Cilley Mountain-West Peak * Grandview Mountain * Mount Cilley * Sunday Mountain: 9/6/2014

We decided a few days ago that we would do one or two more New Hampshire fire towers to slowly get towards finishing off the few towers we had left. Unfortunately, the weather and humidity worked on us for the better part of the day so we did not manage to do much in the way of hiking like we had planned. We met up in the morning and headed north to begin the days hiking.

Cilley Mountain-West Peak - Grandview Mountain - Mount Cilley

Mileage: 7.75 miles

Elevation gain: 1780 feet

Trails used: none. snowmobile trails, woods roads, bushwhack.
Highlight(s): old fire tower remains on Grandview Mountain.

Grandview Mountain would be our first (and only as it turns out) fire tower peak of the day, and not for lack of effort (the heat and humidity tapped us out on our first hike). Along the way, we would tack on Cilley Mountain-West Peak and Mount Cilley. Why you ask?  Well, because we could and they are right there.

Cilley Mountain-West Peak, Mount Cilley and Grandview Mountain are located in Woodstock, New Hampshire. All three wooded summits are trail-less but it was very easy to navigate in the mainly open woods we found. Bonus, you get to use old forest roads and snowmobile trails to access them. Grandview Mountain had an observation tower on it's lower eastern summit and even had an old ski tow area on one of its slopes back in the 1950's.

Grandview Mountain is on the New Hampshire Fire Tower List.

We took the FR 156 off of Route 188 towards Elbow Pond and parked right at the junction for Elbow pond and a snowmobile trail. We decided to do Cilley Mountain-West Peak on the way up, then hit Grandview Mountain and finally Mount Cilley.  

We had a nice fern bushwhack through open woods heading up to Cilley Mountain-West Peak (elevation: 2030 feet).  

We took several snowmobile trails to get us closer to Grandview Mountain.  

The nice fern covered main summit of Grandview Mountain (elevation: 2012 feet).

The old observation tower remains on the eastern summit of Grandview Mountain.

The woods stayed open as we started heading from Grandview Mountain over to Mount Cilley.

We came across several of these rock piles stacked up in one location on the way up to the summit area of Mount Cilley.

 The summit area of Mount Cilley (elevation: 2227 feet).

We made good time and hit the forest road and walked back to the parked car. Here is someone idea of camping. Just pull your trailer in and put a tarp over it.

Back at the car, and with the air conditioner in full effect, we decided to do another hike. We figured out we wanted to do something with a trail so I mentioned Sunday Mountain and it's choice of two trails. We decided we would be taking the Cross-Rivendell Trail roughly 2 miles one way to the summit, and then back down to the car. So we had a bit of a drive to get there and enjoy the cool car before we would attempt the next hike.

Sunday Mountain

Mileage: 3.9 miles

Elevation gain: 1050 feet

Trails used: Cross Rivendell Trail.

Highlight(s): none.

After over shooting the trailhead initially, we turned around and found it after checking the internet and confirming with the gazetteer. When we started this particular hike, it had rained a bit beforehand which made the humidity worse as we did the hike. It stayed dreary for a bit, and the humidity stuck around for the duration. We were pretty much geared up and ready to go so we grabbed our backpacks, refreshed our water supplies and headed out.

Sunday Mountain is located in Orford, New Hampshire. We would use The Cross Rivendell Trail, which is a 36 mile trail that starts at Flagpole Hill in Vermont and ends on Mount Cube in New Hampshire. The Cross Rivendell Trail crosses over the wooded, viewless summit of Sunday Mountain but there were a few sections where you could get some slight views through the trees.

Cross Rivendell Trail

The Cross Rivendell Trailhead kiosk (complete with trail map) right off of Dame Hill Road and Route 25A. The directions to get to the actual trail are on the blue sign to the left.

We did a road walk to get to here and had to cross into the woods along the edge of a farm.

There was this old piece of farm equipment along the Cross Rivendell Trail, as you pass a farm along the way.

One of the several switchbacks we would navigate on our way to the summit of Sunday Mountain. We would follow this old woods road (which is part of the Cross Rivendell Trail) up towards the summit of Sunday Mountain.

Another switchback with nice grades and good blazing which made the Cross Rivendell Trail easy to follow.

Sadly, this was about the only view we would get for this hike looking towards Mount Cube.

The summit area for Sunday Mountain (elevation: 1823 feet). A summit/hike only a peakbagger would love.

The summit cairn and summit area of Sunday Mountain.

We turned around and headed down the switchbacks and made good time to this farm area we passed on the way in. It had started to rain just before we got here.

We were hit by the heat and humidity most of the day and Brian suffered the most on the trip down from Sunday Mountain. With summer's day's slowly numbered, hopefully the nice crisp fall weather we love will show itself soon. We still managed to get 11 tough miles to add to the totals for the year, and we managed to get another fire tower peak done. That makes 3 more fire tower hikes to go.