It was raining when I woke up on a plateau east of Doublehead Mountain, so I hung out for a bit and got a late start. It was 8:00 am before I hit the trail, leaving White Mountain National Forest behind.
I stopped to look at something, and a red squirrel came bounding casually up the trail towards me. It just kept coming when I though it would stop and turn around, and then suddenly the squirrel was on my leg. I don't know which one of us was more surprised. After half a second of processing this error, the squirrel jumped off and ran up the nearest tree. I could feel the little claw marks on my leg for half an hour. Truly one of the weirder things I've had happen on a trail. I've had gray squirrels plummet out of tree tops and land with a big thud next to me, but I've never had a squirrel mistake me for a tree.
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| Junction with Doublehead Trail |
I didn't take many pictures on this next section because it was raining pretty good most of the time. The map showed five peaks along the Crawford Ridgepole Trail before Old Mountain Road, where I'd leave the ridge. It was super slow going. This ridge has lots of bare rock at odd angles, and it looks like it would be a lot of fun day-hiking on a dry day. But backpacking in the rain was not easy. Every step was a potential fall and busted ankle. The trail between Doublehead and Mt. Squam, took me about 1.5 hours and it was only one mile. At this point it was after 10:00 am, and I had another six miles to get to Old Mountain Road. If the ridge was all like this, I wouldn't get to the turnoff until 7:00 pm. I tried picking up the pace, but couldn't go much faster on the wet rock.
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| Squam Lake, from Mt. Squam |
With all the rain and blowing mist I was pretty sure I wasn't getting a view, but near the top of Mt. Squam, the wind momentarily blew the clouds aside to reveal Squam Lake down below. Nice!
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| Lots and lots of slick rock east of Mt. Morgan |
The rain picked up as I made my way over Mt. Percival. I have no idea where that peak was. The ridge was a series of endless ups and downs and there was no sense of arriving at any particular peak. It seemed like there were dozens of peaks. And the peaks shown on the trail maps were not marked in the real world, so the only way to know you had arrived would be by checking a map on your phone, which I couldn't do very well because it was raining.
There were a couple trail junctions associated with Mt. Morgan that were very confusing. There was a three-way junction with a four-way sign. The sign pointed me directly into the forest where there was no trail. So, umm, do I go right or left? I chose left, and checked Gaia to see if it was correct after a bit. So far so good. Then I came to another junction with one trail heading steeply down the ridge and another with a ladder going up a cliff. I had a moment of terror thinking I would need to go up the ladder in the rain, but just then a couple of angels were walking up the hill (the first people I'd seen in two days) and they said the ladder was just to a lookout and if I continued downhill there was a trail junction for the Crawford Ridgepole Trail. Thank you!
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| Easy walking west of Mt. Morgan |
And just like that, the trail got really easy. No more rock. Also, the rain stopped. And the sun even came out once in a while. Fantastic.
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| Squam Lake from Mt. Webster |
At some point I passed top of Mt. Webster, but it never felt like it. The trail runs just below the ridgetop there. Then the trail curved uphill a bit towards the top of the ridge and a view opened up of Squam Lake below. Spectacular! I had fun watching the dueling crows and hawk and the low clouds speeding across the sky above the lake.
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| Another vista from Mt. Webster |
Further on, there was yet another overlook. The sky was blue in places and dark with rain in others. How lucky to get these views on a rainy day.
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| Another option for descending the Crawford Ridgepole Trail |
There was a signage for the Brooks Fisher Trail, which was an option I considered for descending the ridge as an alternative to Old Mountain Road. The trail comes out onto Perch Pond Road. It's not on my AMC White Mountain map, but it shows up on Gaia. I decided against the trail since I wasn't sure what condition it was in, and it actually adds 3/4 mile of roadwalk to the trip.
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| Old Mountain Road |
The junction with Old Mountain Road was also well-marked. The old road does get some 4WD traffic, based on the tracks and erosion, which is too bad. But it looks like plenty of people walk it as well, and I didn't have any trouble. I was actually able to collect some water breaking out of the hill, although it was a wet day. Still, it was the first collectable water I'd seen since Beede Falls.
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| Beede Road on the way to Plymouth |
I made it to the bottom around 3:30 pm and was set for roadwalking to Plymouth, but just then my husband pulled up. He had just arrived from Connecticut and was ready to bring me to the hotel for a hot shower and delicious food that did not have nuts or anything freeze-dried. At the same time, I wanted to finish off the road walk, so I was torn. And then it started pouring and my decision was made. I hopped in the car and that was it for the day. We stayed in Ashland because the hotels in Plymouth were mostly booked up due to parents weekend or something at the college.
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| Roadwalk to Plymouth |
The next day, some very heavy rain was forecast to move in, but there was brief morning window that might be OK. And so I finished up the road walk into Plymouth. The most obvious route was to take Beede Road/Seven Pines Road out to highway 175A. I didn't like the highway when we drove it, though. It was very narrow and windy with little or no shoulder and tons of traffic. So I went a different way that required a short bushwhack through some woods (Smith Rd, Sargeant Rd, Trivett Lane, Herritage Hill Road).
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Pilot Forest off Beede Road
Town of Holderness |
There's some town property called Pilot Forest with trails located along Beede Road that I'd noted on my maps "just in case." My husband took a walk through there while I was doing my road walk and he said it was pretty nice. There's a sign out front with a map of the trails, and it does say "no overnight camping unless permitted by the commission." So perhaps there's a way for a backpacker to get permission to stay there if needed, although I imagine most thru hikers would be getting a room in Plymouth.
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| "No overnight camping unless permitted by the Commission" |
The alternative route worked out great, and I was able to avoid walking on the highway until just before the I-93 underpass, at which point the rain moved in and pickup up steadily as I crossed the Pemigewasset River.
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| Pemigewasset River |
By the time I got to Plymouth, it was really pouring and there were rivers running across the asphalt. But I was able to duck in to a diner where my husband was waiting with some breakfast. Later on we came back to do some shopping, but there really isn't much there for tourists. Plymouth is a college town, so there are a number of places for young people to meet up with friends and grab something to eat or drink. There's a laundromat and a Rite-Aid and a Post Office that thru-hikers might use. If you need a place to sleep, there's a cluster of hotels about a mile north of town.
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| Plymouth |
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