Mount Success

Trail: Austin Brook Trail, Yellow Trail, Mill Brook Road, Mahoosuc Trail

Conditions: Snow - Packed Powder/Loose Granular, Snow - Unpacked Powder, Snow - Drifts, Snow - Wet/Sticky

“Huge THANK YOU to Thomas's group for breaking out this route on Saturday. Impressive work! As was to be expected, however, about 1/4 to 1/3 of the route had been drifted over in 3 days, so some challenging solo trail breaking and searching still happened. Snowshoes car to car. Started off on Austin Brook Trail, crossed the brook at Yellow Trail, and headed up Mill Brook Road for easier walking. Much of Austin Brook "Trail" is on logging road, some of which had been snowmobiled. The lefthand turn leading steeply up to Gentian Pond Shelter was a little tricky to find as this section had all blown in, so I did a bit of back-and-forth before figuring out the correct way. There are yellow blazes in here marking the AT boundary, but ABT is blue blazed. Visited Gentian Pond's privy which houses a funny "Hikers: no overnight parking" sign. Haha. Now the fun began... most of the next half mile, in open hardwoods, was completely drifted over with no sign of any snowshoe track. Used GPS a couple of times in here. Finally, in the more protective softwoods, a lovely deep trough was once again evident. Well yippee ki yi. Mahoosuc Trail goes UP... down... up... down... up... up... UP for what seemed like well more than the advertised 2.8 miles, par for the course on Mahoosuc Trail. A nice moose broke out about a tenth of a mile on a very steep uphill drifted section; that made me happy. Finally reached the lovely summit of Success and it's sweet little alpine zone, hit the high point, and hiked all the way back the same way. Grabbing the section of MT to Dream Lake and down Dryad Fall Trail (as I'd had high hopes of doing) was definitely NOT going to happen because my legs were toast. A final FU on the hike out Austin Brook "Trail" was the direct bright sun and near 32 degree temps turning the snow into sticky caca. Aaaaah! But the Mahoosuc Trail portion of this hike was absolutely beautiful... a winter wonderland up there right now! Obviously I saw no one else up there.”

Trail: Mill Brook Road, Austin Brook Trail, Mahoosuc Trail

Conditions: Snow - Unpacked Powder, Snow - Drifts

“Lovely alternative way up to Mt Success. First 2.2 miles are largely fire roads with some trace of snowmobile activity keeping it packed down. Next 1.5 started to get some deep snow, with a steeper section up to gentian pond. Final 2.4 miles on Mahoosuc Trail were deeper with some knee deep drifts. Trees were thin so things were pretty cold.”

Trail: Success Trail, Mahoosuc Trail

Conditions: Snow - Unpacked Powder, Snow - Drifts

“Two of us broke out the Success trail to the summit, plus the lookout loop. We left a pretty good trench. It was at least -10 when we started but the views were great today, and no wind. We did lose the trail once or twice and had to backtrack maybe 50 feet to find the right way. Plenty of snowy low hanging limbs to duck under, so wear your hood.”