Episode 17 - So You Wanna - Grand Traverse

[00:00:08] Here is the latest Higher Summits forecast brought to you by our friends at the Mount Washington Observatory. Weather above treeline in the White Mountains is often wildly different than at our trailheads. Before you hike, check the Higher Summits forecast at mountwashington.org.

[00:00:31] Weather observers working at the non-profit Mount Washington Observatory write this elevation-based forecast every morning and afternoon. Search and Rescue teams, avalanche experts, and backcountry guides all rely on the Higher Summits forecast to anticipate weather conditions above treeline.

[00:00:51] You should too. Go to mountwashington.org or text FORECAST to 603-356-2137. Hello listeners! Nick here with your forecast for the weekend of June 6th, 2026. Friday, in the clear under increasingly cloudy skies, high in the mid-50s.

[00:01:21] Wind northwest shifting west at 20-35 mph decreasing to 10-25 mph. Friday night, in the clear under mostly cloudy skies trending in and out of the clouds late. Slight chance of rain showers after midnight. Low in the upper 40s. Wind west at 15-30 mph early, 20-35 mph midnight, and 30-45 mph with gusts up to 55 mph later. And Saturday.

[00:01:45] Mostly in the clouds under overcast skies, trending into the clouds early with a chance of morning rain showers becoming likely in the afternoon. Chance of afternoon thunderstorms. A few thunderstorms may become severe and produce heavy rainfall, frequent lightning, hail, and strong winds. High around 50. Wind west at 40-35 mph with gusts up to 55 mph, increasing to 40-55 mph with gusts up to 65 mph. Higher wind gusts possible with thunderstorm activity. So looking a little interesting out there as we get into Saturday afternoon.

[00:02:15] Be safe. Happy hiking. Hope you get to crush some peaks.

[00:02:19] To rescue podcasts.

[00:03:01] What you want. A video series where we share post-hype reflections, challenges, lessons learned, and essential insights to prepare you for your next adventure in the Let's Get Stuff.

[00:03:20] There are blow downs now.

[00:03:49] To me, your trickiest part, especially in the non-snow seasons is coming off of FOSS. It's very easy to go the wrong way. And the way we did it was, we did it pretty badass the way we went down. I will say that. Yeah. I was looking at that. I was like, oh shit. Yeah. That's a rugged way down. Yeah. So, hey, this is Stomp and Dave Schitts in the Woods here. We are recording a So You Wanna. So You Wanna. So You Wanna hike the Grand Traverse, huh? All right. So You Wanna.

[00:04:19] Sure. Well, let's go. Yeah. These are actually a lot of fun. So if you're listening to the pod, you've heard us talk about the Grand Traverse several times. And if you're an avid hiker, bushwhacker, you're probably familiar with it somewhat now yourself. Several years ago, it wasn't so much on the radar of people.

[00:04:41] But now it's at the point where it's becoming fairly common knowledge that it's a route that exists and it's fairly accessible and followable, I guess, for lack of a better word. It's not a true bushwhack anymore. I mean, you may have glimpses and little stretches that are a little challenging in terms of getting your bearing.

[00:05:01] But for the most part, it's a combination of granite, topography, landmarks, herd path, legitimate original 1860 path, which is marked by cairns that, in my opinion, is still the actual original 1860 cairns. And I think you find those between Welch and Foss, a particular section of the Grand Traverse.

[00:05:29] And then the last section that's closer to Tecumseh, somebody's been going apeshitting there with like a chainsaw and soup cans. And we'll get to that. It's insane. Yeah, it's wild. So the Grand Traverse, I believe it's dated back to 1860. It used to be an actual trail that has been abandoned for quite some time.

[00:05:51] And its course runs from essentially the sub-peak of Tecumseh, which is the radio tower or the Sossman Trail connector. And it runs all the way over a long four-mile ridge straight over to Dickey, the Dickey Northern Ledges. And that is your Grand Traverse. And man, I mean, it's an apt name. It is an absolutely beautiful, beautiful place. It's one of my favorite locations.

[00:06:20] The trail is lush. The vegetation is lush on the trails. It's like the vibrant greens. And the narrow path itself is maybe like 10, 12 inches wide, the footpath. And the views are expansive, you know, 360 views from several locations. So it's a really neat place. So Dave and I thought we would just cover the basics. Nobby was going to join us a couple months back, but he's, I don't know, he's MIA Nobby at the moment.

[00:06:49] He's got some other things going on. And I'm sure listeners will hear about that at some point soon too. So Dave. Yes. You've done this a couple of times. I've done it probably four or five times now. How do you get to this place? How do you access it? What's the starting point? What's the potential end points? If you are going southbound, I guess you would call it, correct? Yeah. You would start at Tecumseh.

[00:07:15] So you would likely start, most people would start at the Waterville Valley parking lot, taking care to check around your car before you step in anything. Which is a whole other story if you've listened to the episodes. But you would just basically hike like you are going to summit Tecumseh. You would just follow that trail, which is the Mount Tecumseh Trail. I believe it's officially titled. From the ski area. From the ski area. Correct. Waterville Valley is an entry sign right there. Which is basically two miles. Yep.

[00:07:45] Yep. Straight up. Until you get to the junction of the Saussman Trail. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And then it's another, what, 0.3 to get to the radio tower? Yeah, it's a quick jaunt. And that alone is worth the views too. Oh, yeah, yeah. There's a couple perches. One looks north. There's one bench that faces the Tri-Pyramids. Yep. Even if you weren't doing the Grand Traverse, you could do the Saussman just for the views. It's absolutely beautiful. Better than the summit of Tecumseh, in my opinion. Yeah.

[00:08:12] If you wanted to tack on even more mileage, you could hit the Tecumseh Trail from Tripoli Road, which would go to the summit of Tecumseh. And then you could take the southerly route off Tecumseh and grab Saussman, which essentially you did in reverse today. I did in reverse today. Correct. I came down that trail. I'd never done it before. So I, you know, doing kind of a bigger hike. It's a long story, but I came down that way and I'd never done it.

[00:08:40] And it's, your challenges there are going to be seasonal road closure, obviously. Because Tripoli Road is going to close. It is much more quiet and remote. Most people will not come up the mountain that way. It is more ups and downs. It's a little bit longer. It, beautiful open woods down below.

[00:09:03] And then it gets a little bony, but it is the mossy pine that is similar to the other side when you come from the Waterville Valley side. Yeah. Yeah. Now, what about from the south? How would you grab it from the south? From meaning if I was heading north to, it would, you would start at the Welsh Dickey trailhead. Yep.

[00:09:30] And then you would have the option at that point to either go up the first trailhead to your right is if you're looking at it, which would be the Welsh Dickey trail, but that one would take you over Welsh and Dickey. The option is to go to your left, go up a little further and take that trail, which only takes you over Dickey Mountain. Right. And then from the summit of Dickey Mountain, that's where it gets a little tricky. You have to take care.

[00:09:55] Where you would go off the summit of Dickey, which I would call it a left, but you could also call it north. Yeah. Northwest, I guess. Yeah. Well, yeah. So if you're coming up the Dickey side, Cairn would be to your right. And you would take bang a left and you'd head to the northern ledges.

[00:10:20] So you want to be looking, you can see Tecumseh and the radio tower if you're looking the right direction. So that's the direction of the Grand Traverse. So you almost want to put the trail that comes over from Welsh to your back. Yeah, absolutely. And walk in that direction with that trail to your back, I guess, for people like me that are like left north, right up, westly. Yeah, absolutely. So that's roughly 2650 feet, 2650.

[00:10:49] So it drops a little bit as you're making your way across the northern ledges, which themselves are beautiful. That's where the Black Hawk trains and lands and whatnot. But when you get to this one expansive slab, that's where you'll find this massive sort of anomaly of a boulder. It's about the size of a refrigerator. And that's the sort of unofficial start to the Grand Traverse from the south.

[00:11:17] I think we're going to take it from north to south today. Yes. Just to keep it one direction. Yeah, one direction. I think it'd be easier. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. It's probably the easier way to find the trail and to navigate out because finding the start from the south can be a little tricky. So it's a bit easier to go in the other way. All right. So Sausman Trail, we've made it to the trailhead.

[00:11:42] We're up to Cumsah, skip the summit, head over to the radio tower. You're looking for a tree with a GT on it. So it's a G with a T and it's blazed in yellow. And that would be the start of the Grand Traverse. It's not an official trail. So just look for this graffiti on this tree. Where would you describe it relative to the building?

[00:12:07] So if you're coming out of Sausman, it would be at about two o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock PM. So buildings in front of you. To your right. Just slightly to the right. You're looking about two o'clock. There's a cable that comes down off of the radio tower. I sat on it. And if you're sitting on it and you're looking into the woods and the tower is slightly to your right.

[00:12:34] If you walk straight in from that pad that holds that cable, if you walk in the woods and start looking, you'll run right into the GT sign. It's not a sign. It's spray painted. It's yellow letters GT. Got it. Got it. Okay. So from there, once you find that GT, the first 20 yards will be a little bit thick and scrubby. Um, but if you're looking at your feet in warmer weather, you'll be following a pretty clear trail.

[00:13:02] The other thing that starts to pop up are these really faded. Well, first of all, there's competing ways to do this descent down to, uh, the approach to Green Mountain, which will be your first destination on the way down. You're, you'll be following yellow blazes or the newest addition. Some knucklehead put up the can, the covers of soup cans. They're also yellow. Not only did they put them up, they painted them. Yeah. That's a lot of effort.

[00:13:31] All but one slacker. Yeah. So believe it or not, somebody blazed these trees and nailed in soup can covers, which was a whole other question. Like that's a lot of soup too. I counted them. We can get into that at some point, but I counted them. Now might be the time. I mean, between the yellow blazes and the soup cans, you'll probably make your way to the

[00:13:55] call that heads over the green without a problem, but it's a lot of switchbacks, a lot of soup cans, a lot of yellow blazes, and you'll turn around half a dozen times because it is a little confusing, but there's so many blazes in there now. You'll find something to get your way out. And it is well-traveled. If you stop and look at your feet, you will see brush cut. You will also see a herd path. There are a couple new blowdowns that are out there. You do have to pause for a second. At least I did.

[00:14:25] You might not because you're smarter than me, but you do have to, I think on occasion stop. And because there are so many switchbacks that the logic is always down. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's lateral at the blowdowns. You go around them, but like stop saying, there is plenty of soup to be had and plenty of other blazes where you will find something to get you down to that coal. This episode is brought to you in part by Reckless Brewing Company.

[00:14:55] Every hiker knows the 10 essentials, but in Bethlehem, there's a strong argument for an 11th. Reckless Brewing Company was built by people who live for the local trails and respect the grit it takes to hike them. Whether it's a crisp lager to cut the heat or a heavy hitting IPA to celebrate a summit, Reckless Brews for the spirit of the North Country. It's a place for the community to gather, toast to a safe return, and plan the next ascent. For those who play hard, Reckless pours harder. Unbelievable. Yeah.

[00:15:23] So I'm trying to find the elevation of the South Peak of Tecumseh. I don't have it, but I'm looking at the drop. So when you drop down from Tecumseh, South Peak. It's substantial. It's got to be at least 200 feet. If I'm looking at that properly. 3,400 up to probably 35. Yeah. 3,600. So at least 200 feet drop. At least. Yeah, it makes sense.

[00:15:53] And it takes you a good amount of time because of the switchbacks. So dropping off there, it does hit a flat, which is the call between Tecumseh, South Peak, and Green Mountain. And the call is essentially at 3,400 feet. It's fairly easy to follow. It's narrow. And you'll see the descent on either side of you as you're heading south, a little bit southwest as you approach Green.

[00:16:22] And it's lengthy. According to my Cal Topo here, from South Peak to the call is 1,400 feet. And then from the call to Green is 0.8. Okay. So 0.8 miles from the call to Green. And what's about a mile, you know, loose terms. Yeah, but it's super gradual.

[00:16:49] And when you drop in, you almost come to like, it seems like a fire road or a snowmobile trail when you first get into that coal. It is very, you come out of the narrow woods. Oh, yeah. It's kind of a big open cut area and you think, oh, this is going to be great. Then it narrows again. And that 0.8 is more of a single herd path. And in the non-snow season, I think it's very easy to follow across the green at that point. Oh, wow. It's funny.

[00:17:17] It's like the sections between these little intervals are not very long. So it's actually nice psychologically that you hit these marks along the way, these goals. So green, yeah. So green is the first one. Green is awesome. Green is a tiny little rocky summit. It's maybe diameter of 20, 30 feet wide. There was a register there. There was a classic old sign that said Green Mountain.

[00:17:45] It had, you know, the old man bared growing on it. But that's since been removed. I don't know what the hell's going on up there at this point. Somebody seems to be policing it. Yeah, I think so. There's no other explanation for it. So the register's gone, even on FOSS. FOSS is the next destination. But we'll get to that in a minute. Quick note on green too. You know you're about to hit the summit. You're going to see a gigantic granite ledge, so to speak. And it goes off.

[00:18:15] If you're facing it from right to left, it'll go all the way off to the left where it's going to drop off. So you go to the right, and there's a little path that comes up and around it. Think Lord of the Rings when they're climbing that last step on the, you know, they got their one photo shoot where they each present to the camera. It kind of wraps around to the summit. Yeah, so that would be on the left. A narrow summit that they're going to put an entire resort on. Yeah, 30,000 square feet. No problem. That'll be the winding stairway to the gala.

[00:18:45] We could barely fit three people on it in the winter, you know, but sure. Yeah, so that would be on the western side. So yeah, that's a great point. So once you get to the top of that, there is one vantage currently that looks east towards the Tri-Pyramids. And I think you can see Mount Washington to the north. So green is awesome. It's a magical little place. It is. It smells just like a pine forest, not to be dramatic, but sometimes you smell it.

[00:19:14] This was like you could just breathe it in. It smells like you opened the candle. It's such thick moss and pine and just moose haven. Yeah. So that section is more or less blazed from green all the way to Foss. Foss is the next stretch of this. Foss is 0.8. So you'll drop down over the course of half a mile. You'll drop down less than 100 feet.

[00:19:45] It's very, very gradual. And it's a pretty direct route. And again, easy to follow. No soup cans needed on this one. It looks like a lazy sea. Like just it's a sea if you're looking at it. So from green to Foss, it's essentially you're going south to southeast gradually like a sea. Foss is incredible. It's an open slab summit. It's fairly large. I don't know what, 50 yards in diameter.

[00:20:15] It's big up there. Very big. Yeah. You could fit a couple tents up there if you wanted to. There's plenty of room up there to move around. Absolutely. Great views. Yeah, it gives you views that are 360 degrees. So if you're starting at noon looking to come, so you'll see the notch, Franconia notch. You'll see Moosaloc all the way down past the Cardigan. I mean, you can see it all.

[00:20:43] And then it scoops back around to the Wiedemuse, Black Mountain, Sandwich Dome, Tri-Pyramids, all that stuff. So it's a hell of a view. It's really nice. All right, cool. And now here's the sketchy part. This is probably the most challenging part of the hike is this one stretch from Foss down to the last ridge that leads back to Dickey. We call it the camper's platform or the camper's slab. I don't know what you'd call it, but. Yeah.

[00:21:12] So that stretch is. It's not a long stretch mile-wise, distance-wise. It's way less than a mile, I would assume. The elevation drops fairly substantial. Yeah, it's like 1,700 feet, linear feet, but it's steep. For distance, right. You're not dropping 1,700 feet. In warmer weather, there are a bunch of little mini cairns. Again, something fishy going on.

[00:21:41] I've rebuilt them. They've been taken down. This is like a repeating pattern. Just keep your eye open because there is more or less a decent herd path or path that's been trodden from the summit of Foss down to this camp that we call it. There's like a vernal pond down at the base of the summit. This episode is brought to you in part by the Alzheimer's Association 48 Peaks.

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[00:22:37] Visit alls.org slash 48peaks to learn more. And if you're interested in joining the Slasher 48 Peaks team on June 13th to hike Mount Adams, you can look for the link in this episode description. The trick coming off Foss is picking up the right line down. There's multiple lines. There really is. And if you pick the right one, today was fortunate coming up. I could see it. And I also remember the way we went in the winter.

[00:23:05] You don't want to go the way we went down in the winter. We eventually reconnected, but it's much steeper and slabbier and very piney and bushwhack, full bushwhack. When you find it, if you take care to look for cut brush, stumps, and the lichen on the rocks will be much whiter, especially in dry weather like now. Yeah. It's obviously been traveled. And then in between where there's the little scrub, it's very worn down because it's such an old trail.

[00:23:35] And I would guess it's still frequented quite a bit because you can see it. It's traveled. I guess if you're going to try this in the winter for the first time and you're an experienced bushwhacker, you probably want to have a GPX track with you just in case. Because you can get turned around in there and just, there are a couple slippery sections. This part definitely gets sketchy. Yeah. The rest of it in the winter, you'll figure out. Don't go in the pines. Don't go off the ledge. It's pretty straightforward. But coming off FOSS, it's a crapshoot.

[00:24:02] And, you know, it all looks right, but it's not. 100%. What I did make a mental note, too, when I stood on FOSS today is, and again, if you're directionally challenged like me, which is crazy that I try to bushwhack. But if you look at FOSS, if you're standing on FOSS, you have Welsh Dickey to your left. And then I believe it's, is it Bald Mountain to the right? Yes.

[00:24:28] Because you want to take aim almost for Bald Mountain when you're coming down at first. You're going to start going that way. Right. Then you're going to reach a ledge, more or less slabs, where it's going to not feel right. That's when you're going to start to shift left, go left, and then go down. Almost like a lightning bolt, I guess, for lack of it, or a Z. Mm-hmm. It's when you get to FOSS, drop down, you can see Bald.

[00:24:59] You know what that is? I apologize. It's actually Hogback. It is Hogback. Okay. It's Hogback and Fisher. Bald's way further over on the other side. Even what I'm saying, I'm like, it doesn't make sense because there's two in between. You would have... You'd be way the hell over if you were looking at that one. If you're descending, you'd have to turn almost fully to the right behind you. But yeah, close to the same ball part. So I'll rephrase it. I'll make it this way. You know what Welsh Dickey is because they're the two kind of rockier cap mountains. That's your destination. There's a hump on the right.

[00:25:25] Aim for the hump at first, almost like the coal to the hump. Aim that way. Then when you realize you can't go much further, you're going to go left. When you find yourself on the left-hand side looking at Welsh Dickey, that's when it goes almost straight down on the slabs. I know that doesn't make sense, but when you're there, it did to me because I'm like, if you... And I can't give exact distances. It's, you know, you go down probably a couple hundred feet. It's like 250.

[00:25:56] And then you start to go left. Then you drop the rest of the way down to the camp. So looking on Cal Topo here, you're descending almost hard west. And then it starts dropping southwest. And it's a smooth shot down. Once you find it, it's very smooth. And again, look for the cut brush. It'll help. Yeah. It's generally a soft southwest back to Welsh Dickey.

[00:26:25] When you're looking at it. If you find yourself going straight down and the trees are getting thicker and the birch are suddenly showing up and the pine's getting thick and you're looking out and you're still in between that coal and you're not to the left of Welsh Dickey, you might want to backtrack. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. But that we should backtrack a little bit because when you come off a green, it does meander down a couple hundred feet, but it does bear to your left as you're heading to Foss. And that can get a little confusing.

[00:26:54] It does... There is quite a drop at one point as you're heading over towards Foss. And then it starts to... It's gradual, but it does... It keeps... It pushes you to that side like you're going to go down. Yeah. Yeah. So you have to be careful there for sure. Then Foss is like, what, 50 feet up or something. It's pretty benign. But anyway, just be aware of that.

[00:27:15] So yeah, once you get off of Foss onto the final ridge in dry weather, it's just somewhat windy, but there is a herd path and old abandoned trail that just meanders all the way back to Dickey. And that in itself, I could get a distance on that. Because when you come off of Foss, you'll find yourself standing almost behind a little swamp or a bog.

[00:27:46] And you'll be looking at the camp, looking towards, I don't know, the peak, whatever peaks there across the camp. But you cross in the spring, I imagine it's very wet. And you wind up at the camp and like Stomp's saying, you go from there, you're going to take the right. You can't... You almost can't miss it because it is so worn. Yeah. And then you'll see the old, the rectangular rocks, like old cans that are still out there. So that comes in at 0.9.

[00:28:14] So from the base of Foss, where the quote unquote camp is with the little vernal pond, it's 0.9 back to the start at Dickey where this big fridge size boulder is. Yep. That's it. And if you're going that direction, it's much better because you'll follow it very easily, in my opinion. Yeah. And you'll pop out and you'll see that rock. So if you decide to go the other direction, you'll know exactly where the rock is because when you're coming the other direction, it's like, it is kind of gatekept by a couple of

[00:28:42] pines that do make you think that that's a dead end. And if you're comfortable with bushwhacking, you might push through it. But for a lot of people, it will cause you to backtrack, understandably, because you almost have to step to your right, step to your left, step to your right again to get through it. And then it's right there. But I can see a lot of people turning around at that point and getting confused very easily. Yeah. But once you find it, you find it. So what's your rating for this trail?

[00:29:11] Like, is it advanced, moderate? In the winter, I would say it's extremely advanced. I would not recommend it if you are not comfortable bushwhacking, if you're not comfortable in winter conditions. You're out there. You are absolutely out there. And going up or coming down Foss, as we experienced, you can get yourself into trouble quick. Yeah, I agree. And there's a lot of ice. There's a lot of water runoff that freezes. It's bone dry right now.

[00:29:39] But in the winter, it can get very sketchy. You're very exposed. It's all slab. It's all open slab. It's all full slab. Patches of... And from Foss, basically all the way down to the tree line of the Dickey side of things, you're in it. You're exposed and you're off and on slab, rock, ice, snow. Yeah. And following the trail in general, to me, once you get dropping straight in to the coal off

[00:30:05] of the tower, if you're going that direction in the winter, not so bad. You can't really screw that up. But from green, you can definitely get yourself stuck in some pines if you're not paying attention. But it's really from Foss the rest of the way that you could do some damage to yourself. 100%. How about tips for backpackers, hammockers? You think there's any terrain out there that would be good for hammocks? Oh, it's a dream. If you can get up...

[00:30:36] If you're going... Let's go the way we've been going. If you're coming off the Cumsa, any place between... Once you drop into the coal, any place between the drop-in of the Sausman Trail off the tower, between there and green, once you're at that level, from there to green, it's a dream. And then from the other side of green... Nice slogan. ...to Foss, it is just gold. Whether, you know, if you can string up a hammock, you can tent.

[00:31:06] But as a hammocker, you could pick any spot you wanted. As a tent, there's plenty of flat ground as well. You're probably not going to be alone in the off-seasons with moose. Advanced tip? You could drop off west towards Hazleton off a green quarter mile and hit those slabs. You know how flat those were? You could. Ooh. It's thick and you could walk down those slabs. That's what we do in the winter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you'll be a fun sled ride down, but there's some great views though.

[00:31:36] Yeah, camping, tenting, hammocking especially. Yeah, absolutely. I recently camped on Foss, maybe two months back. I don't blame you. That was pretty cool. The views there are really... They're great. Yeah. And that's another sticking point. Somebody stole the damn sign from Foss. Yeah, I don't get that. Yeah. It's a lot of effort. I don't get it. Anyway, don't get me going. Yeah. All right. So bogs, yeah, there are a couple of small little stretches of bog, but mostly closer

[00:32:05] to the Dickey side when you first jump in if you're going north. Not too bad. There is no water out there as far as you're going to have to bring it. Absolutely. Especially if you're camping, there is not a trickle, not a stream, not a puddle that I saw other than... That pond. Other than down by Dickey. Other than that. That's an interesting little thing. And I don't... You could filter it, but boil it maybe, but that's a you call. Yeah. No kidding.

[00:32:32] So essentially, you could do an out and back, I suppose. I did an out and back to Foss. We obviously did the traverse. You could do it north to south, south to west. South to west, I'm smart. But now we have included the topic of a lollipop. So we created a lollipop by going in Hazleton and then going up to green and then going south back out or actually, or north.

[00:33:01] So you can lollipop it back to... What's the name of that dam road where we started Hazleton? What's the name of that road again? Millbrook? Millbrook, yes. So you can actually lollipop it. And I think that's a really cool trip that I want to repeat in the near future. If you are comfortable bushwhacking, I would say that's the way to go, especially during foliage. Oh, yeah. You will get better views than you will on Tecumseh.

[00:33:32] You definitely, to me, you want to get on Foss. But no one's going... You're not going to see anybody if you go in Millbrook, go up the green slabs, get your view, and then hit green and even come down, you know, come back the other way. Or a little more advanced, you could come back down, hog back and fish it, which that's a little bit more navigating. Yeah. You'll pick up a trail in Fisher, but that's... I can't say what the trees do out that way. That might get sketchy, but I don't know.

[00:34:01] Did you ever give us the total count for the soup can covers? No. No, I did not officially. What would your over-under be? What would you guess? We were shocked. I mean, literally, there's so many soup can covers. We were making jokes about it, like, this guy must work for, you know, one of these soup companies. I was calling it the Campbell Skyline Trail and the, you know, the soup skyline trail. Remember you were making a joke about working at like a food pantry? Like, hey, you don't need those soup cans, do you?

[00:34:30] I'm going to go to the, take a can, leave a can and just... Yeah, like a soup can fetish. You're like, oh my God. So yeah, today you asked me, well, I asked you what the count was, right? Correct. At one point. Yeah, because I told you next time out here, I'm counting these things because this is insane. And I did. So I guess 250. So, I mean, I guess the over and under would be no more than 500, maybe somewhere between 250 to 500, maybe six at the most. Hands? Can covers. Can covers.

[00:35:00] That's way, way high. It's, it's... Okay. No, it's not even close to that. It was 44. 44. 44. Okay. So, okay. It just felt like 200 because we kept pointing every one. We pointed out every one we saw. Like, there's another one. There's another one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny because I went the, I would say south to north. I started the Welsh Dickey side and finished up on Tripoli Road. So as I was going up, I was like, okay, here we go. I'm going to start counting them. Once I saw the first one, I'm like, here we go. And I started counting.

[00:35:28] I mean, you got 15 because I'm going to, we're going to break it down with a pie chart here or a soup chart, I guess it would be. But there's 15 cans and I don't know if they might've been SpaghettiOs. It might've been, I didn't go by size, but they were 15 of them spread basically from Foss over to the incline, I guess I would call it, where you're going to start climbing up to the tower. And then from the tower up, that's, that's soup city. That was all, that's where the rest of them were.

[00:35:57] There is of the 44, one is not painted for some reason. I don't know what happened with that one. There's just a shiny silver one out there. And I think it's a trap, but there was 44 all varying sizes. Did you get your tetanus shots? Yeah, I didn't touch. Well, whoever put them up there, I couldn't reach them. Whoever put them up there had to be like seven foot three. I'm looking at them like, I can't reach that, but they're nice and high. They are helpful. And as you go across, like they must've gone on a soup bender and then they must've gotten high blood pressure, had to cut back. And then they just went at it again.

[00:36:27] Like, you know, maybe they got low salt or, you know, progressal light. So you're talking at least 20 cans of soup if they're taking the top and bottom. 22 if they're using top and bottom. That's what I was saying. So that's the big question. You know, and you're thinking, okay, how many months of the year do you drink soup? Like somebody really went for it. You know, they, you know, they just souped it up and were like, I got to do this. This is for safety. So if you're the soup person, you got to get ahold of us and we can interview you anonymously.

[00:36:54] We'll put a, like a voice changer on you or something like that. We just curious, like, we got to find out, you know, what your blood pressure is, but also like, you know, is it Italian wedding? Is it minestrone? Like what is there, was it random? Did you get, did you go to like a wholesale club and just get a, like a 44 pack of soup, 22 pack. And just like, I'm going to finish all these today. What do you do with it all? Yeah. We have questions. Save it. Yep. More important than the traverse. These are the answers we need to know. Unbelievable.

[00:37:25] So yeah, that's the soup story. So how about resources online? I think if you go to Lost Trails, the Lost Trails website, let me see if I can dig that up. There is the original 1860 map, which you can find and download. Let me see if I can pull it up. Is this it?

[00:37:55] There's a little bit of history about the trail out there. Go ahead. Yeah. No, I just, as far as like you're saying information and that, I think it's more traveled now. I think you'll probably be able to pick up a GPX track. True. True. Maybe like a peakbagger.com if somebody's done their trail reports might have it. Now, I can't remember. Is green? Green's a 500 highest. Is that correct? Yeah. Or FOSS, one of them.

[00:38:20] So you might be able to look at one of the groups, Facebook group, 100 to 500 highest. A lot of people will share that information. Actually, you know what? You could look it up on New England trail conditions too. There's plenty of trail reports. But I was looking up the Lost site. I can't find it at the moment. Oh, here it is. It's abandoned trails. Oh, here it is. FranklinSites.com right slash Lost Hiking Trails.

[00:38:47] So it does have the original 1860 trail on here. Which is cool. Yeah. So that's another resource too. It is fairly easy to follow in the right seasons. Winter, again, I caution people. You do you. But I'm just saying in the winter, it is definitely trickier to follow if you're not familiar with the area. You can get sucked into thinking this is the way to go. Because like you said, there's that big curve, the sea that you spoke of. Yeah. Where you think you want to go in a straight line.

[00:39:15] But you can definitely get yourself into some thick woods and maybe push yourself into some slab you don't want to be in. But for the most part in the right season, it is just it is a beautiful traverse. It's very relaxing. It is gorgeous views. It's it checks a lot of boxes. It's better maintained than some actual trails out there, in my opinion. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And it does have cell coverage, surprisingly, through most of the trip. All the way. I mean, yeah, there's towers. You're heading between towers as you go.

[00:39:44] So, yeah, I don't think you have much on the coming up Welsh Dickey. But once you crest that, you get cell tower all the way. If you come down the other side towards the Tripoli roadside, you will lose it. So you're looking at like six miles if you do. If you skip West Tecumseh, if you just stick to the ski area of the Tecumseh Trail from the ski area and then go down Dickey, it's like six miles.

[00:40:09] Yeah, if you come in, grab Sausman and drop in, it sounds right to me. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. So it's not too bad. Once you get those two miles out of the way of Tecumseh, the rest of it's fairly straight and easy. Yeah. It's the monotony of having to go up Tecumseh, to be honest. It's, you know, it's almost like take the maintenance roads up if you want and then drop in that way. The maintenance roads will take you right to the tower too if you wanted to go up that way and skip the trail. True.

[00:40:40] Absolutely. But I do enjoy, it's one of my favorite woods in between there with the moss and the smell and the pine. It's just, you don't really get that combination of views and woods and moss like that in a lot of places. It's reminiscent of Algonquin Trail on the Sandwich Notch side because it's similar. The trail is narrow and just lush and green.

[00:41:12] Wow. Yeah. I'm digging up the old pictures here for it. It looks super cool. Anyway, you guys can do your research on the old maps and stuff, but it's out there. And of course, you can always go to the Mountain Wanderer with our good friend Forrest and Steve and dig up some information there too if you need it. But I think that's about it. Yeah. Anything else on that? Well worth doing. A lot of great stuff out there. It's, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:41:39] Anybody has any questions, just reach out and we can give you some guidance. Hardest part if you're coming from the south north is finding the start of it. Just look for the big giant refrigerator sized boulder and it's just beyond that. But good luck and happy trails. And don't bother bringing soup. There's plenty out there on trail. Remember, you can do it. You can do it.

[00:42:05] Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed the show, you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

[00:42:35] If you want to learn more about the topics covered on today's show, please check out the show notes and safety information on slasrpodcast.com. That's S-L-A-S-R podcast.com. You can also follow the show on Facebook and Instagram. We hope you'll join us next week for another great show. Until next time, on behalf of Mike and Tom, get out there and crush the peace.