3/9/13 More Carriage Roads

A beautiful sunny day- lower 30's and only light winds. Rather than  start from the parking lot I decided to take the Giant Slide Trail over to the carriage road. Further on the Giant Slide is a section Kelley can't  manage- in summer we bushwhack up to the ridge and locate an abandoned trail that takes us to the Sargent Trail. Today this trail was quite icy and meant picking my way but was easy for Kelley. Once we got to the carriage road the walking became easy. There had been no recent use but the snow had compressed enough to provide good footing. I had planned not to do the whole Giant Slide loop but just go up to the Aunt Betty Pond area and then return.

Aunt Betty Pond

Kelley was disappointed to find the pond still frozen- we worked our way through brush and got down to a  thawed patch  so she could get some water and  at least a little wet.  That hadn't taken long so I decided to  continue on and do the upper loop. This section had had more use and was rougher but still not bad walking. We met a woman skiing it. The section along the lake was the iciest and even had bare sections but we met a woman walking with her dog and Kelley liked that.

By Gilmore meadow we found part of a pond unfrozen and stopped there for lunch and for Kelley to finally get in some water.

From there we continued back to the start. A nice hike on a pretty day-  3  3/4 hours