Copple Crown Mountain - Cotton Mountain: 11/30/2014

I had to work Saturday so our hiking day was set for Sunday. Once again, we were pretty unsure where or what to hike due to the snow that we got over the Thanksgiving holiday. As per our usual selection process, we perused the New Hampshire Gazeteer and decided on a few possibilities: Copple Crown Mountain, some of the Belknaps that I had left, some Ossipee peaks that we had yet to visit or do some more sections of the Sunapee-Ragged-Kearsarge-Greenway. It was going to be a cold day with very low chance for longer distance views so doing these hikes was going to be hit or miss.  

Copple Crown Mountain

Mileage: 5.95

Elevation gain: 1260 feet

Trails used: Copple Crown Mountain Trail.
Highlight(s): views from summit ledges.


We decided to do Copple Crown Mountain first which is roughly in the same area of the Moose Mountain Reservation, a hike we did in October on a nicer day obviously. With fresh snow down, we had no rough idea of the conditions we would be looking at for this hike but were pleasantly surprised that while there was snow it was not too deep to warrant any kind of traction, IE snowshoes or micro-spikes. 

Copple Crown Mountain is located in both Brookfield and New Durham, New Hampshire. It is also the highest point in Brookfield, and the western slope is the highest point in New Durham (which we did not do today because of the snow depths off trail).  There also used to be a ski area on Copple Crown but it closed down roughly forty years ago. There are views from several viewpoint areas on both summits.

Old Copple Crown Ski Area

Copple Crown Mountain

We parked the car off of Moose Mountain Road which has room for 3 to 4 cars. We noticed recent tracks that continued in to the parking area for the Ellis R. Hatch Wildlife Management Area, where two trucks were parked.

There is a kiosk about 0.4 miles down the road at the parking area with all kinds of information on the snowmobile routes in the area.

There was recent snowmobile traffic which made hiking easier on these old woods roads with about 5 to 6 inches of snow down for us to hike through.

Brian trudging along in the semi-broken out trail. From here the Copple Crown Mountain Trail was blazed in blue and had these Copple Crown signs pointing you in the right direction. It was still a bit confusing to figure out just where the Copple Crown Mount Trail went.

There were views of some houses of the private Copple Crown Community, which has a private trail. It would have been so much easier to do this hike if we could park down there as the Copple Crown Mountain Trail is about 200-300 feet from this house.

It definitely looks like winter up here. The Copple Crown Mountain Trail starts off as a gradual climb once off the woods road and gets a bit steeper towards the junction.

There is a junction where you get to choose between which summit, the main summit of Copple Crown Mountain or eastern summit, to visit. We would be doing both today.

Due to the poor weather, this are the barely visible views of Belknap Mountain and Gunstock Mountain in the Belknaps from the eastern summit ledges of Copple Crown Mountain (elevation: 1820 feet).

Once back to the junction, we decided to break through the snow to the western summit of Copple Crown Mountain (elevation: 1868 feet), which seemed longer than the 0.3 miles post on the trail sign.

The views from the eastern summit ledges of Copple Crown Mountain looking over the nearby Moose Mountains, also in Brookfield.

At this point, we looked for something to hike on the way home as we were pretty sick of the snow. There were a few peaks in the Squam Range that we thought would be broken out so we headed that way.

Cotton Mountain

Mileage: 1.35

Elevation gain: 615 feet

Trails used: Cotton Mountain Trail.
Highlight(s): views from summit ledges.

We decided Cotton Mountain would be the last peak we would do on the way home since neither of us had been here before, and it possibly could have views despite the weather. It is a pretty popular area for hiking so we knew the chances of having a broken out trail were good.

Cotton Mountain is located in Holderness, New Hampshire and is part of the Squam Range at its southern terminus.  It is just around the corner from the Squam Lakes Natural Science Center. There are two summits to Cotton Mountain; the southern summit is crossed by the Crawford Ridgepole Trail and its northern summit is trail-less. There are views from the southern summit.

We parked at the Cotton Mountain Trail parking area off of NH 113, which was plowed out and had room for 3 to four cars.

The trails in this area are maintained by the Squam Lakes Association and protected by the Squam Lakes Conservation Society.

The Cotton Mountain Trail, which is actually an old road to a gravel pit area, at the start of the trail up to Cotton Mountain was a maze of trees bent over from the recent snowstorm.

The views from the lower of the two summits of Cotton Mountain were better than Copple Crown Mountain at least. Here the view looks out over Squam Lake and towards Red Hill.

This is part of the Cotton Mountain Trail which runs through this nice tree area. The trail is blazed in yellow and is easy to follow.

A parting shot of the snow laden tree damage on the trail. We tried shaking the tree's to get snow off but it was pretty futile. We'll see what happens when it warms up.

These were two hikes with similar results: decent but not great views. Copple Crown Mountain is longer but obviously not as steep. Cotton Mountain was steep for its short length to reach its southern summit. Both could be nice family friendly hikes on nicer days and if you don't mind the views, these hikes are for you.