Strafford County Highpoint Trip Report
Date: March 18, 2006
Author: Roy Schweiker
More like a November hike with bare frozen ground and ice patches but very little snow.
I pretended I was Andy Martin and drove over frozen ruts to WMA trailhead.
This will be less of a good idea when they thaw as I discovered driving out.
Hiked trail to where the path from ski area comes in and went down to survey
sign, thought it would be easy to follow red blazes with leaves down but there
were a lot of evergreens and the blazes are fading fast. I walked in a straight
line and occasionally saw a red blaze which is somewhat different from saying I
followed them. Somebody has wrapped a blazed tree near the highest point of the
line with several strands of orange survey flagging but it is amazingly
invisible - I spent quite a while in the area wandering up and down to get near
the CoHP, if the blazed line is incorrect, and wandered by the flagged tree at
least 3 times not seeing it until after I was past. This cohp will not meet the
Jones standard of being 100% sure you were there. All I can say is that I was
very close several times.
From there I bushwhacked to the summit and had intended to bushwhack down the
east-northeast ridge but found a nice woods road down the spine of the east-
southeast ridge and went that way instead. Finally dropped off to the brook and
crossed to the road on the far bank.