WeRmudfun
New member
After the camcorder broke on Saturday while hiking Piermont, we decided to head back on Monday to redo the mountain. We figured while we were in the area why not take out another mountain and that's what we did. #85 on the NH Fire Tower List of the 93 towers that are standing, once stood or were proposed...Black Mountain, Benton. It is also on 52WAV. We decided to take the Chippewa Trail and do the side trip over to the Lime Kilns too.
We parked at the small parking lot on Lime Kilns Road and followed the trail until it came to the logging road. There is a sign for the Kilns, so we took a left followed by a right shortly after. The Kilns are a nice piece of history that are being preserved and well worth the side visit to see them. We came to the shorter, 3 ovens first. Further down the trail you can see the big 20 foot high one. We headed the big one and enjoyed exploring and learning about the Kilns. We found 2 geocaches while we were there too.
After seeing all we could there, we returned to the logging road and headed off to the summit of Black Mountain. The Chippewa Trail, which is blazed in yellow, offers a more scenic route than the Black Mountain Trail (old fire tower road) our research showed. The trail itself offered changing forest views along the way with out look areas too. We had read reports that said the trail was only 1.6 miles longs, but the trailhead states it at 1.9 miles. Either way, it is not a bad trail and for the most part it is well marked.
The day was very humid, so the open slab areas were wet, but not too slippery. Some of it we were able to scoot around and stay on the dirt. The views were hazy, but we did get an undercast at one point. When we came to the trail junction with the Black Mountain trail, there appeared to be 3 trails going up to the summit, we took the one in the middle. Once on the summit, there are artifacts from the old fire tower. We walked the whole summit and found the geocache up there also. We wished the day was clearer, but it beat the day we hiked Carr.
We parked at the small parking lot on Lime Kilns Road and followed the trail until it came to the logging road. There is a sign for the Kilns, so we took a left followed by a right shortly after. The Kilns are a nice piece of history that are being preserved and well worth the side visit to see them. We came to the shorter, 3 ovens first. Further down the trail you can see the big 20 foot high one. We headed the big one and enjoyed exploring and learning about the Kilns. We found 2 geocaches while we were there too.
After seeing all we could there, we returned to the logging road and headed off to the summit of Black Mountain. The Chippewa Trail, which is blazed in yellow, offers a more scenic route than the Black Mountain Trail (old fire tower road) our research showed. The trail itself offered changing forest views along the way with out look areas too. We had read reports that said the trail was only 1.6 miles longs, but the trailhead states it at 1.9 miles. Either way, it is not a bad trail and for the most part it is well marked.
The day was very humid, so the open slab areas were wet, but not too slippery. Some of it we were able to scoot around and stay on the dirt. The views were hazy, but we did get an undercast at one point. When we came to the trail junction with the Black Mountain trail, there appeared to be 3 trails going up to the summit, we took the one in the middle. Once on the summit, there are artifacts from the old fire tower. We walked the whole summit and found the geocache up there also. We wished the day was clearer, but it beat the day we hiked Carr.
