The Horn

Unlike most of my hiking friends, I don’t live close to the mountains on my list.  To avoid the multi-hour drive to and from the mountains I have resorted to finding reasonably priced places to stay, since the sleeping in the car wasn’t working out for me.  I decided to hike The Horn and looked for nearby campsites, motels and inns.  All were booked because of an upcoming ATV event. I found one place but she didn’t allow ERDs (evil rat dogs).  He’s not evil, he is just a 10lb Chihuahua that likes to hike mountains. She referred me to the Trailside Lodge in North Stratford. 

As I got closer to the address it started to feel like a Stephen King novel, foggy, intermittent rain, narrow streets, run down houses that looked abandoned except for the one light shining in the back window. The hair on the back of my neck started to rise as I got closer to my destination. I turned onto a dirt road and drove up to an old log cabin with pitch forks and other creepy, dusty things on the front porch.  I rang the doorbell, no answer. I looked around and “Friday the 13th” came to mind.   I opened the door, stuck my head in and said, “Hello?!” No answer.  Louder, “Hello!?”   I hear a voice but can’t make it out. I stand and wait, nothing happens.  I walk to my car and a big guy comes out of the house and looks at me.  “Hello, I have a reservation?” I say uncertainly.  With a big booming friendly voice he said, “Yes you do, Sharon went out to rescue some guests who got stuck on the wrong side of Percy Road.  It narrows to an ATV trail and you can’t get through.”    I guess I’m glad I didn’t go that way!

He takes me to the lodge next door and we walk through a fun common space for all of the guests. He leads me to a nice, neat room with a small kitchen, bathroom, and sliding glass doors with a deck looking out into the foggy night.  The hair on my neck relaxes and the ERD makes friends with the big, nice guy, who made me laugh several times.  It’s an interesting place, interesting people, and I would definitely stay again.

I got up at 5:00AM. No surprise, thick fog and rain.  I turn on the TV to check the weather.  Sunny with a chance of thunderstorms.  Okay!  I make myself some coffee, feed the dog and get ready to leave.  I love the fog, but hiking in thick fog on unfamiliar trails, in deep woods, while it’s still dark, brings to life every horror flick I have ever watched.  Thankfully, it started to clear as I neared the turnoff onto Millbrook Road.
 

Millbrook Road is a long, long dirt road.  The proverbial phrase, “Are we there yet?” kept ringing in my ears, as I drove, and drove, and drove down this road.  Ah, the first bridge, good almost there….finally the second bridge and a trailhead sign!

There is a 2 car pull-off on the side of the road right after the second bridge.  You will see the trailhead sign on the opposite side of the road. The trail has no blazes.  It is narrow and overgrown in places, but very easy to follow.  There is quite a large area of mud about 30 minutes into the hike and of course I stepped into an area where the mud was shin deep.  It almost sucked off my shoe! 

My friend, who is an avid peakbagger, referred to the Unknown Pond trail as dreary, but I was so fascinated with the fungi and flora I was completely engaged.  If you like foraging, there are the largest, most beautiful, chanterelles I have ever seen, along the brook, on the right side of the trail.  Of course I collected some on the way back to the car.  There are beautiful berries, some edible, some not-so-much.  Bunchberries are ready for the taking. They are bland-tasting but provide a great burst of energy.  Eat the flesh around the seeds, don’t eat the seeds. 

Beautiful, tasty Chanterelle mushrooms

Bunchberries, not tasty but high in vitamin C - gives a burst of energy!

Clintonia borealis (blue bead berry) not tasty

Purple Trillium fruit - tastes good but mildly toxic (don't eat)

I was hoping to see moose at Unknown Pond but I had no luck today.  There was moose scat everywhere but I have so many things, noisy things, hanging off my backpack, you can hear me coming a mile away!  I will never get to see a bear, moose, coyote, or bobcat until I stop sounding like a market vendor dragging a cart over cobblestones in Florence.

I don’t know what I expected to find at the summit of Horn but didn’t expect a small rocky, horn-like summit.  I looked at the large, high boulders and tried to pull myself up.  There was no place to grab onto or wedge my foot.  I looked at a climbing hook in the stone and started to get out my rope to loop around the hook and pull myself up.  I stopped when I realized there was nothing in the trail logs about Horn being difficult to summit.  So I walked around and found the way up.

The wind was surprisingly strong and I could feel it trying to push me backward.  The ERD whined.  He doesn’t like the wind.   I watched the clouds moving with the wind.  I watched as it obscured the Cabot summit and moved toward me.  Beautiful.  It’s not a Chocorua summit, but it has its own charm.

On the way down I took my time photographing plants and fungi and talked to hikers heading up to the summit.  I met three teens hiking up.  I looked down to see one of the kids didn’t have any shoes!  I said he was just like the guy [Cody Lundin] on the Discovery Channel [Dual Survival].  He laughed.  Apparently he does all of his hikes barefoot. 

I was almost to the car when I came back to the muddy section.  This time I didn’t walk in the mud, I walked on the rocks that were placed there so hikers could avoid it.  I slip on a rock, smash my already bruised shin from a previous hike and an unsavory word is involuntarily propelled from my mouth echoing throughout the trail…  Bruised shins look awful with shorts.

32 down 20 52WAVs to go.