Elevation gain: 1180'
Trails Used: none. Snowmobile trail, logging roads, bushwhack.
This hike was a last minute decision on Sunday after the morning's plans fell through. It was forecasted for rain for brief periods of time and hopefully there would be little to no snow left over since the elevation of the mountain was low. The hardest part of this hike was finding the spot to start my hike.
Hersey Mountain Forest is located within the towns of Sanbornton and New Hampton, New Hampshire. The actual summit of Hersey Mountain lies in Sanbornton. This hike is a trail-less hike and requires a combination of woods road hiking and bushwhacks to reach its summit.
For some good background information on this mountain, go here.
I parked the car off of Carter Mountain Road and then headed up this class VI road, that is used by snowmobiles in the winter and someone drove down here recently.
I continued to this logging landing and then headed up the still visible old logging road.
The road started to disappear so I opted for a straight up approach like I usually do. As long as the woods stay open, then just head up! It did get steep for a little bit.
Just below the summit of Hersey Mountain. This area is moose heaven, as evidenced by the amount of moose scat that was on the ground. You could hardly walk without stepping in it. It was even worse on the summit area itself.
The first views from some summit ledges. Ragged Mountain on the right and Kearsarge is in between the two trees.
There is a cabin on the summit of Hersey Mountain (elevation 2001'), which is owned by the New England Forestry Foundation.
A note on the outside of the cabin. It's free to use as long as you keep it clean and pack out your trash. The cabin was helicoptered in by a former owner.
Rain clouds moving over some distant peaks. There are several view ledges around the summit area so poke around to find them.
Views looking north to Plymouth Mountain and Tenney Mountain.
I followed a few red blazes down but then just decided to bushwhack down to the car through woods like this.
Tough little water crossing to get back to the logging road. I had to scoot across the log in the back to get across since it was about 2-3 feet of cold, hard flowing water.
Once back on the class VI road I made the quick hike back to the car.
A nice quick solo hike up this gem of a peak. There was no snow to be found although it did rain a bit on the way up but it was a nice rain. The views were good, the woods nice and open and route finding was very easy. If you follow the old logging roads, it should be easy an easy hike/bushwhack.
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