Trip Reports

King Ravine and Castle Ravine are two glacial cirques on the north side of the White Mountain’s Presidential Range. Cirques are amphitheater-like valleys with steep side ridges and a headwall. Many of the high peaks in the White’s Presidential Range are surrounded …

The Chandler Brook Trail is a lovely but strenuous trail that runs from the Great Gulf up the side of Mt Washington past many lovely cascades, water shutes, and slides. You can make it into an interesting loop hike by descending by …

I never expected to revisit Speck Pond after hiking the section of the Appalachian Trail from Grafton Notch down to Gentian Pond in 2009. Speck Pond is on the south side of Old Speck Mountain, a huge 4000 footer with a fire tower …

Mt Resolution (3415′) is an open summit at the south end of the Montablan Range, just off the Davis Path, one of the main thoroughfares to Mt Isolation. There are several different ways to approach the peak: from the south on the …

Oakes Gulf is the least known of Mt Washington’s great ravines and the most remote. You get to it by hiking up the Dry River Trail 9.6 miles from Rt 302, past the last remaining Dry River lean-to. It’s not an easy …

Mt Whiteface is a 4000-footer in the Sandwich Range that’s usually climbed using the Blueberry Ledge Trail, then over to Mt Passaconaway via the Rollins Trail, and down via Dicey’s Mill Trail. I took a much different route on my last hike …

Cape Horn is an unusual geologic feature in New Hampshire’s north country called a ring dike. Two thousand feet in height, it’s a ring-shaped remnant of volcanic activity, bordered to the east and west by steep (note angry red and purple slope shading …

Climbing Mt Israel is close to becoming a spring pilgrimage for me. Located in the White Mountains Sandwich Range, it’s a 52-with-a-view summit with great views of Sandwich Dome, Mt Whiteface, and the rocky summit of Mt Chocorua. I climbed Israel via the …

The Acteon Ridge is a sequence of trail-less peaks in the Sandwich Range Wilderness of the White Mountains. I climbed one of the peaks on the ridge, named Sachem Peak a few years ago, but have always wanted to go back and hike …

My boots hadn’t frozen overnight, which meant that my Sawyer water filter was probably still good (they’re wrecked if frozen.) Freezing rain had fallen overnight and I knew I’d probably get soaked, brushing up against wet spruce on the side of the trail. …

The McCrillis Path is a good trail to know about for planning backpacking trips near Mts Whiteface and Passaconaway in the White Mountain’s Sandwich Range. It’s seldom hiked and was closed for many years due to a landowner dispute. It links the Blueberry …

Gentian Pond and Dream Lake are on the Appalachian Trail close to the border between New Hampshire and Maine. They’re fairly remote and off the beaten path, but become extra difficult to access in winter when the Mahoosuc Range, north of Shelburne NH, is …

The Raymond Path runs along the eastern flank of Mt Washington linking the Tuckerman Ravine Trail, the Huntington Ravine Trail, and the Old Jackson Rd. It’s a very pretty trail with a few challenging water crossings, but easily missed, since it’s surrounded …

Climbing Mt Whiteface and its neighbor East Sleeper via the Downes Brook Trail is not your typical winter route. Running 5.2 miles and requiring 10 stream crossings to the Sleeper Trail junction linking Whiteface to East Sleeper, it would have been a …