moosilauke view

moosilauke view
Originally uploaded by wereldmuis.

Soon, I left Moosilauke's summit and decided that I had time to do a loop back to the car.

As it turned out, I was cutting it close. Moosilauke Carriage Rd is a very easy trip all the way to Hurricane Trail. It's wide, not too steep, and has some nice views on the way down.

But Hurricane Trail was a mess. The 800 ft climb from Moosilauke Carriage Rd to the summit was a river, with lots of deep puddles that needed to be navigated with care. That made the going very slow. I think it took over an hour to do about 1.6 miles here. It didn't help that I was tired from the Moosilauke climb already.

I hit the saddle near Hurricane Mtn at around 4 pm. I was already worried that I'd be coming out in darkness, so I made my way down the trail as quickly as possible. This half of the trail was still wet, but not nearly as bad as the other side.

I made it out at 5 pm, and there was still plenty of light, so I got lucky there. Not much room for error. Overall, though, it was a great day!

moosilauke view

moosilauke view
Originally uploaded by wereldmuis.

This is a view from the summit of Mt Moosilauke. Words can't describe this mountain. 360 degrees of great views. Wow!

I was lucky and got to spend 20 minutes wandering around at the top inspecting the area. I had the place totally to myself. There are a lot of cairns, multiple rock shelters, two plaques, a geodetic survey marker, and a lot of engravings in the boulders.

The temperature must have been around 50 °F up here, but I put on a light jacket because the wind was blowing so hard. Any snow that accumulated over the last couple weeks was almost gone. The trails were clear of ice and snow.

view of moosilauke from south peak

view of moosilauke from south peak
Originally uploaded by wereldmuis.

It's worth it to take the spur trail over to South Peak, only 0.2 miles off the Glencliff Trail. There are amazing views from South Peak in practically every direction.

You can see the trail up to Mt Moosilauke in this photo. It's an unbelievably easy stroll over to the peak from here. Of course, I did have great weather, which helped!

glencliff trail

glencliff trail
Originally uploaded by wereldmuis.

It took me 2 h 15 minutes to hike from the Glencliff trailhead to the junction with Moosilauke Carriage Rd. That's 3 miles, up 3000 ft. The AMC Guide estimates it as a 3 hour trip, so I did incredibly well up this part of the trip.

It really helps to have a clean, dry trail without a lot of obstacles.

mt moosilauke

mt moosilauke
Originally uploaded by wereldmuis.

Today's hike: 6 h 15 min | 11.2 mi | 1.8 mph

I took the Glencliff Trail to Mt Moosilauke (at 4802 ft), an elevation gain of 3300 ft. This was my 13th 4000-footer.

On the way back, I made a loop of it by taking Moosilauke Carriage Rd and then following Hurricane Trail back to the Glencliff Trail. Hurricane Trail takes you up another 900 feet.

The Glencliff Trail up to the junction with Moosilauke Carriage Rd is among the easier trails I've taken up a 4000-footer. It helped that the trail was fairly dry, with no ice or snow; in fact the weather was spectacular!