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East Sleeper 6/25/16

On Saturday 6/25/16, I climbed my 86th peak in my quest for the New England Hundred Highest. This peak was East Sleeper at 3,840 ft in elevation. The hike was mostly along the Downes Brook Trail and was a total of 13.4 miles. There was 2,580 feet of overall elevation gain with a total of 2,738 feet of elevation gain. It was sunny with very little wind which made for a pretty warm hike
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Start of the trail.  A couple other trails start in this area too
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Start of the trail. A couple other trails start in this area too

EastSleeper7474

  • Start of the trail.  A couple other trails start in this area too
  • The early sections of trail are wide and smooth
  • This busy little guy was quickly making a web.  It was gone by the time I came back down though
  • The first crossing of Downes Brook.  There are a total of 10 crossings of this brook on the trail
  • Looking upstream at the first crossing
  • A little higher up, the trail isn't quite as wide now
  • Entering the wilderness area
  • In some places, nice rock work has been done to try and keep the trail from washing out and still be usable
  • A rock slide off the side of Mt. Passaconaway comes all the way down to the trail.  I believe there is an old trail that goes up on/near this slide
  • Looking further up the slide, you can see the exposed rock
  • The base of the slide is a jumble of smaller rocks that clearly becomes a brook in the spring with snow runoff and rain
  • I believe this was the 6th crossing of Downes Brook.  To be honest, it was hard to keep track though
  • Looking upstream at the crossing
  • Along the trail, there were a number of blow downs.  Being a wilderness area, the rules are different and more strict about what you can clean up for trail maintenance
  • At one of the brook crossings was this sign.  There is no intersection, so it seems out of place.  One usual aspect of a wilderness area is smaller signs and less of them
  • The trail follows along a side hill
  • Up on the ridge at the intersection with the Kate Sleeper Trail
  • The trail crossing over some mossy rocks
  • After a while at the intersection talking with another group of hikers, I noticed this bear bag hung up in a tree.  There is a bootleg campsite right near here
  • Along the Kate Sleeper Trail, you go through just a small section of a blow down patch from Hurricane Sandy a few years back
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