King Ravine’s Ice Cave Loop & Randolph Mountain Club Trail Work

PHOTO: Amy’s friend Danielle with her loppers in her hands begins work to clear the Chemin Des Dames. They volunteer to do trailwork with the Randolph Mountain Club and enjoy working on difficult paths. Chemin Des Dames, French for Ladies Path, is just under half a mile in length from the floor of King Ravine to Airline on Mount Adams. The path climbs through scrub and boulders to a talus slope above treeline and then halfway up the trail passes through boulder caves–a good reason this trail is included on the Terrifying 25 Hiking List. The views are magnificent.

by Amy Patenaude
Outdoor/Ski Writer

Danielle and I had marked our calendars to attend the Randolph Mountain Club’s Annual Dinner and fundraiser. We’ve never been before and Danielle was lucky to be able to score a couple of tickets to the sold-out event. We planned a full day of hiking and trail work.
Dinner would be our reward.
Our good fortune continued, finding the last available space at the Appalachia Trailhead parking lot. It was around 9 am on a Friday and cars were already parking on the edge of the pavement on Rte 2.
It had rained most the night but thank goodness the sun was out today! We headed up the trail, taking the most direct route to King Ravine. We followed Airline to Shortline Trails through the forest. We passed a couple at the intersection of the Randolph Path who said their destination was Mossy Falls. The trail was still wet and the higher we hiked the footbed became rockier and more slippery.

Shortline ends when it meets the King Ravine Trail just below Mossy Fall. At Mossy Falls, 2.8 miles from Appalachia, Danielle took out her water filter and she filled our water bottles. It was hot and humid; the cold water was thirst quenching. The pretty falls is named for the lush green moss that surrounds its cascading waters. It is a worthwhile destination for beauty and solitude.
After Mossy Fall the trail becomes rugged and is slow going. The rocks just keep getting bigger. Rock climbing skills are required to scramble up these monstrous boulders. A couple of hikers appeared and picked their way down the trail past us. Normally, descending a ravine isn’t the best idea but when you go up one ravine sometimes you need to go down another. Mount Adams is a big mountain. They were the last people we saw all day on the trails.
When we reached Chemin des Dames, our trail assignment which we accepted from Wendy, the trail volunteer chair for the RMC, we dropped off our tools–loppers and handsaws. With our much lighter packs we were off to do a bit of trail bagging for Danielle. I was excited because it has been a long time since I was on the floor of King Ravine.

Danielle is close to redlining the AMC White Mountain Guide. That means she will soon have hiked over 1,400 miles on every trail described in the Guide. But the day she ventured up King Ravine, some time ago, she missed crawling through the Ice Cave Loop. Since we were just minutes away it was a good day to count this 1/10 of a mile hanging chad.
We took Elevated to avoid crawling through the caves of The Subway and just past the trailhead of the Great Gully Trail we found the Ice Cave Loop entrance. Distance wise it is a shortcut on the King Ravine Trail but effort and time wise it is a longcut. Yes, the ice caves have plenty of ice in them. It felt cool and we could see the white ice down below. We had a fun time crawling and scrambling our way through the caves.
Back on the main trail we back down to Chemin de Dames, translated from French, it is Ladies Path. This may be the shortest way out of King Ravine but it is rugged and steep and climbs the east wall of the ravine 800 vertical feet in 4/10ths of a mile to reach the Airline Trail–still 3.2 miles away from Appalachia & Route 2.
Beginning at Chemin des Dames trail sign the Ladies Path disappeared, it was hidden beneath the grown-in trees and scrub. We grabbed our loppers and we went to work. And geez did we work, we made dozens of cuts to clear just a foot of the trail. We leaped frog one another and we cut and tossed limbs and brushed the path. Even tossing what we cut off the trail was difficult because we were surrounded by more big rocks and ledges. We were eager and wanted to make progress. We meant to stop for lunch but we didn’t. After a couple hours my arms were tired and soon our turn around time came and went. Just 15 minutes more, we made it to where the path begins to leave the scrub and is out in the open on rocks. We cleared a tenth of a mile. We thought we had done much more.

We sat on a big rock and ate and drank and admired the steep walls of the Ravine. We could see the RMC’s Crag Camp high up on the rim of the west wall. We could see water dancing down Great Gully. The Ravine is big and beautiful and we had it all to ourselves.
We returned the way we had come up to the Ravine. The scrambling over the large rocks wasn’t any easier going down but once we reached Mossy Fall the trail was gradual again.
Just one more thing. Down below on Airline there was a tree that we had ducked under on the way up. This time Danielle pulled out her saw and she cut it out. The tree fell and we were able to drag it off the trail.
It sure was a lot hotter and humid in the parking lot than it was at elevation 4,000 feet on the floor of King Ravine! We were tired and dirty so we hurried off to jump into the Peabody River’s Third Hole’ it’s just south of Rte 2 on Rte 16. The cold water felt great on my aching muscles and we cleaned up pretty well for the evening’s event.
The Bear, formerly Sault/Libby’s, in Gorham hosted the dinner. The reception and auction were held outside under a tent in the side yard of the restaurant. We mingled with old and new friends. At dinner we shared a table with Dennis, a long time member and supporter of the RMC and a gal that is a second year member of the RMC professional trail crew. We talked a lot about trails and hiking!
Have Fun.