Big & Little Attitash 9/15/12

Today again, I was on a peak bagging mission. Big Attitash is another peak on the NH200 list. But since Big Attitash is a view-less peak, I also was on views mission. I spotted the ledges on Little Attitash last summer from North Moat Mtn. I figured when ever I hiked to Big, I'd bushwhack to Little. This is what caught my I from Moat Mtn. It doesn't look like much but unique views are worth the effort I think.

Started this one a tad late, around 10:00am. I didn't think I was going to be in for the day I had. The route was Moat Mtn Tr., to Attitash Tr. Bushwhack, and back to Attitash Tr. First up was Dianna's Bath. A beautiful spot if you can get there early enough. Starting at 10:00 on a Saturday won't cut it if your looking to take photos there. This one is from my trip to Moat starting at 7:00am.

Today I just motored past the already large crowd. This is a particularly beautiful area. I love trails that follow rivers, streams and brooks.

The first 2.4 miles went pretty fast arriving at the Attitash Tr. Once on it I expected to start climbing fairly soon, but it wasn't the case.   I will say this though, if you looking for a great low level fall hike, I think this would be outstanding if you only went about a half mile on the Attitash Trail and turned there. The woods are just gorgeous with a lot of hard woods. I did see some interesting fungi as well.

Back to the hike. The first couple miles on the Attitash trails was loaded with ups and downs. Every time I thought I was going up for good, it would go down just around the corner. In these ups and downs, PUDS, a large section of trail had been washed out by Irene I assume.

So once it did, it was significant. Once it started climbing for good, I believe it gained 1000' in .5 miles. Pretty hefty for a little mountain. Oh wait, Big. ;-)  All that for this, the summit. X marks the spot.

Now it was time to bushwhack to Little Attitash. I had planned to try the ridge to see if I could follow an old trail I thought was there but ran into pretty thick spruce so I started heading down until I hit a good stretch of goods woods. 

This was nice but I'd dropped to around 2100' to find it. Little Attitash is 2500' and 1.5 miles away so this was going to take some time. Much more than I planned on. The final push up was again fairly thick spruce. 

I've seen much worse but a was hoping for a cake walk.

I finally popped out at this ledge. It had a cairn on it confirming they may have been a trail. The views from the top of it were not that good though.

I thought I probably hit it a little too far west and just below the open ledges. It did appear to be higher to my right so I headed east. I did hit more open ledge with nice views towards Moat and N. Conway.

That was it though. I thought for sure from what I saw of them from Moat that there would be more expansive views. I kept heading east looking for more. I found much more ledge but nothing open. One peek of Washington in the clouds was it. I figured it just wasn't what I thought it looked like from Moat.

It took much longer than I thought to get this far so I headed straight down the east side for the Attitash trail. I didn't get out until almost 4:00. It was not until I got back to Lincoln and downloaded my tracks that I realized I screwed up. If I'd gone west only 100' I'd have hit the open ledges. Look how close I was. :(

Needless to say, I will be making a return trip. 

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