Fletcher's Cascade

Fletcher's Cascade Trail/Drake's Brook Trail

3.2 Miles 650' Elevation gain (We bushwhacked above the falls another 2-3/10ths and 300' Elevation)

Kevin, Judy and Emma

High water kept us from crossing at the Drake's Brook Crossing. I thought we might be able to cross higher up and we probably could have, but I followed the trail to Fletcher's Cascade mistakenly thinking it would cross up higher and lead up to another trail. It doesn't, but we probably could have crossed Drakes Brook where the north fork joins it before the trail veers east towards Fletcher's Cascade. Sure is a good argument for always having a map, which I didn't, so I failed at rescuing our original hike, and this became just a short visit to Fletcher's Cascade.

We did bushwhack an obvious herdpath above the forest service sign, which is located just below the end of the trail at the foot of the upper falls. We continued up for another 2-3 10ths over steep terrain in hopes of reaching another trail which if I had a map I'd have known wasn't there. Higher up the herdpaths had disappeared under multiple blowdowns and we entered the percolating area of the brooks which fed the falls below. Getting nowhere and not sure of any success if we continued on we made our way back down the 300 or so feet to the falls.

In retrospect and after some conversation the other night, I guess we could have gone down to the road and crossed the bridge and bushwhacked up to the Sandwich Mountain Trail, which neither us wanted to do because we had done before. We still could have bushwhacked up to Drake's Brook Trail from there, but I tried a different route, and with a map probably could have found a crossing. Ah well, chalk it up to foolish unpreparedness on my part again, but at least we visited a nice fall and did a little (very little) red-lining.