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New England Hundred Highest: Scar Ridge

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Saturday, June 23, 2018
Miles: ~8.0
Elevation: ~3,000′ gain
GaiaGPS track

This hike was debatably the hardest hike I’ve done so far for the New England 100 Highest. It was steep, and the terrain was excruciatingly difficult.

I parked my car at Loon, and hiked up ski trails to get to the top of North Peak, where the bushwhack started. From the parking lot, I went up the mountain, stayed to the left – Brookway (green circle), Lower Walking Boss (blue square), and Upper Walking Boss (black diamond). Upper Walking Boss was brutal. It’s steep for skiing, which meant that walking uphill was very, very steep. And for whatever reason, the bugs gathered on the slopes in hordes, which made it very hard to stop and breathe. The ground was also very uneven with long grass and poison ivy, which hid the odd hole on the slope.

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Loon’s Camp III lodge, with Big Coolidge Mountain, Whaleback Mountain, and Potash Knob in the background
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Close to the top of North Peak and Upper Walking Boss, on the left there’s a herdpath leading off into the woods. I headed off in that direction, until it was time to pick a spot and head to the right towards Scar Ridge.

 

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The first quarter of my complete bushwhack off the herdpath was cruel. I ran into a lot of spruce groves; these are densely packed and have a lot of dead branches towards the bottom of the trees. These cut me to ribbons, drawing blood and leaving marks that lasted for weeks. At least on my way back through, I managed to avoid that section. This was where I finally broke free of them and headed into more normal forest and found a very faint herdpath.

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So, close to the top of Scar Ridge, this was what the area looked like. There was a bad storm in October 2017 that brought down a lot of trees at 3500’+. This was maybe a half-mile of downed trees, where I couldn’t get my feet on the ground. I struggled through the section, hopping tree to tree, and managed not to fall the 10 feet down to the ground at any point. Again, I avoided this section on the way back. I never did find the summit cylinder and I’m not sure if there’s one standing anymore.
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I was so proud. One of my poles fell out of my pack during the spruce groves and got lost; it was too tight to try and find it at the time. However, I ended up going back and retracing my steps later, and manged to find it!

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Beautiful views of  Big Coolidge Mountain, Whaleback Mountain, and Potash Knob from Loon’s North Peak

 

 

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