WeRmudfun
New member
Mount Roberts is on 52WAV, the Ossipee 10 and NH Little Mountains Lists. Faraway Mtn is on the Ossipee 10 List. The range itself was created from the remains of an ancient volcano and has an almost perfect circular ring dike.
We took our first stroll in the Ossipee range on Sunday. We parked at Castle in the Clouds upper parking lot near the bottling plant and had the whole area to ourselves. After gearing up we headed down to the stable and found the Mt Roberts Trail. The trail was very hard packed, but there was a lot of evidence of prior postholing. We did start out bare booting it. The trail is blazed in orange and is very easy to follow.
After the trail veers away from the pasture , there is a couple of inclines, we put the Hillsounds on after the first one and left them on until the summit of Mt Roberts. We checked out the scenic outlook and the views were OK, but a clear day would have made them much better. The nice thing about this trail is there are a lot of open areas on the way up for viewing.
We made it to the summit of Mt Roberts, checked out the views and the trail conditions heading out on the High Range Trail which is blazed in blue. Someone had attempted it bare booting and it wasn’t pretty, they also didn’t go very far. We put on the snowshoes and broke out the trail all the way to what we believe is the Faraway Mt Overlook. The snow had about a ½ inch of crust on top which made breaking the trail out a bit more difficult. The sign listed the overlook at 1.1 miles, but the overlook we found was at 1.5 miles. We went a little further, then checked the map and the GPS and found out that we missed the trail going up to Faraway, so we turned around.
The chain attached to two trees that we were looking for was a little harder to find than we thought it would be probably due to the snow cover. We did find it heading back. The trail up to the summit is marked with yellow and orange tape tied to the trees. Once we got to the summit we did a quick look around and found an old snowshoe track, which looked like a bushwhack. We followed it and it went almost all the way back to the High Range Trail. We talked to another hiker who was surprised that the trail wasn’t packed down by sled, from the people in charge of the antennas. He also said that the actual summit is further in, but there is no trail, so everyone considers the summit to be at the antennas.
We headed back to Mt Roberts, took off the snowshoes and put the Hillsounds back on. The skies cleared, but we were tired. We ended up hiking over 10 miles and had the snowshoes on for over 4 miles. Faraway Mtn was not a place we would consider doing again in the middle of winter breaking trail. It’s just too Faraway! LOL
All in all this probably is a much nicer trek in the fall. The link for the video is here for anyone that is interested in seeing what the hike and trail conditions are like.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2DEFUmFluk&list=UUvonD5mWIH03yQY3eosLwcQ&feature=c4-overview
We took our first stroll in the Ossipee range on Sunday. We parked at Castle in the Clouds upper parking lot near the bottling plant and had the whole area to ourselves. After gearing up we headed down to the stable and found the Mt Roberts Trail. The trail was very hard packed, but there was a lot of evidence of prior postholing. We did start out bare booting it. The trail is blazed in orange and is very easy to follow.
After the trail veers away from the pasture , there is a couple of inclines, we put the Hillsounds on after the first one and left them on until the summit of Mt Roberts. We checked out the scenic outlook and the views were OK, but a clear day would have made them much better. The nice thing about this trail is there are a lot of open areas on the way up for viewing.
We made it to the summit of Mt Roberts, checked out the views and the trail conditions heading out on the High Range Trail which is blazed in blue. Someone had attempted it bare booting and it wasn’t pretty, they also didn’t go very far. We put on the snowshoes and broke out the trail all the way to what we believe is the Faraway Mt Overlook. The snow had about a ½ inch of crust on top which made breaking the trail out a bit more difficult. The sign listed the overlook at 1.1 miles, but the overlook we found was at 1.5 miles. We went a little further, then checked the map and the GPS and found out that we missed the trail going up to Faraway, so we turned around.
The chain attached to two trees that we were looking for was a little harder to find than we thought it would be probably due to the snow cover. We did find it heading back. The trail up to the summit is marked with yellow and orange tape tied to the trees. Once we got to the summit we did a quick look around and found an old snowshoe track, which looked like a bushwhack. We followed it and it went almost all the way back to the High Range Trail. We talked to another hiker who was surprised that the trail wasn’t packed down by sled, from the people in charge of the antennas. He also said that the actual summit is further in, but there is no trail, so everyone considers the summit to be at the antennas.
We headed back to Mt Roberts, took off the snowshoes and put the Hillsounds back on. The skies cleared, but we were tired. We ended up hiking over 10 miles and had the snowshoes on for over 4 miles. Faraway Mtn was not a place we would consider doing again in the middle of winter breaking trail. It’s just too Faraway! LOL
All in all this probably is a much nicer trek in the fall. The link for the video is here for anyone that is interested in seeing what the hike and trail conditions are like.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2DEFUmFluk&list=UUvonD5mWIH03yQY3eosLwcQ&feature=c4-overview
