Franconia Ridge

Franconia Ridge

Tuesday, June 26, 2018

A Cool Summer Hike to Tecumseh

A check of the weather forecast yesterday indicated spectacular weather moving in for today. I took a day off from work and decided to hike Mount Tecumseh, a summit that I needed for the month of June. I would be hiking the Mount Tecumseh Trail from Tripoli Road. I've hiked the trail from this side once before and enjoyed it. This would be a solo hike today.

It was a cool morning as I drove to the trailhead. The sky was clear and the summits were beautiful against the blue sky. As I was driving down Tripoli Road I came around a bend in the road and saw to barred owls fly up into the woods. I managed to watch one fly onto a tree branch but it was difficult to get a clear photo through the leaves and branches. I was disappointed with the quality of the photo but happy to have seen them.

I pulled into an empty parking lot. I had the trail to myself. It was a nice, cool ascent. On a beautiful day like today I thought hikers would be coming up from the more popular Waterville Valley side but I had the summit to myself. It took a couple of minutes for them to find me but the black flies soon covered all of my available exposed skin. They were quite intolerable. After some hasty summit photos I quickly started my descent. As long as I kept moving the black flies were not a problem.

It was a nice hike back down. I met two hikers coming up and it was the only two that I would see all day until I reached the parking lot and a family of hikers was just starting up. I was certainly glad that I had taken the day off as the conditions were absolutely ideal. It makes up for those winter days that were not so ideal. Hazy, hot and humid weather is in the forecast for this upcoming weekend. I'll be looking for another short hike to close out the month of June.

Enjoy the photos and video!

Two barred owls were on Tripoli Road that flew up into the woods but I was able to watch this one

Easy water crossing

Very low water

Top half of this tree is hanging over the tail

Burl is forming on this tree

A cairn beside the trail

Bunchberries

The moose was here

Coming up to a high point on the trail before dropping back down
Tecumseh can be seen through the trees

Recent trail work cleared several blowdowns


Crooked tree

It was a cool morning walk through the woods

The summit is up ahead

On the summit

A beautiful clear day

The Tripyramids

North Tripyramid

Spectacular views

Appears to be construction on the ski area below

Looking down from the summit

The Osceolas

Summit sign

Starting my descent

The Franconia summits in the distance

More bunchberries

Eastern tiger swallowtail

Mount Moosilauke where I hiked last Saturday

Ferns along the trail

More ferns

A built-in seat on this boulder

A mushroom hat over this burl

Admiral butterfly

Wings spread

Back at the beginning after 6.2 miles in 4 hours





Having Fun in the Great Outdoors!


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