American Alpine Project
Ascending America's Highest Peaks to Raise Spirits Around the Globe
Backbone Mountain, Maryland
Backbone Mountain, MD
Elevation: 3,360 ft.
Summit Attained: 8:15 p.m., 01/04/08
The trailhead for
A crucial piece of advice that I wish we had: Stay on the logging road!! DO NOT TURN OFF OF IT UNTIL YOU SEE “H P” ON A TREE POINTING UP ANOTHER MORE NARROW TRAIL (which will not be for some time). If you are not still steadily gaining elevation after ten minutes, you screwed up. We did, and we trekked around in some sort of clearing and the nearby woods, imagining that we were following trails. Good thing we had the GPS and eventually made it back to the logging road. Almost back at our starting point, we finally noticed that the road kept going up where we turned off…so we followed it.
It is quite a long walk, especially in the dark when it is below zero and there is a foot of snow on the ground. It was pretty fun though, and we kept hearing stuff in the woods around us. After a while, there are pretty regularly spaced red HP blazes on the trail (about 100 yds. or so apart,) and eventually the road gives way to an actual trail. At one point, we came to a wooden sign where there was a fork in the trail. We took the left path, which looked easier to follow. I think that this was also a mistake, since it led over an awkward rock pile for about fifty feet.
Shortly thereafter, we arrived at the highpoint, where there is a large sign, a random wooden post, a picnic table and a mailbox containing a summit logbook. We signed it, noticing that we were the first hikers of the year to do so. The trees are cleared out opposite the sign so that you can get a good view, but it was dark, so we didn’t see much of anything. The walk down was fun and pretty uneventful, although we did pass a very dead deer near the bottom. We arrived at the car around 9 P.M., and headed off in the direction of
Elevation: 3,360 ft.
Summit Attained: 8:15 p.m., 01/04/08
The trailhead for
A crucial piece of advice that I wish we had: Stay on the logging road!! DO NOT TURN OFF OF IT UNTIL YOU SEE “H P” ON A TREE POINTING UP ANOTHER MORE NARROW TRAIL (which will not be for some time). If you are not still steadily gaining elevation after ten minutes, you screwed up. We did, and we trekked around in some sort of clearing and the nearby woods, imagining that we were following trails. Good thing we had the GPS and eventually made it back to the logging road. Almost back at our starting point, we finally noticed that the road kept going up where we turned off…so we followed it.
It is quite a long walk, especially in the dark when it is below zero and there is a foot of snow on the ground. It was pretty fun though, and we kept hearing stuff in the woods around us. After a while, there are pretty regularly spaced red HP blazes on the trail (about 100 yds. or so apart,) and eventually the road gives way to an actual trail. At one point, we came to a wooden sign where there was a fork in the trail. We took the left path, which looked easier to follow. I think that this was also a mistake, since it led over an awkward rock pile for about fifty feet.
Shortly thereafter, we arrived at the highpoint, where there is a large sign, a random wooden post, a picnic table and a mailbox containing a summit logbook. We signed it, noticing that we were the first hikers of the year to do so. The trees are cleared out opposite the sign so that you can get a good view, but it was dark, so we didn’t see much of anything. The walk down was fun and pretty uneventful, although we did pass a very dead deer near the bottom. We arrived at the car around 9 P.M., and headed off in the direction of
