I first climbed Cascade and Porter back in 1995. Then in 2016, I hiked Cascade again with Frankie for his first High Peak. Erwin accompanied us on that outing, and he has a strict one peak per day policy. Therefore, even though Frankie wanted to add Porter onto that hike, his Dad outright vetoed it. I promised Frankie that if he was still interested in hiking Porter another time, I would happily bring him back. We postponed it a few years, which turned out to be a fantastic decision because by age 11, Frankie's stamina has increased considerably, making the traverse over Blueberry readily achievable. This was exciting for me because it meant exploring new trails. I had never been past the summit of Porter, and had read the back side was much less traveled. This definitely turned out to be true.
We took advantage of having two cars in the mountains: Erwin followed us to Marcy Field, where we left my car. Then he dropped Frankie and I off at the main Cascade trailhead on Route 73. We thanked him for his taxi service and I promised to text updates from the summits. When Frankie and I set off on our hike, it was a chilly morning, but of course we warmed quickly with the climbing and stopped several times to delayer.
I didn't take many photos on the way up because we ended up in a gravy train with people directly ahead and behind us continually. We tried stopping to let people pass, but then invariably they would stop for their own breaks shortly thereafter and we'd all be glommed together again. It was an endless chain of people as far as could be seen in either direction. A little unnerving honestly! We stopped for a longer break at the first ledge with wide open views and stayed long enough to buy ourselves a little more space. Elevation here is around 3,800 feet so the bulk of the ascent was behind us.
The wind was whipping above treeline, and we added sweatshirts. Still, Cascade has an exposed rocky summit, without much protection from the wind. We wandered around checking out the views in all directions. We tried one spot for lunch, but it was too exposed, so moved to another spot with a slightly better windbreak.
Eventually we decided to descend and move toward Porter rather than layering up more. Once we were back in the protection of the trees we warmed back up instantly and had to ditch the sweatshirts for the remainder of the hike.
Frankie embraces every scramble he can find, even those that are not strictly part of the planned route. He found several such diversions on the way to Porter. I followed him up onto some of these bonus boulders and enjoyed the views available, different from the summits, of course.
And then we arrived at the Porter summit, where I finally gave Frankie a patch my Dad had given us years ago (I stuck it in a drawer at the time, since Frankie hadn't yet climbed Porter). Frankie enjoyed some more snacks. The summit of Porter is small, but we had it to ourselves.
Finally we set off down the back side of Porter, headed for Blueberry and Mary Field beyond. From here on out, it was all new territory for both of us.
The ridge trail sees little use and feels more like a herd path than some herd paths. We really enjoyed the narrow trail! Detoured briefly from the trail looking for the high point of the wooded East Peak of Porter Mountain. We think we stepped on it but the balsam was very thick there and no markers. Then we came to a beautiful bald rocky summit-like are with a big glacial erratic (the blueberry?). GaiaGPS said we weren't at Blueberry yet, but it was to pretty not to linger a bit.
When we got to the area mapped as the summit of Blueberry, it was not nearly so dramatic, so I was glad we'd stopped to enjoy the scenic rocky non-blueberry. We crashed into the balsam again to tag the true summit; definitely nothing to see there. From that point on, it was all down hill.
There was gorgeous late afternoon light illuminating the views from last
rocky ledges and then an relentlessly steep descent through the forest. When we were in sight of the deserted parking lot, Frankie was stung by a bee - for the very first time in his entire life. So unfortunately, the hike didn't exactly have a happy ending. Poor kid took it kind of hard, too, but there was no unusual swelling or anything so I guess it's good to know he's not allergic. We stopped at Stewart's and got milkshakes and he was good after that.
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