Outdoor Diversion: Up the Ladders and Down Through the Caves

Today I would be joining Scott, Lisa and Jim for a loop hike up Mount Morgan over to Mount Percival and down. This hike is on the Terrifying 25 list because of the ladders going up the side of some ledges on Mount Morgan and the boulder caves coming down off of Mount Percival. This sounded like a fun hike!

Part of the challenge of this hike was finding the trailhead. This is a long drive for me and I am not familiar with the area. I used my GPS and still managed to take a wrong turn. I got back on track and found both trailheads, one for Mount Morgan and one for Mount Percival. This is a very popular hike but I arrived earlier enough to find plenty of parking and parked at the Mount Morgan trailhead. Jim was already there, Scott and Lisa pulled in after me.

We were soon on the trail and could hear light rain falling on the leaves above us, we never did get wet. It was a nice hike up to the ladders below the summit. Lisa was the first one up followed by Scott then Jim and finally me. There are three sets of ladders and it was a little tricky crossing over to the upper third set. At the top of the ladders there was a short cave to go through with an opening at the other end just big enough to get myself out of without removing my pack.

There was more ledge scrambling before reaching the summit. When we got to the top one hiker was sitting there. The views of Squam Lake were spectacular! We took a break and enjoyed the views before moving on. What we thought was the summit was not and we found this out by taking a spur path and locating a summit marker. We then continued on to Mount Percival.

It was a nice hike across the Crawford-Ridgepole Trail with some minor ups and downs along the way. We were soon on top of the granite summit of Mount Percival. After another break we began the steep descent to the boulder caves. More fun awaited us!

As we went down into the large boulders the trail became obscure. Lisa was leading the way and dropped down into a dead end and had to climb back out. We found the way down into the first cave and it required removing our packs to squeeze through the small opening. There was one more cave that hiker and backpack had to pass through separately. We popped out of the second cave and it was a rocky climb down.

After a stretch of rocks and roots the trail smoothed out and it was a pleasant hike down. Worth mentioning is a large hornet nest right beside the trail. I was looking down and would not have noticed it but Scott pointed it out to me. I didn't see any hornets but Scott did and I wasn't about to whack it with my pole so I could see them. A little further down the trail the clouds started to clear and the sun was coming out.

We took the half mile Morse Trail back to the Mt Morgan Trail and it was a short walk to the parking lot from there. The lot was full and there were cars continually driving in to check for a parking space and asking us if we were leaving. The trailhead to Rattlesnake Mountain was across the road and the vehicles coming and going trying to get into the parking lots was maddening. Two cars parked nearby waiting for us to leave, so we took our time. My advice to all of them would be to get there early and avoid the crowd.

That was a fun hike today and I'm glad we got an early start to this very popular hike.

Enjoy the photos!