Mount Prospect (Holderness) - Bald Mountain (Plymouth) - Downing Mountain: 10/9/2014

Mileage: unknown
Elevation gain: unknown
Trails used: unnamed trail (Mt. Prospect Trail).


I had the day off  from work as I had to work Saturday so I was going to try to make the most of it and make it a multiple peak kind of day and get some good easy mileage in.  After reading some various trip reports on different websites and looking at maps, I decided I would do Mount Prospect first and then do a few more peaks as time permitted.  Setting out for the hike, it was a bit on the cool side but it was comfortable and definitely better than hiking in hot humid conditions.

Mount Prospect is located in Holderness, New Hampshire.  There is an un-named trail that runs up to the summit and part of the hike loops around to some ledges just below the summit.

*You probably noticed it right off the bat but if not, there are no mileage or elevation numbers listed for this hike.  I couldn't figure out why since I had tracks ON on the GPS and I could have sworn I saved them after the hike but alas, they were gone.  So instead of cheating myself with pseudo numbers, I'll do Prospect and Bald later and add the miles on when I re-do them.

The trail head is right where these two cement blocks are right off of Mt. Prospect Road.  There is enough parking for a few cars to park.

The trail down low is pretty wide and easy to follow.

Still wide and easy to follow.  I noticed that several people had used mountain bikes as evidenced by the weird tracks in the leaves when they were braking.

The summit of Mount Prospect (elevation 2064').  The summit itself is off the trail a bit and wooded.  The views are on the loop part of the hike.

The trail was easy to follow, even with all the leaves down.  This nice section was coming down off the summit towards the first set of ledges.

Views from the first ledges below the summit of Mount Prospect looking towards the Squam Range (foreground) and Belknaps (background).

The views from the lower ledges were almost identical to the upper ledges and these were looking towards the western end of the Ossipee's.

Very well maintained and easy to follow trail made this a very enjoyable hike.

Heading down the trail and going back to the car.  Overall it was a quick hike up and back down.  Believe it or not, but I did cross paths with a trail runner coming down as I was headed up to the summit.  I would see no one else the rest of the day.

Mileage: unknown
Elevation gain: unknown
Trails used: unnamed trail (Bald Mountain Trail).


My second planned hike was another peak that has an unofficial trail that runs to its summit and was about a 20 minute drive from the previous hike.  

Bald Mountain is located in Campton, New Hampshire.  This is part of the Parker Family Trust Conservation Easement and managed by the SPNHF (Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests).

I parked right outside of this old forest road on Cook Hill Road.

While the trail is maintained, there was only flagging in spots to guide you along.  It's not that tough to figure out where to go though.

The only spot in the trail that you actually had to stop and check where to go.

The views south from the summit area of Bald Mountain looking towards the Tenney Mountain Wind Farm, Mount Crosby to the right and Mount Cardigan in the background.

Carr Mountain peaking out from behind the trees.

The summit for Bald Mountain (elevation 2204').  

A nice moose area coming down from the summit of Bald Mountain.  I could see where moose and deer had moved through the area recently.

On the way out.  A nice walk in the woods and some okay views from the summit.

Mileage: 2.05
Elevation gain: 965'
Trails used: none. Bushwhack, roadwalk.


The third and final hike of the day was down the road a bit from Bald Mountain.  I had zero information on this one but I did know there are no official trails that go to the summit so it would be a steep bushwhack.  

Downing Mountain is located in Ellsworth, New Hampshire which is near Stinson Mountain/Lake.

A forest road off of Stinson Lake Road that I would use to hike into and start my bushwhack up to the summit of Downing Mountain, which is in the middle of the picture.

Typical open woods heading up to the summit.  It was very steep to start and very rocky.

Still steep as it climbs about 900 feet in about .60 miles.

Hiking along the summit plateau with nice woods.

The summit of Downing Mountain (elevation 2091').

Just below the summit was this view ledge, complete with cairns.  This is looking towards the long ridge of Carr Mountain.

Looks towards Stinson Mountain (left), Stinson Lake and Mount Cardigan in the distance (center, background).

I found an unofficial trail that goes towards Stinson Lake but only followed it for a short bit as it was headed in the wrong direction.  I found this old logging cut about halfway down, which I used to hike to a snowmobile trail and then Stinson Lake Road.

Walking the short distance down Stinson Lake Road back to the car.  Fall is most definitely here.  I saw several cars driving through this road and stopping to take pictures.

A nice three peaks on a slightly cooler fall day.  I spent a few minutes driving around getting some information on other peaks nearby so it pretty much killed any time I had left to hike. The bummer was I didn't get the date for the first two hikes so while it's not a total buzzkill, it would have put me that much closer to the 750 mark.  Hey, at least I had the day off on a really nice day!!


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Gardner Ridge - South Gardner - S.S. Gardner: 10/4/2014

Mileage: 8.9
Elevation gain: 2450'
Trails used: none.  Logging roads (old and new), road walk, power line cut.


And then there was one (well two for Greg since Brian had already done Cooley Hill several years ago before the Fire Tower list came about).  

We knew it was possibly going to be a wet Saturday, and since Greg had to work Sunday, of course we picked a bushwhack.  We decided to do Gardner Ridge and head up to the remains of it's old fire tower that resided on the peak.  Only problem was, the location of the actual tower isn't listed correctly on the fire tower site so we assumed since the high point of the ridge is actually Signal Mountain, we would be all set if we tagged that one (and we had prior knowledge that there was in fact wooden remains here). 

Gardner Ridge is located in Lyman/Monroe, New Hampshire and the ridge is actually on conservation land, which you can read about here.  The summit of Signal Mountain is the high point for Monroe, New Hampshire.  South Gardner is a sub-peak along Gardner Ridge and is also located in Monroe, New Hampshire.

Gardner Ridge is on the New Hampshire Fire Tower List.

This is the old logging road we would start off on to head up to the summit.

Greg admiring the old woods road walk we did to head up to Signal Mountain.

A neat little gravel pit, where the logging road ended and we turned to head into the woods to start our buswhack up through mostly open woods.

The woods down low to start were pretty easy to maneuver through.

Higher up the woods turn into softwood, but remain rather nice and open.

A couple of views on the way up although it was pretty cloudy for most of the day.

Brian standing at the remains of the fire tower and the summit of Signal Mountain (elevation 2299').  It must have been a really small fire tower as evidenced by the minor amount of wood and frame left.

The open woods walking along the ridge heading towards South Gardner.

At one point Greg slipped on a rock and took a nice foot header.  In our circle of friends, moments like this are always photographed for humiliation purposes (occasionally we ascertain if the person is not hurt...but mostly only after photo ops).

The open woods and summit area of South Gardner (elevation 2230').

Occasionally we would stumble upon old roads, evidence that this entire ridge was logged frequently in the past.

Heading down we came across these property boundary markers for the Ammonoosuc Conservation Trust (which I put the link for above).

We came across an area where a lot of the trees had these boles, leading Brian to quip that we were in the midst of a "tree-bola" outbreak.

More open woods goodness heading back down to the car.

Eventually we came across this old logging road which we would take to head down.

Then we came across this active logging road that we would take back down for the road walk back to the car.

Logging machines and a fresh stack of cut lumber.

I don't remember if Brian was thumbing for a ride, or trying to belt out one of Michael Bolton's Greatest Hits (it was snowing leaves which aren't visible in the picture.

We decided to head down the road and hit SS Gardner, which was quite the short adventure.  We tried driving down Hunts Mountain Road (which is a class VI road) in Brian's CR-V but we could only make it a short way.  So, road walk it was to be.

We had to park further down the road from the powerline cut.  The road walk, however, was rather scenic with it's fall colors.

Looking up the power line cut to SS Gardner.  We walked the power line access road, which was more like an ATV trail.

Looking back from where we came and Hunts Mountain.

Looking northwest into Vermont, which looks pretty orange and not green.

Panorama from the highest point of the power line cut just below the summit high point.

The high point for SS Gardner (elevation 2050'), which was about 200-300 feet from the power line cut to the summit.

We reversed direction and headed back to the car.  The rain held off until we got back towards Lincoln so overall it was a decent weather day.

We managed to hit our objective for the day and bring the Fire Tower List closer to being finished.  Only Bear Island and it's observation tower (not fire tower) remains for Brian; I need Cooley Hill as well.  I believe we plan on finishing in the winter, when we can walk across the lake to the tower.  We have still more adventures left to do this year.

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