Also on this trip
Trails Used
Pine Bend Brook Trail, Mt. Tripyramid Trail, Kate Sleeper Trail, Rollins Trail, Dicey's Mill Trail, Walden Trail, Square Ledge Trail, Passaconaway Cutoff, Oliverian Brook Trail
Trail Conditions
Equipment
Notes
Sandwich Traverse...started at Oliverian Brook TH, road a bike the 3 miles along the Kanc to Pind Bend Brook TH and locked it to a tree. Bareboots up farther than I should have...you'll want to put spikes on at the Scaur Trail junction. The monorail is consistent and solid, and gets icy near the top so might as well put them on there...it will help you stay on the monorail. Wore the spikes over to S. Try and down the steep part until it emerges onto the slide where there is no snow/ice. Went bare boots down the slide and across Kate Sleeper which has everything from bare ground to 2' deep monorail, but supportive and not icy so bare boots were fine. Microspikes up to the lookout ledges on WF as it is icy in spots, then all the way across the Rollins trail and up Dicey's Mill to Passaconaway. You could have bare booted from the 2nd half of Rollins trail coming from wf to the WF summit, but there is also ice so I chose to keep the spikes on even on the bare sections. A hiker who had come up Walden Trail (back side of Passaconaway) told me he had bare booted it and that the Dicey's Mill trail had much more ice, so I took the spikes off at the lookout ledge on the backside of Passaconaway and barebooted down Walden as well. There is still some ice requiring creative route planning, but I never regretted not having the spikes on. Bare boots the rest of the way down to Oliverian Brook TH. Any monorail/snow was pretty grippy. Grids out the Tris for me and #11 on WF/Passaconaway. Will have to find an excuse to do Kate Sleeper again, one of my favorite trails.
Parking
Parked at Oliverian Brook Lot. It is huge (could probably hold 30 cars parked poorly). There were 2 today. We parked well.
Water Crossings
Had to go ankle deep to cross Downes Brook about 2 miles from Oliverian Lot on the way out. All others rock-hoppable.