NH Cohos Trail: Crossing the Kilkenny Part 1

Southern part of the Kilkenny

I'd been really looking forward to the Kilkenny. This is the area between Rt 2 in Jefferson and Rt 110 in Stark. It's remote, full of peaks, rarely blazed, and requires backpacking. After the crazy pack of Appalachian Trail thru-hikers I got tangled up with while crossing the Franconia and Twin Ranges, I couldn't wait for some real wilderness hiking and peace and quiet.

A rainy start

Due to my schedule, I needed to start on Labor Day, which was forecast to rain all day. Sigh. On the plus side, there were only four cars in the parking lot off of Starr King Road, so I didn't need to park in the spillover area way down the road.

Heading up the well-traveled Starr King Trail

It was around 11 am before I got started, after five hours in the car, and I didn't take many pictures because it was raining and cell phone touch screens do not work in the rain. I had a rain cover for the phone, but to get a clear picture you have to pull the phone out of the cover. Then the phone gets wet, and when you put it back in the plastic cover, the water is trapped in there with the phone. Something I learned.

Mt. Starr King

The trail up was probably an old bridle trail and therefore is not overly steep even though it rises relentlessly about 2500 feet. Near the top is a spring, which I was counting on, because who wants to carry excess water up a hill. There was a "water" sign at the site, thankfully, but the water was just trickling. I mean there was more water on the trail than in the spring. A father-son team came down the trail, soaked. They were the only people I saw all day.  I filled up on water, ate a sandwich, and continued on up.  Mt. Starr King had no view in the rain, then the trail climbed more gradually to Mt. Waumbeck, a 4000-footer.

Mt Waumbek summit, a 4000-footer.

At the summit of Waumbeck, the big wide trail came to an abrupt end. I guess that's as far as most people go. They come up to bag their 4000 foot mountain and then head back down. I cast about looking for a way to continue on, and saw a faint path through the trees. I tried it out, hoping it wasn't some pee path.

The Cohos Trail via the Kilkenny Ridge Trail

The path was faint as it ran through dense ferns. Could this be the trail? There didn't seem to be any other, but it was so overgrown, I had my doubts. I pulled out my phone and checked the Maps.ME app, where I had loaded a couple tracks for the trail. Yup. This was the trail. I was happy to have the gps track on the phone while hiking some of the more remote sections of the Cohos. It gave me peace of mind.

Checking to see if I was on the trail. Yup.

You'll notice there are two tracks on the screenshot. The darker one was crudely digitized from the trail map, but it's good enough to see if you are way off track. The brighter red line is a real gps track from a hiker. Very helpful. The trail continued on through the rain and thick vegetation. I went slow, careful not to twist an ankle on the hidden wet rock and roots under the ferns and hobblebush. There were a few parts where the overgrown path headed straight for a solid wall of small spruce, like little Christmas trees. Could this be correct, or did I miss a turn? I put my arms out front, leaned foreward, and bulldozed my way through the trees. After punching through the fortress of drippy spruce, the trail tread reappeared. OK, then, so that's how we do things up on the Kilkenny. Carry on!

Moose poop on South Weeks

After Mt.Waumbek, there are three more peaks up on the Pliny Range: South Weeks, Middle Weeks, and Mt. Weeks. You never drop down below elevation 3,000. On South Weeks, or maybe it was Middle Weeks, it stopped raining for a bit, and the sky brightened. So I finally got a brief glimpse of a view through the fog and few pictures. At this point my phone gps claimed I was back closer to Mt. Waumbek that I thought. It was very disheartening, but I studied the contour lines of my paper map and decided, no, I had definitely gone up and down South Week. My phone was wrong. Pretty sure the water screwed up the gps reception. These tools can be great, but they are no replacement for your own brain.

Brief clearing 

I was getting chilly at this point and it started raining again. Rain had seeped through my rain gear even though I gave it a fresh coating of waterproofing, and my clothing underneath was damp, but I didn't want to put any extra clothing on at that point. Best to keep the clothing dry. I was looking forward to getting to the top of Mt. Weeks, where the guidebook mentioned most people camp if they start after noon. On the way up, I looked for an important spring, but it was bone dry. Not good. Rather ironic, considering all the rain. I still had water, though, and it would due.

Sarsaparilla growing on a stump

I got to the tenting spot around 6 pm.  There was a little side trail marked with a pile of rocks leading to a grassy spot. Perfect. By that time, it had stopped raining again, and I was able to set my tent up and get out of the wet gear. The nice dry clothes and a sleeping bag felt wonderful. But it started raining again before I could hang my bear bag. Drats. It was after dark before the rain tapered off, though still dripping heavily from the trees, when I dashed out with the bear bag and tied it horrible to a nearby tree. At least it wouldn't be in the tent. I have a kevlar bag that bear supposedly cannot open, even if they can crush whatever is inside, and an "odor-proof" plastic bag inside that, so hopefully it would be OK in the morning. Seemed more important to get back in the tent and stay dry than perfectly hang the bear bag.

Mt. Weeks tenting area

Although my clothes were dry, my hair was soaking wet. How did that happen? Well, I forgot that my baseball cap was cotton. Even though it was under a rain coat hood, the cotton brim wicked the rain from the front of the hat to the back, and from there the water proceeded into my hair. I had no idea this was happening until the end of the day. Guess I need a different hat.