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Climbing Mt Rosebrook

Southern Presidential Range from Mt Rosebrook
Southern Presidential Range from Mt Rosebrook

If you tell a White Mountain peakbagger that you’ve just climbed Mt Rosebrook (3004′), they’re likely to look at you funny and ask where the heck that is. Mt Rosebrook is the main peak of the Bretton Woods Ski resort across the Mt Washington Hotel. Chances are they’ve driven or hiked past it dozens if not hundreds of times and not known what they were seeing.

Mt Rosebrook canister
Mt Rosebrook canister (3004′)

Rosebrook, as anyone who’s skied Bretton Woods will tell you, has fantastic views of the huge valley on the west face of Mt Washington, bordered by the Southern Presidentials and Mt Deception and Dartmouth to the north. It’s also the shortest peak on the New Hampshire 3000 footer list and one of the easiest to climb, since you can hike up a ski slope to get to the summit.

When I climbed Rosebrook, I hiked up the Ben, Big Ben, and Bigger Ben Ski trails (see Bretton Woods Ski trail map), avoiding the slope that had an active trail lift running. This being October, Bretton Woods still has one chair lift operating which takes mountain bikers up to the top of a single track run so they can ride down a ski slope over and over again like hamsters on a hamster wheel. Just joking mountain bikers. It looked like a good time. :-)

I mainly hiked up the packed sand single track trail, which switchbacked up the mountain and avoided the wet moss and grass slopes. White Mountain Trails don’t have any switchbacks, so it was an easy climb of about 1000 feet to the summit, where I found a canister. I do hikes like these when I want to tick off of 3,000 footer, but don’t have a full day to hike. I hate driving up on Saturday mornings before dawn  or in weekend traffic to get a hike in before dark, so I drive up on Fridays and camp out, doing an easy hike in the afternoon, before more challenging hikes on Saturday and Sunday.

Mt Deception
Mt Deception

On this trip,I was also scouting out another bushwhack up nearby Mt Deception, and climbing Rosebrook gave me a good view of East Deception (3661′). That task taken care off, I hiked down through the Rosebrook Glades.

I believe Mt Rosebrook is the site of an old firetower. That wouldn’t surprise me because the views are grand and definitely worth a hike up if you have a few free hours.

Mt Rosebrook - Approximate Route
Mt Rosebrook – Approximate Route

10 comments

  1. LOL hamster wheel mountain bikers. (I’m also sure it is fun, but that comment cracked me up.)

  2. Ah, I’ve been craving some NH hiking. (I also love finding shorter, lesser-known hikes to squeeze in when a full-day hike isn’t an option.) Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll make it up there this fall. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that you’ll feature some fabulous snowshoeing routes this winter…?

  3. The canisters in your recent photos, what are they?

    • They mark the summits of mountains that don’t have trails running up to them. They contain log books with the names and messages of all of the people who’ve reached the summit before, often going back decades. These mountans aren’t hiked frequently, so there are often only a few entries per year. The equivalent of an AT shelter register, but with a much smaller population.

  4. I seem to to recall seeing somewhere that there is an actual marked hiking trail from the top of the lifts to Mt Stickney. But maybe I’m imagining it.

  5. Ok, I should have looked harder… It’s on the Bretton Woods site… A hiking trail now runs from West Mountain to the Latitude 44 Restaurant (top of the Quad) to Stickney.

    https://brettonwoods.com/pops/summermaps/summer_alpine_map10

  6. There was a fire tower on Rosebrook until 1928. It was replaced by the one on Hale the following year.

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