancy along the Nancy Pond Trail. Temps were in the 50s under partly cloudy skies, which makes for fine spring hiking weather. All water crossings were high but easily crossed by rock hopping. We stopped several times to take in the views and get some pictures of Nancy Cascades as they are exceptionally beautiful this time of year. They drop about 160 feet ending in a pool before cascading further down. We continued up at a steady pace encountering patches of [old compacted snow] “monorail” here and there as well as spotting snow in the forest along the trail. Once we hit 2800 feet the trail was buried under a continuous monorail of rotten snow with depths of 1-3 feet, with several inches of standing water underneath. This greatly impeded our progress as we were constantly postholing so we decided to save this one for another day. We spent our time out at a relaxed pace with some good conversation. Nancy, we will be back! —Ken Hodges

 

They knew going in they would encounter the monorail, but still hoped they would be able to push through it and get an early-as-possible start on the remainder of Bob’s list. It’s a fine peak, one they’ll hopefully get to enjoy soon. Better luck next time, gentlemen. In the meantime, enjoy these photos of the tour.

Nancy, we will be back!