Trails Used

Bushwhack

Trail Conditions

Notes

Based on other's reports, we tried to avoid the skidders and take a fairly straight line. Worked pretty well. Woods were generally good and skidders were overgrown. Took us 60 mins up and 30 mins down and pretty unremarkable.

Parking

From Mountain Pond Rd junction with Mountain Pond Tr to the northeast. Road is in good shape. Noting google maps things Middle Mountain Pond Tr is driveable and wanted me to drive up it from the south (I knew better). I also scouted the tower access road to the NW, which looked promising from google streetview, which was gated and posted around the 1st bend in the access road.

Wildlife

Awful. Headnet and being swarmed the whole time.

Trails Used

bushwhack, Mountain Pond Trail

Trail Conditions

Notes

Round two - this one was actually the more annoying of the pair. We started off on Mountain Pond Trail, and immediately entered the woods at the drainage. Had we gone another 100' we would have intercepted a skid line. This one is very Chandler like for me. Yes there is a skid line that takes you virtually to the summit, but man is it annoying and kind of a siren that lures you back to it, only to want to continually hurt you with raspberries and hobblebush. This is absolutely a pants, long sleeve, and gloves hike. While I do not think this in any way was particularly hard, it was made very annoying by everything wanting to hurt us. There is a huge network of skid lines that go up the mountain, I am sure if you are doing doing these, you'll find a series of them to get you to where you want to go. Of note, the main skid line runs up the eastern side of the swale, to the north of the peak. Hop on the west side, your epidermis will thank you. We had banana bread on the summit and CookiesOnTop went at an orange bell pepper. She is gridding all sorts of fruit on the summits apparently ;) ALSO of note, we heard - and saw - two Blue Headed Vireo's! We even got some photos!

Parking

Parked at Mountain Pond 'Trailhead' at a sign that says no more cars/atv. I did not find this road to be any sort of an issue driving in a subaru. It's still wet and rutted a bit

Water Crossings

No issues with water