iron mountain 4/20/14

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bryan

New member
Joined
Mar 2, 2004
Messages
1,019
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Location
southeastern, nh
date: 4/20/14

trails: iron mountain road, iron mountain trail, mine spur

conditions: i parked where the pavement ends at the start of iron mountain road and walked from there as i was not familiar with the area. i could have actually parked about .2 farther up the road in a designated area at a split with another forest road. beyond that split iron mountain road is only seasonally passable. the road was still mostly snow covered though melting fast and turning muddy down low. once on the trail there was still almost total snow cover. with the snow the first bit that passes through some cuts was confusing and i ended up gaining a bunch of elevation on an old road rather than the trail, but a short bushwhack put me back on track. in retrospect this was a good thing as i followed the trail on the return and in that lower section the snow is becoming undermined and rotten. for the most part the trail still had a couple feet of snow on it up to the summit. solid early, but softer on the return. once headed south towards the cliffs there were some substantial melted out areas, but ample sections of snow in between. small cairns melted out of the snow led the way. the spur trail down to the old mine was generally easy to follow and had small cairns marking much of it, but at one point i did lose it and ended up bushwhacking and picking it back up near the old mine shaft. a mixed bag of snow with melted off ledge and one icy ledge section. in general these trails were not recently blazed or marked though some old markings were still visible.

equipment: i wore snowshoes much of the hike, but took them off on the south portion of the trail and on the mine spur as there was too much bare ledge.

comments: nice hike up iron. stunning views from the south cliffs, from a rock just off the trail below the summit to the north and from the open fields around the summer trailhead. the old mining area was quite interesting to see as well. great peak.

bryan

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