Holts Ledge: 4/5/2014

Mileage: 13.35
Elevation gain: 3685 feet
Trails used: Holts Ledge Trail/Appalachian Trail, Lambert Ridge Trail/Appalachian Trail, snowmobile trail, bushwhack.
Highlight(s): Appalachian Trail.

Our thought process for this hike (or lack thereof) was to hope that with the warmer weather, enough snow had melted to attempt our second section of the Appalachian Trail in New Hampshire. The intended route would be as follows: Goose Pond Road, up Holt's Ledge, back down to Lyme-Dorchester Road, then up the Lamberts Ridge Trail to Smarts Mountain, then a road walk back to Brian's car which we had parked on Quinttown Road.  

The weather to start was a mixed bag. It had rained overnight and we knew there was going to be almost a zero chance for views early in the morning, but it was supposed to clear up and get warmer later in the day. Alas, as the day dragged on, it never did clear and we never really got to our destination for the days hike. 

Holts Ledge is located in Lyme, New Hampshire. The Holts Ledge Trail/Appalachian Trail crosses the wooded, view-less summit of Holts Ledge, but the actual views from the Holts Ledge cliffs would be nice (on a less dreary day). Peregrine falcons nest on the ledges so its best to not go to far to the edge of the cliffs as to disturb them. The northern slopes of Holts Ledge is home to the Dartmouth Skiway.

Dartmouth Skiway

We started this hike near this sign off of Goose Pond Road, which was okay because we are outside of hunting season.

As we began the hike, we had to first cross this frozen,snow covered wetlands area. As you can see, there would be zero views today.

There was recent beaver activity in the area as we travelled along the Holts Ledge Trail/Appalachian Trail.

We crossed several rock walls along the Holts Ledge Trail/Appalachian Trail.

We also crossed this snowmobile trail on the way up the Holts Ledge Trail/Appalachian Trail, with signs of recent snowmobile activity.

 It started to get a bit foggy on the way up the Holts Ledge Trail/Appalachian Trail, which was a mixed bag of good snow to snowshoe on and horrible hard crusty snow.

We are crossing the summit of Holts Ledge (elevation: 2110 feet).

 Quite a bit of ice on the summit area of Holts Ledge, and as we headed down the other side of the Holts Ledge Trail was a nice icy rain shower.

 Looking down off a viewpoint near Holts Ledge, which we did not go today because of the lack of views. Interesting tidbit: peregrine falcons nest here during the summer months and the area is protected from human intrusion. Please respect this fragile area.

The trail sign near the Trapper John shelter/Holts Ledge Trail junction. 

We finally reach the end of the Holts Ledge Trail at Lyme-Dorchester Road and would continue along the Appalachian Trail towards Smarts Mountain.

We came across this interesting set up near the Winslow Ledge ski area, complete with pink flamingos. There is free water and ice cream for Appalachian Trail thru hikers (but none for us though sadly since it was out of season). 

We are passing the ski area on Holts Ledge along the Appalachian Trail.

We also passed the Winslow Ledge/Dartmouth Ski Way along the Appalachian Trail.

At this point, the hiking would get interesting. We would make several "smart" decisions that would affect the outcome for the rest of the day. First, since we are section hiking, we wanted to take the Appalachian Trail that runs the bottom of Winslow Ledge for about 1.5 miles. Problem was, this section has not been touched at all this winter so trail breaking was slow and tedious. The snow was still about 2-3 feet in some spots and even with snow shoes, we were barely moving or making much progress.  

No broken out Appalachian Trail and no signs of it having been used at all this winter.

So we made the tough choice to bail off the Appalachian Trail and hit a snowmobile trail, when we saw a few sleds zoom by below us. Problem #2. The snowmobile trail crossed the Appalachian Trail, and kept going up and away from our intended objective. We eventually had to come down an old logging cut back down to the road, and road walk back to the next section of the Appalachian Trail.

We made it to the parking area for the Lambert Ridge Trail, (and also the Firewardens Trail), that goes up to Smarts Mountain.

The hike up the Lambert Ridge Trail/Appalachian Trail started uneventful enough, although it was quite steep.

It was up to this point on the Lambert Ridge Trail/Appalachian Trail that we had to put the snowshoes back on since it was rotten snow and hard to walk on.

The views from some ledges along Lambert Ridge looking back to Holts Ledge, with Moose Mountain in the background.

The views looking up the lower ledges along Lambert Ridge.

The views along the ledges on Lambert Ridge looking toward Mount Cardigan and Mount Kearsarge, in the background.

A zoomed in view of Smarts Mountain's fire tower, which was still roughly 2 miles away.

Problem 3 presented itself. At this point it was getting late, and unfortunately, the somewhat recent snowshoe track ended. We were looking at an almost 4.5 mile hike back to the car with some tough trail breaking ahead of us. Looking at my GPS, I spotted what looked like a road so we made the tough decision to cut our losses, stop the hike here and head down. Hiking back down wasn't as bad, but still tiring. The woods were at least decent and open with lots of moose sign everywhere.

It was a good thing the woods were open as we were heading down, although the snow depth still posed a problem.

Looking back towards Smarts Mountain as we bushwhack down to a snowmobile trail.

The "road" on my GPS turned out to be a bust; it was an old logging road completely snowed over. So yet again, it was more snow misery for us to hike through. We rolled the dice again as we noticed another possible road on the GPS, hoping it was some sort of major road or at least a snowmobile trail.  

We came across this little beaver pond area as we neared the snowmobile trail, with fresh beaver activity.

Our prayers are answered. It did turn out to be a snowmobile trail. Now it was only about 2.5 miles back to the warm car.

While the first part of the hike was nice, it was a long tough hike and we still managed 13 miles even though it didn't feel like we did anything but tire ourselves out. Our next hike will be better thought out since we are both getting very tired (literally and physically) of this never ending snow.