Deer Mountain/Ridge (Milan, NH)-Pinkham Notch: 6/21/2014

Mileage: 9.25

Elevation gain: 2882'
Trails used: bushwhack, Mill Brook, Crew Cut, Liebeskind's Loop, George's Gorge


As usual, we left the park and ride in Boscawen with a few idea's what and where to hike but nothing definite.  This is a pattern we tend to follow while doing hikes lately; it might not work for some, but we make do. 

Since we are working on multiple hiking list's still, we decided to pick a peak/fire tower off of the New Hampshire Fire Tower list. 

The first hike was Deer Mountain in Berlin/Milan, New Hampshire.  The fire tower that once stood here is long gone with traces of its former past still in place.  

Greg prepares for the hike ahead at the start of the old fire wardens road off York Pond road,
which is gated.

Down low, the road is a little grown in, but still wide and easy to follow in most places.

The fire warden's road is never too steep though, as you follow your way up to the fire tower summit plateau.

Just before you reach the ridge where the fire tower is, it is heavily overgrown and hard to follow.  Once on the fire tower's summit plateau it is fern heaven and very easy going as you follow the various herd path's up.

Summit graffiti on the old wood foundation's and one of the cement blocks, made by the unknown Mister X (as we have dubbed this person).  Kind of sad that someone felt the need to deface this historical monument with yellow spray paint.

No "Dueling banjos" playing on the porch of the fire warden's cabin, but it was still kind of "Deliverance" creepy.  There was even still a stack of perfectly good fire wood in the corner.

An interesting view of the nearby Black Crescent peaks from the summit plateau.

From the fire tower summit, we decided to bushwhack over to the high point of the ridge (the fire tower is not the actual high point of this long mountain ridge) through open woods and fern groves.

From the main summit, we opted to bushwhack the 1/2 mile straight down to the Mill Brook trail, and then road walk back to the car.

At the end of the trail is a dirty little pond (open to public use) that had this sign on display.  Basically, I think the first 10 items would make the last one incorrect.  You could erase all 10 and change the last to "Don't Have Fun" and make the sign smaller.

Brian taking a sign selfie with the "pond" right behind him.  Look's mighty inviting, no?

Say hello to my little fishy friends (which are actually very large!)  One of the breeding tanks at the York Pond Fish Hatchery.

Our second hike, since we were close by, would be to take some of the trail's around the Pinkham Notch area where there were two ledges we could get some views from (Lila's Ledge and Brad's Bluff) and trail's we have never hiked before.





 We parked at the Wildcat Ski area parking lot and crossed the street to get to the trail head.

The trail sign for the Crew Cut Trail was hard to see at first, but it's almost directly across the street from the left most parking lot at the ski area.

These trails look like they were hardly used and it shows. Some parts of the trail were well defined and others not so much.  At one point it crosses the Connie's Way ski trail.

The gem of this hike is Lila's Ledge, which has some rather pleasant views for some modest effort involved to get there.

An interesting view looking up to Mount Washington from Lila's Ledge.  You can still see snow in Tuckerman's Ravine.

Ledges galore in the upper parts of the trails.  

Brad's Bluff lookout ledge.  It's pretty much the same views (higher up) as Lila's Ledge.

Is it a bird, a plane or a bigfoot?  No, it is just Greg, the cave troll king.  





About 9 miles total for these two hikes with some interesting views and nice weather.  Bug's were an issue early on but with a nice wind blowing, they were almost non-existent on the second hike.  We'll keep plugging away for the rest of the summer.

 

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