[Andrew]

Mount Kinsman, North Peak
4,293 feet

[sdways01]

North and South Kinsman
5-21-2010

Basin-Cascades Trail --> Cascade Brook Trail --> Lonesome Lake --> Fishin' Jimmy Trail --> Kinsman Ridge Trail --> North Kinsman Summit --> South Kinsman Summit --> Kinsman Ridge TRail --> Kinsman Pond Trail --> Cascade Brook Trail --> Basin Cascades Trail

Distance: 10.256 mi.
Elevation Gain: 2,839 ft. or 3,385 ft combined round trip
Time: 5:22 (ascent)
9:36 (total)

I started from the trail head at the Basin parking lot. This made for some nice scenary as you start the hike. The trail goes up at an incline that isn't too bad for the start and you have plenty of cascades next to the trail to distract you as well. After a while, the trail levels out more as it follow the river and there are fewer waterfalls. It crosses the brook twice with the first being across rocks in the water and the second being on a nice bridge.


Cascade Brook

As you turn away from the brook some on the Cascade Brook Trail, there start to be some trees that have blown over this winter. Sometimes they are small and you can step over/under them, and sometimes the block the whole trail. There have been enough hikers through though that you can find a path around them all. The trail continues a gentle climb up to Lonesome Lake.


The worst of the blow downs


Lonesome Lake

The first half of the Fishin' Jimmy trail was pretty easy. It follows along the side of the ridge without much gain or loss. While you are on a pretty step side hill at times, you don't really realize it as there are plenty of trees on both sides of you and no real views. After this though, things start getting steeper. The trail gets steep for a bit then levels off some. Then gets step again, then levels off. Unfortunately the level spots didn't seem to last long enough to fully recover from the steep parts.


Steep section of trail

The end of the Fishin' Jimmy Trail and start of the Kinsman Ridge Trail was were I first starting seeing snow remaining in the trail. They were just small patches at this point. The Kinsman Ridge Trail up to the summit of North Kinsman continues at a pretty good incline and only gives one real lookout point. The only lookouts on the summit are on a ledge near the summit and if you climb up on a rock right next to the trail at the summit like I did.


View from North Kinsman

The trail heads downhill slightly after the summit until you start going into the dip between the two summits. There is one view on the way out that looks right over to South Kinsman. In the dip it stays pretty flat for a while before heading back up to the summit of South Kinsman. This was where I started to run into longer and more frequent sections of snow in the trail. It is still packed down for the most part, but when you fall though, it is almost up to your knees in places. South Kinsman provides a great view in all directions. Just before the top, I saw my first hiker being a man named Jim that is trying to hike all 48 4000 footers this year. He had wished he had a panoramic camera as he spent an hour up here enjoying the view. So if he is reading this, here is a 360 degree panoramic shot I took from up top.


360 Panoramic from South Kinsman

After having lunch and enjoying the view, I started to head back along the same trail. On the way down though, when I got to the intersection near Kinsman Pond, I took a right onto the Kinsmna Pond Trail. This goes along pretty much flat along the Eastern shore of the pond then turns off into the woods. It was right after this turn the I came across the worst section of snow all day. For probably 2 tenths of a mile, the trail is covered in knee deep snow. And as I was getting tired by this point, the added effort of falling through was not very welcome. After I made it through the snow, the trail then goes right down a brook that I kept crossing from side to side for easier walking. You never really go far away from this brook on the way down this trail. You are either following it or right next to it the whole time. The upper section of this trail is quite rocky in places as well as you end up hoping from rock to rock on the way down.


Snow section of trail

After you get down to about 2700 feet though the trail does get better. I am guessing this is partly because people hike this section more as there appear to be a couple nice waterfalls in the brook around this elevation. But whatever the reason, I was happy to see it as I was even more tired and now had wet feet from the snow and water. After getting back to the Cascade Brook Trail, I followed it down next to Cascade Brook back to the Basin. I took a needed break here before going back to my truck to get ready for the ride home.


The Basin

All in all, if it weren't for the conditions on the Kinsman Pond Trail on the way down while I was tired, this would have been a great hike. The weather was great and the views were better. And I learned a little more about preparing for hiking a 4000 footer. After all, I have only done 2 previous to this.

For all the pictures from the hike, just go HERE

[Ben Smith]

The basin photo is beautiful, the water is so blue!

[iClimb]

I recognize that blow down...was that on fishin jimmy or was it the lonesome lake trail? i remember seeing it on the way up north kinsman this winter, and trying to go under it with more than a foot of packed snow meant I had to crawl hands and knees with my 60lb pack to get under it.

I'd like to try the trail again now without winter conditions...seems like it would be tough still, but sooo much easier in comparison.

[sdways01]

iClimb, on 25 May 2010 - 03:27 PM, said:

I recognize that blow down...was that on fishin jimmy or was it the lonesome lake trail? i remember seeing it on the way up north kinsman this winter, and trying to go under it with more than a foot of packed snow meant I had to crawl hands and knees with my 60lb pack to get under it.

I'd like to try the trail again now without winter conditions...seems like it would be tough still, but sooo much easier in comparison.

The blow down was on the Cascade Brook Trail on the way up to Lonesome Lake. There were some that were hard to get under without having my pack catch in this trip. I am sure it was bad in the winter.