Backpacking Trips

Late autumn/early winter conditions are notoriously tricky to forecast in New Hampshire’s White Mountains and you need to be willing to modify or abort your trip plans when conditions on the ground don’t meet your expectations. I found myself in that situation …

When people visit the White Mountains, the two geographic features they remember the most are the mountains and the notches, which are giant mountains passes that link different regions of the area together. When you drive down the narrow two-lane roads that …

As I stood there on the shore of Shoal Pond, I realized I couldn’t hear a thing. No motorcycles in the distance or helicopters flying overhead. I couldn’t hear the wind, no ducks quacking, or even the water lapping against the shore. …

Owl’s Head Mountain is one of the most remote 4000-footers in the White Mountains, deep in the heart of the Pemigewasset Wilderness. Feeling in need of a long hike, I decided to climb it but to take a roundabout route to get …

Mt Isolation is one of the more remote White Mountain 4000 footers, requiring a fairly long hike in from the nearest road. While you can climb the peak in a single day, my preference is to backpack to the summit on a …

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 …

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 …

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. …

There’s nothing like a backpacking trip to shed your worries and restore lost serenity. A night spent in moonlight under the stars, surrounded by trees, with the sound of a nearby stream is all it takes to calm my busy mind and soothe …

Goose Eye Mountain is located about five miles south of famed Mahoosuc Notch, the hardest mile on the Appalachian Trail. The only way to get there is to hike along the Appalachian Trail or one of the blue-blazed side trails that provide access …

Grafton Notch is a magnificent mountain pass in Southwestern Maine, a short drive from Gorham, NH, the last major trail town that Appalachian Trail thru-hikers visit before leaving New Hampshire. Crowned by towering Old Speck Mountain, which has a viewing tower at …

The town of Berlin, pronounced “BURR-ln”, with the accent on the first syllable, has the feeling of a modern frontier town, where logging trucks, 4×4 pickups, and ATVs outnumber passenger cars. Located in the northernmost section of the White Mountains and New …

“I can’t imagine any fisherman hiking five miles to fish here,” said the fisherman I met at Flat Mountain Pond in the Sandwich Wilderness. Ironically, he and his buddies were the only people I encountered on a backpacking, packrafting, and fishing trip I …

Upper and Lower Greeley Pond are two backcountry ponds in Mad River Notch, a mountain pass that links the Sandwich Range to the Pemigewasset Wilderness. Bounded on one side by Mount Kancamagus and the other by East Osceola, the two ponds are …