Trip Report - Nelson Brook Yurt - Feb 28, 2003 ============================================== Summary ------- Who: Dave and Ruthanne M Temp: High 20s to single digits Weather: Clear and Sunny Trail Conditions: Great snow coverage. Packed trails (snowmobile and dogsled traffic). Off trail was deep powder covered by a sun baked crust layer. Details ------- Intrigued by the warmth and convenience of a fully furnished yurt, complete with wood and propane stoves and full kitchens, Ruthanne and I have been hoping to go to the Phillips Brook area for some time. A miracle of several child care helps and an opening in the Phillips Brook reservations all converged and allowed us a rare (very rare) chance to sneek away from our parental duties for the weekend. Some background... The Phillips Brook system of trails and yurts is run by Timberland Trails [http://www.phillipsbrook.org/] and is located just north-west of Berlin, NH. The land is currently owned by the International Paper Company and the trail system makes use of the extensive system of logging roads. They use snowmobiles to service the yurts but keep the trails off limits to general snowmobile traffic. On the days we were there, this made for well packed out trails and relatively easy touring. As of this writing, Timberland Trails is expanding it operations into Vermont and moving New Hampshire based yurts to nearby land owned by the Mead Paper Company. Our escape from Boston had to, and did, run like clockwork. We needed to get the kids off to their respective locations, get through the tail end of rush hour traffic and make the drive to northern NH with enough time to allow us to ski the 3 miles into the yurt. Miraculously, we pulled off Rte 110 just before 1:00 pm and eventually found our way to the Paris Office where we signed in and got our check-in information. The adventure began immediately. The Paris office is located at the begining of a 10 mile long plowed dirt road that is used by the paper company log trucks, which, we are warned by a large sign, have the right-of-way on the road. While the road is beautifully plowed, graded and maintained, it is none the less a logging road that runs deep into the woods. I became more and more grateful for the "Beauty Of All-Whell Drive" (tm) on the Outback with every passing turn in the road. I wouldn't want to venture in there without AWD or chains. In my opinion, published reports about the heavy hand of a running logging operation were blown out of proportion. But then again, I have relatives who run a logging operation in Vermont and have spent time hunting and skiing in a working wood lot before, so it didn't seem un-natural to me. Some areas of clear cutting and other areas of heavily thinned woods were visible at varying points during the drive in to our trail head. But all in all, the woods were a very nice mix of hardwoods with more large birch and fir stands than one typically sees lower down in the state at the same elevation. And as you may know, I think the birch and fir boreal forests are just lovely, thank you very much. After 10 miles, we found the end of the road and the Phillips Brook Lodge, a large house built in the forties on the banks of Phillips Pond. We were told that the house was built by International to be used as a retreat for company executives. We were getting our boots out of the car when Ruthanne asked a very intelligent question. "You remembered to bring water, right?" "Um.... no." Ooops. We went into the lodge, found it empty and got our boots on in comfort. But, the water was not running. After the wretchedly busy week leading up to the trip and all of the planning (that had otherwise gone without a hitch) we weren't going to let something as small as no water stop us. So, we drove a couple of 100 yards back down the road to the parking area, waxed up the skis and skied off down the road to the Nelson Brook trailhead which was about 1/2 mile back down the road. Finally, just before 2:30, we were on the real trail and heading towards the yurt. We had no water. We were also carrying light sleeping bags, no tent and only a small backup stove. And we were skiing into unfamiliar terrain with unknown quality of trails and signage were armed with only a crude map. With the sun begining to hang lower in the ski, I had a significant amount of apprehension. Ruthanne and I chatted about it and agreed to monitor our progress and we agreed to bail out if there was any chance of not making the yurt by dusk. We've been married for nearly 14 years now and I still can't believe how lucky I am. Here we were heading off into the woods, not entirely prepared for the moment, and my wife was unphased, positive and determined to press on. I said to myself, "She loves being here, she loves doing this and (amazingly) she loves me." There couldn't a luckier man alive. We crossed the outlet from the pond that feeds into Phillips Brook almost immediately after leaving the trail head and began a series of easy climbs. While the snowmobile tracks saved us from tiring and time consuming trail breaking, they also destroyed any and all common use tracks on the trail. As a result, we had to keep our attention on keeping the skis tracking straight and we couldn't really open up the throttle in the same way that you can in good tracks. Still, we surprised ourselves and got to the first trail intersection in about 20 minutes, which immediately confirmed to us that we would be able to make the yurt with plenty of time to spare. Nearby, a very tame grouse sauntered out onto the trail and stood there ignoring us. There was a very light dusting of new snow on top of a firmer crust, so we found very clear tracks from the grouse when we proceeded up the trail. The trail climbed up in a series of gentle lifts and then descended gently as the trail moved east out of the Phillips Brook drainage and into the parallel Nelson Brook drainage. Turning left and north on the Nelson Brook trail, we followed the west bank of Nelson Brook, often in the shade of the steepening ridge to our west. We had several nice views of the snowed over brook and crossed 2 wide open areas that were recently logged out. After a mile or so, the trail banged a right, crossed the brook over a bridge and climbed up and to the left on the high broad bank on the east side of the brook. The woods were predominated by low fir and young birch, which gave us a nice view of the bowl at the head of Nelson Brook that was forming up and to our right. At the foot of the first of 2 steeper climbs, we dropped our packs so Ruthanne could put some moleskin on her ankles. I need to get her boots punched out. In preparation for the steeper climb, I added a layer of Special Violet on top of the Extra Blue that I had been running. I also put some Special Violet on Ruthanne's Lookouts ahead of and behind the skis' fishscales. The freshly waxed skis handled the climb with confidence. At the top of the first climb, the trail curved a bit to the left along a flat where we found a sign for water at the base of the second climb. We had to be close to the yurt, we figured. Heading to the left and west along the side trail, I marched right past the water. The snow had the stream entirly covered and it was Ruthanne who found the "water hole", which was a patch of bare ice about 2 feet across at the bottom of a hole in the snow. Interesting. We knew that the yurt was supposed to have an axe, so we figured we'd either chop out the water hole or burn lots of propane melting snow. We made it to the yurt in another 10 minutes of climbing. The yurt is situated on a broad flat area. Behind it to the left and west, is an open swampy looking area with a nice ridge rising up behind it. This ridge wraps around above the yurt to the the north and then east forming a sort of 1/2 bowl before turning back north again. The yurt was everything we expected. A nice wood stove, a propane stove, table, kitchen bench and 6 bunks. And nice big axe sitting next to the firewood. Perfect. Now we'd have water. We got the stove fired up and the food bag out and started to settle in. It was just before 4:30, so we made the 3 miles of climbing at a slow comfortable pace in good time and with plenty of day light to spare. It was also pretty clear that we were going to have the place to ourselves. After a bit, I grabbed a big pot and stuffed all of our (very empty) water bottles into a light day pack that Ruthanne had "inheritted" when Linda W had died. We agreed that Linda would have totally dug the yurt and we took comfort at the thought of her looking down from heaven in approval. The axe made short work of the ice and after about 2 hours and mind numbing pumping (ok, it seemed to be that long) I had a full supply of water for us. We had couscous, canned veggies, cream of chicken soup, summer sausage (I prefer hard salami, but we were still eating down the post-Christmas larder) and cheddar - a meal fit for royalty. The evening at the yurt was just ideal. Worlds and worlds away from a household that has 2 young kids, to overworked adults and the tyrany of a cable modem. While the temperatures slid into the single digits, inside the yurt was warm thanks to the efficient little wood stove. It was a perfect, cloudless and windless night with no visible light polution from Berlin. Stars? I've spent many nights in the north woods and have never seen as many. One of the unsung delights of winter camping is sleep. Lots of sleep. 12 Hours of sleep with no coughing children and no wailing fire engines. I got up at 12:30 and again at 5:00 to stoke the fire but other than that, we pretty much slept straight through from 8:30 at night to 8:30 the next morning. We spent a lazy and relaxing morning at the yurt. We dug wood out from under the yurt, and generally cleaned up around the place. With all of the chores down and being in no hurry to leave, Ruthanne crashed on the bunk to read and I went to explore around the yurt on my skis. Heading north from the yurt, the trail crossed an open area in about 100 yard and then climbed up and into the east end of the "headwall" just as it turned back to the north. The definable trail sputtered out pretty quickly. I climbed up onto the hill in the woods and made 2 ugly turns. While the snow was light and deep underfoot, it was covered by a heavy 1/2" layer of sun crust snow. Not the best conditions, given my skill, or lack there of. Heading back to the open area just above the yurt, I struck out to the west across what appeared to be a snowed over swamp/pond-like area that formed the head waters of the Nelson Brook. The western edge of the swamp was flanked by the well formed western ridge that separated us from the Phillips Brook drainage. I climbed up in the open hardwood and gained perhaps 50' of vertical before turning the skis back down the hill. The woods were beautiful, open and perfect for turns. But the crusty snow was just beyond me. I got a good handful of turns and then submarined my lead ski under the crust. This ridge would be a load of fun to farm for turns with better snow. Back at the yurt, we reflected on how perfect the trip had been and how good it was to be together, alone, for the first time in a long time. It's such a good thing not only to love each other but also to genuinely like being together. We loaded up, got on our skis and began the run out with a bang. The double climb that ended the day yesterday gave us a chance to practice our pack-laden power wedge. Scrape, rattle and vrrrrooom. When we got to the broad open curve above the bridge, Ruthanne stumbled (ahem) across some huge moose tracks running straight down the trail, then veering off in a gallop and finally returning to the trail. These tracks were fresh since last night and we wondered if the rattle of our skis had spooked him. We followed Mr. Moose along the Nelson Brook Trail all the way down and got to the main trail at about 12:30, just in time for lunch. We found a sunny spot just off of a bridge that crossed the Nelson Brook and enjoyed the last of our summer sausage, cheese, bagels, chocholate and oranges. The temps were warming up to just around freezing, so I took the opportunity to add a layer of Red wax during our lazy lunch. Sitting there among the tall fir and birch trees in the warm sun, it was easy to be thankful for our lives, our health and all of our dear friends with whom we've shared the woods with and who have taught us so much. There are days that get burned in your memory and we knew that this day was one of those times. Just as we were packing up from lunch, a party of 3 lumbered up the trail on foot. How sad. All this snow to ski on and they were stuck plodding along, step after step. How very sad. Minutes later a party of 6 (3 men and 3 women) came down the Nelson Brook trail. This bunch of folks, had seen the light. Well, almost. While they were all on skis, they were on heavy tele gear. Not my first choice for racking up miles, but I'll bet they didn't face plant when they skied the crusty woods like I did. I chatted with them for a few minutes while Ruthanne skied off and up the next hill. They had stayed at the yurt north of Nelson brook and were all locals from the area. As one of them put it, this was pretty much their back yard. Oh really? Nice neighborhood. We savored that last mile or so of the ski out in no particular rush to get out. After a short climb, it was almost all downhill and double poling to the trailhead. Somewhat anti-climatically, we still had over 1/2 of a mile to ski on the road. But nothing could temper 2 days of perfect weather, nice touring and our own private yurt in the woods. We got to the car, loaded up and pointed the Subaru towards N. Conway where we had reservations at a Bed and Breakfast waiting for us, along with hot showers and veal to die for at Martinellis. Yeah, we had a pretty good weekend. Copyright 2003 by David Mann