Franconia Ridge

Franconia Ridge

Tuesday, April 27, 2021

Hiking to Black and Blueberry Mountains


A beautiful Spring day was in the forecast. I wanted to take a break from hiking the 4,000 footers with their nasty Spring trail conditions of snow, ice and slush. I decided to hike a couple of lower elevation summits on the 52 with a View list. I would be joining Larry for a hike to Blueberry Mountain and Black Mountain, two separate but short hikes.

We met in Lincoln to plan our strategy. After a review of the map we decided to do Blueberry Mountain first. This is an area of New Hampshire that I am not familiar with so I followed Larry. The Long Pond Road gate was closed so we parked on High Street.

It's a 0.7 mile road walk to the trailhead. The trail to the summit is a very gradual and easy incline with no steep sections. Other than a few frozen puddles from cold temps last night there was no ice or snow anywhere. There are good views along the way from open ledges. The views were a little less impressive on the summit as the surrounding trees are starting to obscure the views but there was still spectacular scenery to be seen through the trees by walking around.

On the way back down we met a few hikers coming up. Back at the road where we parked our vehicles Larry checked the map and we were soon on the way to Black Mountain for our second hike of the day. Blueberry Mountain was a good warm-up hike.

We found the trailhead and started our hike to the summit. After a short descent from the parking area the trail started a gradual climb. It then became a fairly steep climb. As we got closer to the top we experienced a couple of false summits. Even though I had GPS and knew it wasn't the true summits it would sure appear as though they were. The trail kept going by these prominent ledges and finally brought us up to the true summit.

There are spectacular views from this summit. We found a nice warm ledge and had the summit to ourselves. After a short break for a snack and to enjoy the views we started our descent. It was a nice hike down. We took the short path to visit the lime kilns. The large one was quite impressive.

Since these two hikes are way off the beaten path it's nice to do them both in the same day as they are relatively close together. It was a beautiful Spring day for these hikes. There was no snow or ice so no need for traction and there was some minimal avoidable mud and water. I had a light pack and my summer hiking shoes. 

Today was a pleasant change after some tough hiking over the past month. These two hikes were exactly what I was looking for and I added a couple of new summits to my list!

Enjoy the photos!

Road walk starts here

Slide Brook

Trailhead to Blueberry Mountain

Open woods

Very easy ledge scrambles

On the summit of Blueberry Mountain

View of Mount Moosilauke and South Peak

Mount Moosilauke

South Peak

Killington Ski Area

Small patch of ice on the trail

Reindeer lichen

Snowy peaks on the other side of a ridge

Almost back down from the summit of Blueberry Mountain

Small brook

On our way up Black Mountain

Heading up

Bluets blooming


Lots of cones and a view

False summit

Summit up ahead

Mount Washington peaking up behind Cannon Mountain

Kinsmans

Franconia Ridge behind the Kinsmans

Mount Moosilauke

The further ridge is Blueberry Mountain

Starting our descent

The only snow we saw all day

Lime kiln

A look back at Black Mountain

Huge blowdown beside bog bridge

Walking back up to the parking area



Having Fun in the Great Outdoors!


 

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