Federal Hill - North Uncanoonuc: 9/7/2014

Federal Hill

Mileage: 0.70
Elevation gain: 175'
Trails used: unnamed trail, Lookout Road. 


There was no way we could waste the beautiful weather day and not go out for a hike so off Desi and I went.  I figured out we could probably do several hikes as the first hike would be a real quick and short one:  Federal Hill and it's fire tower that is still standing.  Brian did this fire tower awhile ago, so I still needed to get it done for the Fire Tower List.  

Federal Hill is located in Milford, New Hampshire and is the southernmost fire tower and the fire tower with the second lowest elevation of all the New Hampshire fire tower's still standing.  

Federal Hill is on the New Hampshire Fire Tower List.

We parked on the side of Ponemah Road so as to not block the gate for the road up to the Federal Hill Fire Tower.

Like this car here.  Well it's not really blocking the gate but it still says no parking on the sign!

A quick little hike up on a trail/snowmobile trail brought us up fairly quickly to the Federal Hill fire tower (elevation 690').

I climbed all the way to just below the cab while Desi stayed a few landings down.  Here are the views looking towards the Uncanoonuc's.

Looking southwest to Birch Hill and it's cell tower disguised as a fire tower.

The only other views were of this distant ski area.

Looking down at a dad and his two sons throwing a football around on the summit area, with the summit buildings in view.

Lookout Tower Road on the way down to the car.

Once back down to the car, we decided the first hike was super short so we headed over to do North Uncanoonuc.


North Uncanoonuc

Mileage: 1.25
Elevation gain: 730'
Trails used: White Dot Trail.


The weather remained really nice on the drive over to North Uncanoonuc and we didn't hurry since we knew this hike would also be fairly quick, although the trail is pretty steep up to the summit.

North Uncanoonuc is located in Goffstown, New Hampshire and is less "crowded" than its sister peak on South Uncanoonuc.   We drove up Mountain Road to find the start of the White Dot Trail, which was a bit of a challenge.  Once we did find it, it definitely was a workout.

Heading up the White Dot Trail, which is about .6 miles to the summit and roughly 700 feet of elevation gain.  

Nice easy trails to follow.  This trail stays steep for most of the hike.

As we are nearing the summit area, the trail gets rocky and stays steep.

Looking over to South Uncanoonuc and it's mighty communication tower farm!  This is from the summit of North Uncanoonuc (elevation 1324').

Heading back down from the summit of North Uncanoonuc.  While we were on the summit, we were treated with a nice sized group of hawks circling around us really low.

The nicest section of trail was about half way down the mountain.

There is even this small cave area that was pretty neat to see.

Only about 2 miles of hiking but it was fun.  Like usual, the driving around finding the hikes always seem to be longer than the actual hike.  The weather was awesome and there were literally no bugs.  The views were so-so but the hikes were definitely enjoyable.