I had been curious about these two mountains for a while. It seemed like it would be a hike we would enjoy, with a great mix of beautiful woods, fun/challenging scrambles, and a good amount of mileage.
They didn't disappoint.
We began the day nice and early, and successfully found parking (it is limited) at the Fernwood Road parking area.
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| A lovely morning |
From there, it's about 0.3 miles to the Blueberry Ledge trailhead, which you will find on the left side of the road, across a bridge. This trailhead is essentially in the backyards of several people, so it would be advised not to behave like an asshole.
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| Love cute signs |
We loved Blueberry Ledge Trail.
It basically had everything.
Woods, fun rock trail, stupid stone stairs, and scrambles. EXCELLENT.
(And for more on this, the video will be up on our YouTube in a couple weeks.)
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| The "rock trail" portion |
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| Ummm. The Rock Stairs Portion.... |
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| A blueberry ledge |
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| And pretty quick, some views! |
The ledge/scramble portion, in my opinion, if very manageable in good weather.
Also, do not be fooled by a VERY convincing false summit.
The *actual* summit is about .2 miles farther, and is an unassuming rock cairn in the woods. LAME.
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| This was lovely, and is NOT the summit, despite the sneaky piton |
From there, it was about 2.4 miles on the Rollins Trail to the base of the Passaconaway summit trail.
In most places, we enjoyed this trail, although it's a bit alarming how much elevation you lose.
When you reach the base of Passaconaway don't get confused. Head left on Dicey's Mills, and then just bear left (unless you have plans of ascending a different way. duh.)
While it's a bit steep in places up the final 0.75 homestretch, it's not a nightmare. Plus, there is a little water source if you need to filter some water (we did. it was hot.)
As expected, the summit was stunning.
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| We love the low key |
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| A view! |
If you walk past the little summit trail, there is a path to the left that takes you to the "view" (about 0.2 miles, evidently). However, a hiker we met said we would also see a satisfying view simply by continuing past that trail, and traveling straight for a couple hundred feet. We agreed that the views quite nice, and we didn't mind skipping some mileage.
From there, we took the long walk back to the car following Dicey's Mill trail. Once you are off the summit trail, it is 3.8 miles to get you back to where you came from- it had become pretty hot and we stopped to filter some water before committing to the long haul to the car.
This trail is pretty easy to descend, although a bit steep here and there. Definitely a good way to get to Passaconaway, if that is your sole destination,
We finished up by basically walking through someone's back yard (which is, indeed, the trail) and looked back upon this excellent scenery.
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| We tip toed through here |
From there, about 0.4 miles back to the car, and we were done for the day.
And it was hot.
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| Hot pup |
We took a short drive down the road, and cooled our feet in the little river. Definitely refreshing after a long and warm hiking day!
So, long story short. This hike really has a little of everything and was very interesting. We were NOT in a hurry, and easily had an hour of stopped time on this particular day (don't need to race them all....) All of us enjoyed this hike, and can see a variety of different routes to the top/s that would be interesting to explore on another day.
So, the stats:
Stats:
-11.9 Miles
-3969 ft elevation gain
-7:10 min total time (yep. this includes the mega stopped time)
-Difficulty: Blueberry Ledge should be considered difficult. Everything else, moderate.
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