OK, I got closer than ever to the Greenway summit but just a bit short. Now that I have looked at the map (see the visualization linked below) I see I should have gone a bit farther on the logging road, just past where it turns north, and scrambled up to the summit from there.
On the other hand, the summit of Greenway seems to be pretty well protected from non-hooved intruders. We shall see.
I started up the Mt. Washington trail at 5:20 am. I took it to the Great Wall and turned east there. I was curious to see what had happened to it, and why Derek and I, back in April coming down from Change Peak, had missed the old path. I found the answer today.
The trail – which has one of my absolute favorite sections of trail, as it is nice and non-rocky and winds through beautiful woods:
The trail goes up to just short of the area where they have been working when, immediately following a ‘stay out/construction’ sign ends abruptly in a huge pile of stumps and trees and rocks shoveled over the trail by the guys working the excavators. Coming back down I knew what to look for and where to look for it, but no way to see that little scramble to that section of the Great Wall trail otherwise. So that’s why we missed it in April.
However, all I had to do was a minor scramble up a bank to hit the newly created section of the trail, which turned into the classic Great Wall. I followed that south to the old logging road that runs along the watershed boundary and then east to the vicinity of Greenway.
I kept looking for a reasonable way up, there being no trail right below the summit and I finally found what I thought was a boot path. Aha! I thought. This is it. So I followed it up.
And soon realized I was following hoof prints rather than foot prints. So I got near the summit but I did not quite make it. Next time for sure.
It was cool and rainy today, pretty good hiking weather, but not much for the views.
12.5 miles in 6 hours, 3,450 feet of elevation gain, not a bad workout. But not exactly the summit I wanted to bag. Nice Fourth – we are going to Jill and Derek’s tonight for dinner and the local fireworks show.
Looking forward to going back to totally bag that peak….
Visualization:
http://adventures.garmin.com/en-US/by/djhiker/greenway-mountain-7-4-2016/#.V3rGhpXls5s
I’ll have to check out your most beautiful section of trail. Greetings from Paris! – Mark G
I assume you are having fun in beautiful Paris. To check it out, just turn left at the ‘Gr Wall’ sign on Mt. Washington trail. At the end, where they have closed it, just bushwhack up and to your right to get onto the old logging road.
Paris!