Sentinel Peak has insinuated itself to become my fetish peak. Outside of the Sawtooth Range, where I have probably accumulated 100 summits, I suspect it’s the hundred highest peak I’ve stood upon more than any other.
The “parking lot” at the corner of Liscombe Brook and Bartlett Rd. was empty, which was good because there’s only room for one car. I hiked up Sentinel on March 28 but turned back 350 vertical feet shy of the summit in difficult conditions. For this hike I was taking a different route by staying alongside Liscombe Brook further up-valley to 2300 feet (car park is at 1470 feet) in order to try and locate the hunter cabin AdkJack and I found a lifetime ago.
Liscombe Brook flows down a beautiful wide-open hardwood valley and gets steeper and steeper as you go. The brook gets smaller and the woods become thicker and thicker as hardwoods give way to scraggly conifers. I had no luck with the cabin but I think my phone was giving me false info regarding my precise whereabouts. After the non-cabin sighting I headed up, way up 1300 feet so as to intersect the long summit ridge at around 3600 feet. There were cliffs to weave through, some of which were huge, and there was plenty of blowdown to spice things up. It was steep but I bulled my way slowly and determinedly upwards, encouraged by my altimeter.
Near the summit ridge there is a line of cliffs that I learned the hard way to stay below and to cruise easily along the base. Had I been more wary I would have realized the first band was not the right one. I followed those cliffs the wrong way before correcting course and repeating the same mistake with yet another set of “wrong” cliffs. My watch’s tracklog shows the error of my ways very clearly as would have a glance at my compass at the time. What didn’t help was my brand new compass’ needle kept getting stuck and I had to whack it to get it to spin. My backup compass, which was also brand new has the same idiosyncrasy. I have to go back to the store. (I didn’t think to use my watch’s compass, which I have never calibrated). It was only when I took a look at Caltopo on my phone did I get back on course and pick up the correct line of cliffs. When they ran out I was about .4 miles and less than 300 feet below the summit( 3845’).
In my mind that long ridge should have been easy with an incipient herd path. However it was quite thick and had a few sections with deep blowdown. Could be my mind is going. The fresh snow (2-3”) would have hidden the herd path if it still exists. Maybe I followed a bit here and there, maybe I didn’t. A person could easily stop short of the actual summit due to the bumps and drops along the way. I lost count but easily recognized the little clearing. I had the summit all to myself. In fact, I probably had the entire Sentinel Wilderness all to myself, all day long. The summit sign, by the way, was gone, maybe eaten by critters.
I was soaking wet and made a quick change to a dry shirt, put on my down parka and ate my sandwich in the sunshine while admiring the view of the Sentinel Range and Whiteface. I had service so I called my wife and chatted with her for a while until the call was cut off.
I decided to descend via my previous hike’s ascent route, which is much nicer that what I had just done so off I went following my inbound tracks down the ridge until they deviated to the right. I must have had amnesia because by going straight I soon encountered a huge cliff. Duh! I backtracked and picked up my tracks which I followed until I lost them and found myself atop a continuation of the same cliff. I wasted time trying to find my tacks until I decided to risk getting cliffed out and picked my way very carefully down to flatter ground and picked up my tracks once again. These I followed some more until I deviated left when they went right. I hit more cliffs, swerved right and once again found my tracks.
At that point I decided my inbound route probably wasn’t that bad after all and if I kept to my tracks I wouldn’t have to navigate. This turned out to be a good strategy as indeed the route wasn’t that bad really. In any case a single compass bearing and the law of down would do the job. I took a half-hearted crack at finding the cabin and pushed ever downwards, always following my tracks to 2300 feet whereupon the woods opened up and I enjoyed a very pleasant stroll back to my car on Bartlet Road.
Sadly, I carried snowshoes on my pack all day for nothing. The good news is if I go back next week on a cliff sorting mission I won’t be carrying them.