Scar Ridge, 3,774 feet, is probably the most notorious of the New England 100 Highest summits—by reputation a trailless, viewless, devil’s obstacle course of blowdown fir trees, cliffs, and doghair spruce thickets. The bad reputation harks back to the pre-social media/ smartphone GPS era, when people who hiked it relied primarily on map and compass and the war stories hikers told other hikers, word-of-mouth, about their attempts. That reputation has stuck with the mountain over the years, persisting today despite blog posts rife with step-by-step photos, freely shared GPS tracks, a safety-orange PVC summit cannister, a somewhat beaten-out herd path, and (as we found during our recent ascent) plastic flagging tied to trees (more on that later). As is true for any bushwhack, ascent strategy, and the obstacles and opportunities that lie in wait along the chosen route, play a role in determining what species of “fun” one has. There are indeed truly hellish ways to ascend Scar. 

During our recent trip in December of 2020, we intended to avoid as much hell as possible. But we wanted to hike it in winter which (as you’ll see) added some unusual twists to our strategy.

Scar Ridge presents a bold 2.5-mile long east-west skyline, a topographic extension of trail-tamed but higher Mount Osceola to the east from which it is separated by the deep-plunging notch of East Pond-Cheney Brook, a wooly rift scoured out by glacial ice sheets thousands of years ago. To the west of Scar, the ridge drops 1,000 feet then continues as the well-known but lesser summits of the Loon Mountain Ski Area. Another sub-peak, Black Mountain, extends northerly from Scar toward the Kancamagus Highway. Visible from said Highway, and in no small way adding to the scenery of that drive, are a series of precipitous slab-slides which glint icily in the sun—the “Scars” that give the ridge its name and lend it a forbidding aspect. The entire ridgeline is crowned with evergreen balsam fir, a common holiday Christmas tree variety, tame in the home covered with tinsel and ornaments, but when left alone on the mountaintops undergoes a malevolent transformation into tangled chaos. To be fair, tangled is a just complaint but chaos is not—there is a true natural pattern to it called a “fir wave”, and Scar Ridge is one of the finest places in the White Mountains to experience the beauty (and abuse) of such a phenomenon. 

​What happens in a fir wave is this: as a group of fir trees mature and become higher and heavier, they also become more exposed to the fierce winds that sweep across the mountain tops. The wind desiccates and weakens the trees; eventually the strength of the roots to hold the weight of the trunks against the force of the wind fails, and the trees tumble down like jackstraw dominoes in huge, linear patches in the direction of the prevailing wind. This exposes the next patch of mature trees downwind, and it isn’t long before they start tumbling too. Meanwhile, fir saplings waiting patiently below the canopy, barely eking out inches of growth over decades, suddenly surge up like bean sprouts as the older trees collapse. Fir grows fast when it has sun, and the saplings all mature at nearly the same rate. When they reach too high the process starts all over again. If you were to look at the phenomenon under a time-lapse of centuries it would seem as graceful as a gust of wind blowing through a wheat-field, the wheat flattening, rising, then flattening again. And in aerial imagery of some of New England’s higher peaks, that wave-like pattern does indeed leap out to the naked eye in beautiful ruin. 

policy”—hiking up the ski slopes costs a thievish $30 dollars per head and you are only allowed to go ​as far as Loon’s westsummit, not all the way to North Peak. You aren’t permitted to hike down either—you either have to ski (lugging your skis up first) or take the lift down (which disqualifies you from earning your New England 100 Highest creds). So we weren’t going via the ski area. The “other sane way” (according to social media this is what most hikers do in winter) is to bushwhack up from the Kancamagus to northeast via the east bowl of Black Mountain through mixed terrain, pick up a bootleg ski trail on the ridge, and then the herd path. The trouble with this route is it involves a major river crossing. The river was high at the time of our hike and not frozen over. ​

So we did something different, using aerial imagery to work it out. I enjoy looking at aerial imagery of trees and trying to read the story their crowns are telling me—a skill I picked up during my career in land conservation, one that, before airplanes and photography, only birds excelled at. Scrutinizing aerial imagery of Scar (courtesy of CalTopo) I could see that the fir waves at the ridgeline look like a box of toothpicks scattered by giants. Active waves were less pronounced on the north and west side of the Scar, and very pronounced on the south and east sides. I could also see that the tree canopy on the west side of Black Mountain (sub-peak of Scar) was mostly deciduous trees with moderate to large crowns—which probably meant open woods and easier walking. And I could see that one could bushwhack in behind the condominiums to the east of the ski area (gaining a little elevation boost at start), slab the bowl the west side of Black Mountain, push through some denser spruce trees at steep terrain just before the ridge, and then pick up the known herd path at the base of Scar. 

What the aerial imagery didn’t show was the steep bootleg glade ski trail that descends from just south of the Black-Mountain-Scar Ridge col. We bumped into this trail and were able to use to get up a lot faster (I am curious about the history of this trail—if anyone knows, please share). Along the way we got to see an interesting balanced boulder, and we found a nice view of the Scar Ridge’s scars waiting for us at the top of the slope. A little past that is another view looking westerly toward the ski area. Since there was little snow on the ground at the time (most of it had melted off in a big rain storm the week before) we also took a detour at the start of the herd path to a narrow view ledge looking south (another aerial image discovery). ​

the first visitors to an alien planet. To me, the flagging was another theft of that primal hiking experience, a further taming of what was not meant to be tamed. 
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The last tenth of a mile of herd path meanders through the fir wave at the top of the mountain, a god-fist smashed place it seemed, primitive and ice-agey, inhuman except for the bright orange PVC summit register cannister piggybacking a forlorn tree.  It was frozen shut and we could not open it to sign our names. And that didn’t seem wrong. 

The Long Trail to Vermont’s Jay Peak (3,858 feet) slabs up the side of the ridge from the trailhead at Jay Pass. It doesn’t go right up the crest of the ridge (which would be the intuitive route), because the Jay Peak Resort ski area occupies the ridge. Some effort was involved in keeping clumsy hikers and graceful skiers apart—it’s harder to build a trail along a side hill slab than it is to build along a ridge; it requires some digging out to keep the footway even, else it would feel like walking in a carnival fun-house. But the vertical real estate slims the higher one goes; ski area and hiking trail begin to bump up against each other. The last stretch, along the exposed summit ridge, closely parallels the course of a wide ski trail blasted out of bedrock; a wooden staircase descends what is left of the natural crown of the mountain. A blocky, industrial-looking summit building squats in another blasted-out nook about 100 feet from the summit. It is only natural to avert one’s eyes and camera and focus on the faraway views instead.

​As seen from the low rolling farmland to the east, the profile of Jay appears massive, Himalayan even (at least to those who have never seem the Himalaya) because there is simply nothing as big anywhere near it. The ski area on Jay Peak is the northernmost in Vermont, only four miles from the Canadian border. It has the deepest annual snowfall of any ski area in the northeast United States. The vertical plunge is formidable: the four “Face Chutes Route”, with an average slope of 56.5 percent and a maximum slope of 73.9 percent, are the steepest marked ski terrain in the northeast. One of the Chutes even includes a mandatory cliff jump. The hiking route to the summit is easy by contrast: only 1.7 moderately steep miles from the pass trailhead to the summit. 

​Jay has two summits; the second highest is called Big Jay. Like the character Little John in The Adventures of Robin Hood, “Big” is a misnomer; Big Jay is 72 feet shorter than the main summit, Jay Peak. It is broader though, and maybe that is what lends it bigness. Both peaks happen to be among the 100 highest summits in New England, for which there is an official list and a patch for your backpack or jacket if you’re the kind of person to get excited about such things. There is no official trail to Big Jay. Most visitors just stop and gawk from the abrupt rocky crown of Jay Peak without going further. But there is an informal trail-not-a-trail. The route was illegally cut in the late 1990s (allegedly by ski area employees) with no consequences for those involved, an act which may have encouraged a couple of miscreants, in 2007, to boldly chainsaw over 800 trees through pristine state forest land on Big Jay for a downhill ski route. They were found out, thoroughly shamed and punished. But these “trails,” such as they are, linger on. The cut route to the summit of Big Jay is unmarked, brushy, meandering, occluded here and there with rubbery, prickly spruce and fir blowdowns and leandowns—a real rabbit warren of a path, a path that the officials say doesn’t exist, the unofficials can’t maintain, and everyone else mistakenly refers to as a herd path, a term for a path created by repetitive trodding not premeditated hack-and-slash. Although the ridge from Jay Peak to Big Jay is quite narrow, a wooly-wooded knife edge, it is shockingly easy to get sidetracked and headed down the ravine as if there were a disorienting magical force working its will through roots of the mountain. When winter snows bury the evidence of foot traffic, this misdirection is even more pronounced. 

Even the start of the route is confusing. Northbound off Jay Peak, the Long Trail slips into an unmarked two-foot wide cleft in a ten-foot high snow fence. Viewed from the side, the fence presents an illusion of unbroken continuity. It is not uncommon for hikers to just walk past this junction and continue down the ski trails, or to wander back and forth confusedly. Just beyond the break in the fence, the white rectangular blazes of the Long Trail burn off to the north and the feral path to Big Jay veers westerly along the descending ridgeline.
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During my December hike the lower parts of the mountain were covered with only a dusting of snow. Heavy rains the week before had melted off the early December snowpack, a la human induced climate change. But the ridge between the summits was playing by different rules and was buried under six inches of snow with frequent two-foot drifts. Luckily, I brought my snowshoes along, always a wise course of action in the winter. This was my third visit to Jay, and my second to Big Jay. I’d forgotten how the ridge messes with your sense of direction, and about the various 

At the summit is a small sign with the words Big Jay and an evergreen tree painted on it. Next to it is a glass jar tied to the tree with a piece of string--a recycled jar of marinated artichoke hearts. In the jar is a scrappy notepad and a stubby pencil with which to brag about one’s ascent. I find it fun to imagine a hiker eating a jar of artichoke hearts, rubbing the oil out of the jar with a handkerchief, and tying it to a string—clever improvisation; a touch of humor. Much more character than the PVC cannister registers that are popping up like ugly mushrooms on the most obscure of summits these days.  Ritualistically, I always sign these registers where I find them even though I’m skeptical that they are collected and curated in any meaningful way. I suspect that as they become wrinkled, soggy, and mildewy most are simply tossed out and replaced, perhaps reincarnated in a raspberry jam jar next time around. I like them—finding one on a bushwhack summit adds a soft touch of humanity, taking away, if only for a moment, the mountain’s rough edges and pushback: the scratches, the bad humor of trees as they dump snow down the back of your jacket, the do I crawl-under-or-crawl-overs, the leg-sucking spruce traps, the mindgames of losing the route to a wandering moose track then finding the snapped-off branch that gets you found again.
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The little register wasn’t as comforting to me as a snack bar would be for instance, or a campfire even, but it did make me feel less alone in the wilderness, subliminally: you’ve arrived, cheers, you’re one of us, you made it. I had a bite to eat, wishing I’d brought some artichoke hearts along. I signed the register, screwed the cap of the jar on tight. Then I turned around and contemplated the difficulty of going home. 

While perusing Amazon.com a few months ago, I noticed a bargain offer for a 6-pack of Darn Tough men’s wool running socks. Most of you are probably familiar with Darn Tough—a Vermont industry that revolutionized the durability of the outdoor-play sock by tightening the weave and thread count and simultaneously offering an unconditional lifetime guarantee—if you are unhappy with them, for any reason, at any point in the life of the sock, they replace it.  The socks are produced by parent company Cabot Hosiery of Northfield, Vermont and are made exclusively in the USA.

Before Cabot Hosiery invented the Darn Tough line, they were losing business to overseas sock makers and were in decline. Instead of fading away (as so many clothing mills in New England have) they adapted and innovated, coming up with a “darn tough” sock that “wouldn’t wear out” and successfully marketed it to those who would appreciate it most—the outdoor gear consumer (and later the U.S. military). The socks are made of fine Merino wool and are manufactured to the highest of standards. They will wear out eventually of course (nothing lasts forever, not even the mountains) but they do hold up a lot longer than any other brand on the market without any sacrifice in comfort.

​Although I spend a lot of time in the woods I’m not so reclusive that I don’t follow the news—I was aware, albeit peripherally, that there exists a lucrative global counterfeit industry (a multi -billion or trillion dollar criminal industry according to the U.S. Department of Commerce). But I had mistakenly assumed that most of those rip-offs target big, universally recognizable brands: Nike, Adidas and the like. Apparently that isn’t the case—and clothing, when you come to think about it, isn’t hard to rip off—sweatshops in foreign countries already routinely churn out genuine product blessed and outsourced by our well-loved major brands; there is no reason they can’t churn out fakes just as easily.

So, how does one avoid getting ripped off? Here are some take-homes distilled from my experience:  

• Whenever possible, I  purchase directly from the manufacturer (or a local gear shop—see the next bullet). Going directly to the source ensures that the product is genuine. In doing so, I also cut out the middle-man—which improves the manufacturer’s profit margins, allowing them to continue to practice high manufacturing standards, and (if not already outsourced) keep their labor force local. It is also frequently easier for me to find the desired size, color, and style on the manufacturer’s website, or backorder them if I can't.
  
  
• When purchasing from a physical retail store, I choose one that carries the manufacturer’s product line (multiple styles/types of product by the same manufacturer)—a good indicator that the retailer has an ongoing relationship with the manufacturer and it not engaging in fly-by-night bulk purchases from shady sources. Buying from a locally owned gear shop (versus a chain gear shop) helps support the local economy of which I am a part.
  
  
• When purchasing from an online retailer, I will choose one that has a good reputation and/or is an authorized distributer of the manufacturer’s gear. Popular online gear shops like REI, Campmor, etc. deal directly with gear manufacturers instead of 3rd parties. Markets like Amazon typically do not deal directly with the manufacturer—they sell through 3rd parties--nearly invisibly so. To find out who the actual seller is on Amazon, you must first choose a size/color/style; the name of the seller then appears in fine print below the “Buy Now/ Add to Cart” buttons. You can then click on the seller’s name and see their customer reviews and base of operations. Some brands (like Darn Tough) will even provide a list of approved Amazon sellers on their website.