Tom and I did a short day ski trip, 12 to 14 miles depending on which signs you believe, in the White Mountains NRA. The skiing was fast but fairly marginal, with only around 4 inches of snow. Ski season has definitely arrived – wahoo!
Posts Tagged ‘white mountains’
Time to Ski!
Monday, November 2nd, 2009A short spin on the bike..
Tuesday, September 15th, 2009On a cloudy Monday Remus, Polar, and I headed out to Quartz Creek Trail in BLM’s White Mountains National Recreation Area for a shortish bike ride. I had hiked the trail earlier this year and at the time thought it would make a wonderful and hopefully mellow day trip on a mountain bike.
The trail starts with an impressive climb that really hammers the legs. As I was heading up the hill I was passed by several hunters on four wheelers – the first of three parties that I encountered on the trail. The fall colors where out and the leaves where already starting to fall off the dwarf birches.
The trail is a mix of fun to ride hard packed trail, short sections of muddy trail with some sort of fancy Lego block trail hardening, and less fun bouldery sections. The trail is mostly ridable except for a couple of short rocky sections. I expect those sections would also be ridable if I was a bit more aggressive.. 
The plastic trail hardening underpayment seems to work quite well and all the places that one would expect to be muddy where quite dry and ridable. Where the surface is completely exposed the grip was a bit funky and I took it slow. Its amazing how much work BLM must have put into fixing up this trail.
On one of the harder to ride sections I broke my chain – much sadness.
A small flock of ravens found my chain fixing efforts amusing and starting circling me and the dogs. Perhaps they though I was doomed.. Regardless I got the chain spliced back together and was back on my way.
BLM really had some fun hardening the trail – on the first stream crossing the bottom of the stream is lined with paving stones. Quite impressive and very fun on a bike.
The trail winds up several ridges and across several small creeks. In the saddles it passes though small spruce trees and in the high points it is above tree line. Once you get back in a ways the terrain opens up with wonderful views of the ridges coming off Mount Prindle. It is very scenic!
The dogs and I stopped near the start of Little Champion Creek and explored a bit on foot. After a bit of wandering around we stopped by the creek and I relaxed in the sun while the dogs splashed in the water.
Where we stopped there was a amazing amount of blue berries – in some sections the leaves had fallen off the bushes leaving these wonderful blue and brown bushes. They had already had a hard frost so the berries where a bit mushy and not quite to my taste, but the dogs liked them.
Polar and Remus had a great time eating berries. All three of my dogs are expert berry pickers and really enjoy eating blue berries.
Anyway, this trip is highly recommended and very fun on a bike. It got me thinking about potential mountain biking and pack rafting combination trips – perhaps biking to Bear Creek, floating down to Beaver Creek, and biking (and pushing probably) out on the Summit Trail.. Things to do next summer!
And I Forgot My Spoon
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009Tom and I decided that we would attempt to hike, bike, and packraft a loop in the White Mountains National Recreation Area, hopefully hiking into the headwaters of Beaver Creek and floating out. We started at Ophir Creek Campground, got on bikes, and biked east to the start of Quartz Creek Trail. Quartz Creek trail is a 17 mile trail that heads to the headwaters of Beaver Creek. This is new territory for Tom and I – I have done brief hikes in the area and had skied some of the area in the winter, but nothing of any length in the summer.
Things did not start off particularly well. 20 minutes or so before we made it to our starting point, the sky opened up and dump a torrential downpour on us. This was not a auspicious start, but fortunately the rain stopped soon after we arrived at Ophir Creek Campground.
We left the car, got on the bikes, and headed off to Quartz Creek Trail. The trail is mainly a ORV trail had undergone major upgrades in the last couple of years, including some fancy plastic base material, and inset concrete stream crossings.
It was quite impressive how much work BLM had put into making this trail passable for the four wheeling crowd. On the upside, it was not muddy at all which is quite a rarity in these parts and was very fast walking.
After stream with the fancy brickwork, we ran into our first party of motorized users. We talked to them for a bit and were very surprised to hear that there was only enough water in Quartz Creek to “dip a pan in”. This did not bode well for our float. Near one of the high points there is an interpretive plaque – which was impressively random, as we had not encountered any signs up to this point since leaving the parking lot. The main point of the sign appeared to be not to chase the sheep with your four wheeler.
The trail winds it way over several passes, through alpine meadows, and crosses several streams.
The flowers were out in full bloom in the high meadows.
The trail is amazingly scenic. This is probably one of the nicest trails I have hiked on in the interior.
As we crossed the final bit of Little Champion Creek, the rain caught up with us.
Fortunately the rain did not last long, and we were soon dry and approaching one of the highlights of the the hike – the beautiful tors. Near the end of the trail there are a large number of very large granite tors, some of which are right next to the trail. It is incredibly scenic.
We stopped at the final tor and had dinner. Dinner was complicated by the absence of my spoon – it appears that during my packing I somehow forgot to put my spoon into my pack. I ended up eating with a folded bit of plastic bag, which was less than ideal. For folks interested in shorter days, this would be a wonderful place to camp.
This was the end of the trail for us – we now had to head down to Bear Creek to start the float. As we worked our way around a large hill a beautiful rainbow came out.
Once around the hill, we were very happy to see a full looking Bear Creek in the distance.
After several miles of intense bushwacking (around 5 I believe) we made it to Bear Creek, which was quite floatable, which lead to much happiness. I had been dreading a long walk back out and had visions of a creek with only a couple of inches of water in it. Fortunately the floating looked quite fun, and into our boats we went.
Bear Creek was quite a fun float – the upper bits where we started are a bit rocky, which made for exciting rafting.
At about 1:30am we decided we should call it quits for the day and camped on a gravel bar. At this point the trip was verging on a death march, Bataan style, so calling a day was in order.
The gravel bar did not have any bear sign, but did have a large number of quite fresh wolf tracks.
After a couple of hours of sleep we resumed the float, and bobbed down the river.
Bear Creek was largely free of sweepers and log jams, and we only had to portage once.
After 3 hours or so, we made it to Richards Cabin, a BLM cabin that can be rented. The cabin is a former inholding or mining clam and is very nice. We stopped for a bite to eat and to leave an entry in the log book. It is amazing how different this area is in the summer. Tom and I had skied into this cabin 4 months earlier in a snow storm – now we were walking up to it in a muddy trench being hounded by mosquitoes. The contrast was stunning.
Shortly after Richards we ran into a huge log jam, which we had to portage around. We took a dry ox bow thinking it was a short cut, which ended up in Champion Creek right before it hit Bear Creek becoming Beaver Creek. At the confluence the water level rose a lot, which added to the fun considerably. Bear Creek had a fair number of shallow riffles that were only just float able in a packraft and required a lot of care to not get stuck on.
Eventually we made it to our take out point, put our packs on, and slogged though 3 miles of tussocks back to Ophir Creek camp ground. The tussock slog was remarkably unpleasant.
After 1 and a 15 minutes of tussock slogging we hit the road, and a short while later the car. In the car there were Staxs, juice, and pastries, hurray!
The trip was quite an adventure. In retrospect it would have been more fun if we had camped where we first hit Bear Creek, then floated in the morning making the first day a little shorting and giving us more sleep. It was still quite fun though, and a highly recommend float for anyone who is interested. Richard’s cabin appears to be quite bug proof, and would make a excellent overnight stop, in case any future travellers read this. Hikers not up for 20 mile days could camp at one of the Tors and enjoy great views.
Fun on Beaver Creek
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009As new owners of Alpacka pack rafts, Marsh, Tom and I decided to do our first “real” pack rafting trip. Our plan was to float down Beaver Creek and walk out the Summit Trail in the White Mountains National Recreation Area. While I spend a lot of time in this area in the winter, this will have been the first time I had visited this area in the summer, and I was really looking forward to exploring it without snow. I have had done the summit trail several times before, but had never gone all the way out to Beaver Creek.
We started the trip at the Ophir Creek Campground on Nome Creek with a large group – my wife and the twins plus two additional family. We overnighted at the campground, which was surprising pleasant and uncrowded for Memorial Day weekend. The evening’s heavy thunderstorm and rain shower was not very auspicious.
The next morning was super nice though, and so I said good by to Nancy and the twins and we headed down Nome Creek. Nome Creek was a very pleasant float – it was quite mellow, with hardly any interesting water action at all. We had to avoid several sweepers in the 6 miles until we hit Beaver Creek, but otherwise this section was pleasantly uneventful.
There where lots of spectacular views from Nome Creek, including some wonderful views of Sled Dog Rocks, a rock formation that looks like a dog sled and dog team.
After hitting Beaver Creek, we then floated approximately 26 miles before we hit our take out point. Beaver Creek is a very mellow class I float, with a small number of sweepers, the rare rock to be avoided, and a view sections with interesting eddy currents – otherwise it could probably be done while sleeping. Ok, perhaps I am exaggerating, but it is a very mellow float.
Once we hit our take out point, we stopped and took a look at Borealis-LeFevre Cabin. It was amazing how different this area is in the summer. The cabin was barely visible from the river, yet in the winter the cabin can be seen quite clearly. We saw from the log book Ed Plumb had stopped here 2 days prior on a grand adventure – we where instantly envious.
After getting a bite to eat we crossed the river and headed up Wickersham Creek trail on our way to the Summit Trail. After a mile or so we would have to cross Wickersham Creek, and since we where uncertain how large it would be, we carried the rafts to the creek in case it required floating. In the winter the creek looks fairly large and can have quite a bit of overflow on it. The creek turned out to be easy fordable by the taller members of our group, and the remaining member quickly floated across.
We then headed up the the Wickersham Creek Trail until it hit the Summit Trail. This was the most unpleasant walking of the trip – the trail is mainly a winter trail but had been used by ORVs in the past. It was quite muddy and a true tussock fest.
Once we hit the Summit Trial we walked for a couple of miles and then called it a day. We camped in a old burn which was spectacularly beautiful. I got to use my new tent for the first time and it was quite a success.
The next day we headed out and had a wonderful day of hiking. The weather was great with nice clear views and pleasant walking.
This a highly recommended easy pack rafting trip – its very accessible, a fun float, and a great hike out.