I hadn’t been out hiking for a month, so I was itching to get back out in the woods. It snowed (a lot!) last weekend, but this week’s rain compacted and froze most of that snow into a hardpack. Nonetheless, Tim and I headed out this morning for a quick hike. An overnight snow squall had dusted the forest with a fresh, thin layer of snow, which made for pretty scenery. We chose Sunday Mountain, a forested bump of about 1800′ elevation up in Orford, NH, along the Rivendell Trail.
I’d been there once before, approaching from the east. Today, we approached from the west. Although the smooth snow along the trail indicated we were the first hikers to visit since last weekend’s snowfall, we were far from the first creatures to pass this way today. The dusting of snow, on top of a hard snowpack, meant every animal track was sharp and clear. Squirrels were plentiful, deer were common, but most interesting were the tracks we found on a rocky outcrop along the summit ridgeline. Coyotes – several of them – had gathered and paused here, just a few hours earlier, no doubt scanning the forest below for some of the deer that had also been laying tracks in the snow.
After that outcrop, the trail followed the ridgeline to the summit. We were breaking trail in snow that was sometimes an inch deep, and sometimes two feet deep, depending on how it had drifted as the wind blew over the ridgeline. The rain had formed a hard crust over the snow, not quite strong enough to hold our weight, so each footstep involved a step/crunch, tiring work. Still, in this hardwood forest, we had decent views between the trees and out toward Mount Cube, Smarts Mountain, and even (shrouded in clouds) Mount Moosilauke.
Hike stats:
Distance: 5.74km
Elevation gain: 278m
Time: 2h32m, with stops
David Kotz 