Walking on Baby Heads

The image above does not do justice to the smooth round rocks that I navigated throughout my multiple river crossings in hiking to the summit of the Tripyramids in New Hampshire.

Two of Three

Two of the three Tripyramid peaks are must haves when peak bagging the 4000 Footers of New Hampshire. Both North and Middle summits can be reached on a loop hike from trailheads at the base, or an out and back from the same start point. I planned the latter from Sabbaday Brook Trail parking lot, and was following the trail on a 10-11 mile trek. The hiking path crosses the Brook several times, but in my minded it seemed to be a dozen! As I rock hopped my way across the brook and then back again, I wearily thought of the term used to describe the smooth, round rocks that were roughly the size of – well, you know.

If you’re a mountain bike rider, you already know what I’m talking about. It’s MTB rider term more than a hiker’s expression. There is some disagreement as to whether baby heads can be loose cantaloupe size rocks or embedded, which some call “cobbles” as in cobblestones.

Those slippery little babies where a chore and made me leery of coming back to the mountains for several years in summer. It’s easier to snowshoe over them when they are buried under several feet of ice and compacted snow. When I finally returned with another group that needed the same peaks in warmer weather, we ventured up the more robust Pine Bend Trail that was quite a bit steeper near the ridge. The descent looped our return leg down Sabbaday over the dreaded stones again.

Maybe I was just to tired to notice them, but I don’t remember them giving me as much trouble on round two. Perhaps they’d all grown up into the larger rocks that you see in the foreground of the image? I won’t know until I return again, which is none too soon!