The First Great Peacham Bog Bushwack

What a great bushwack!

Bog Route

Thanks to the loan of a garmin GPS 12XL (ca. 1997) I tracked my route today w/ the dogs into the wilds of Peacham Bog.  The image on the right from Google Earth shows the route.  We (me, Spanky The Wonder Dog and Jake) did this counter-clockwise.

We ran the trail from the truck to the top of Devil's Hill.  The bushwack started from the summit of Devil's Hill (bushwhack marked in yellow) and dropped down into the wildest place around here.

The bushwack off the top of Devil's Hill, for anyone interested, is done by heading south from the main summit, staying on the marked trail.  As soon as the trail starts to dodge downhill, stay on a southerly bearing.  If you follow the ridge, you can cross the saddle and then drop into the notch (Jennison Mtn is the next hill).  I curved SE and then E, staying in a very steep wood just south of the open cliffs that you stand on at the summit.  It's a challenge to descend, but nothing complicated - it's just steep woods.

The original plan was to try to hit a little opening w/ some open water (see blue dot trail) but without the aid of the GPS - just using guesswork.  But man, that's no place to navigate.  No landmarks.  Just wandering around in the woods.  If the sun hadn't been out I would've died out there.  No Kidding.  When I hit what looks like open meadow on the image, it was wet bog - running water with little tufts of grass, roots and brush.  We crossed to a little hill, explored, then crossed back and continued south until I hit an abandoned VAST trail (dogman and I call it The Forgotten Notch Trail - it runs between Devil's Hill and Jennison Mtn).

Detail of Crossing

In the detail image (below, right) I've corrected for some GPS tracking glitches as the unit lost satellite communications.  We poked around to find a crossing back from the little hill.  The 'hill' was about 100 yards across and maybe 30ft above the bog - enough to stay high and dry.  Much of it was open woods, however the trees get about 6-12 inches apart in sections and I got home with dripping blood and cuts and bruises.

I only went knee deep in water twice - mostly, by carefully placed feet I was only a few inches deep.

The return leg (the orange section heading north) was on an abandoned VAST trail that lead to a much-traveled snowmobile trail that skirts Martin's Pond.

The entire loop took 2.5 hours.

What a crazy adventure.