| Hiking Trail Conditions Report |
 | Peaks |
Doublehead Mountain - East Peak, Doublehead Mountain - West Peak, Mt. Squam, NH |
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 | Trails: |
Road walk, Doublehead Trail, Crawford-Ridgepole Trail, Mt. Percival Trail |
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 | Date of Hike: |
Sunday, December 15, 2019 |
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 | Parking/Access Road Notes: |
Only car at Percival trailhead at 9:15. Only one other at 2:30. Definitely more out though so I think most park at the Mt Morgan lot. Ice at the entrance/exit of lot but no issues. Room for well over a dozen cars here. I’m sure it overflows during the summer though. One car at the Doublehead lot. Room for more than a dozen probably. For those heading to the Doublehead Trail parking lot, although the road wasn’t muddy and just a bit soft, there was one section of minor washout where the stream dumped out onto the road a bit and dumped some rock there. The remaining section of “good road†probably isn’t wide enough for most cars. Like I said, it’s minor so I doubt anything will be done about it, but not sure I’d trust a small car to handle it. I’d be real careful if you didn’t have AWD/4WD. The dirt roads in this area weren’t muddy surprisingly but were a bit soft/wet. Most were easy in a FWD vehicle even if there was a little slipping and sliding with the exception of Dinsmore Pond Rd which was siginificantly wetter and steeper than the other roads I was on. Couldn’t get up one hill and had to back up. |
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 | Surface Conditions: |
Dry Trail, Ice - Black, Wet Trail, Ice - Blue, Wet/Slippery Rock, Standing/Running Water on Trail, Mud - Minor/Avoidable, Leaves - Significant/Slippery, Snow/Ice - Small Patches |
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 | Recommended Equipment: |
Light Traction |
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 | Water Crossing Notes: |
Only one true crossing 0.9mi into the Mt Percival Trail. It’s just a small brook but water was still very high yesterday. Easy to rock hop though. Not as bad as my hike Saturday but still lots of unofficial water crossings with all the rain we’ve had. Especially in the col between Doublehead and Squam where there was a significant section of standing/running water on the trail. |
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 | Trail Maintenance Notes: |
All trails were well blazed in yellow diamonds and older yellow blaze. There’s some odd twists and turns you could miss if you weren’t looking up at the blaze and I actually wondered just off trail a couple times. Very easy to retrace your steps and find the trail though as you can almost always see at least one blaze from any spot on the trail. There seemed to be lots of erosion on both Doublehead Trail and Mt Percival Trail. Some drainages are clogged obviously. One hiker I ran into was kind enough to kick one or two out. |
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 | Dog-Related Notes: |
None seem. Some tricky scrambles on the Crawford-Ridgepole Trail you might need to help them with. Although yesterday was an exception, there’s generally little water along these trails for them. |
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 | Bugs: |
None |
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 | Lost and Found: |
Found wht looked to be like a summer gaiter ior headband unfortunately still frozen to some rock on what I believe was the western summit of Doublehead. |
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 | Comments: |
Made a loop by parking at the Mt Percival trailhead, walking 3.5mi to the Doublehead trailhead and taking the Doublehead Trail, Crawford-Ridgepole Trail, and Mt Percival Trail back to my car. About 9.5mi including the road walk with just a little over 2000ft of elevation gain. 40F both when I left my car and returned to it. A very windy day but warm enough that it was tolerable especially given how warm it was.
The road walk was a nice warm up although it wasn’t as nice as walking from the eastern end of Old Highway to Mt Morgan trailhead like I did a few weeks back where you walk along the water. See my notes above about the road walk along Thompson Rd to get to Doublehead Trail where there was some washout and a single clump of snow in the middle of the road. A mix of wet and dry trail on Doublehead Trail with lots of leaves. Once at the jct with Crawford-Rigepole Trail I went a little ways easy to soak up the views. First time there was enough ice that microspikes would’ve been nice but not nearly enough for you to actually want to put them on. I got cold up there with the chilling wind which seemed significantly worse here than anywhere else.
I eventually meandered my way over to Squam. Some tricky ledge scrambles along the way the hardest of which I ascended rather than descended in this direction. A stretch of standing/running water in here and there was some ice and a little bit of patchy snow off trail. Nice views from around Squam. Between this, Doublehead, and Percival, I don’t remember exactly where I saw what but throughout the day I saw Squam Lake and the Belknaps behind it, Red Hill with the Ossipees behind it, nearby Mt Israel with Dinsmore Mtn underneath it and even closer, Sandwich Dome with Black Mtn underneath, Mount Morgan and Webster, and although things were a little sketchier in this direction, Welch/Dickey and I believe the Osceolas. Squam to Percival seemed easier than Doublehead to Squam which seems to me to be the hardest part of the Crawford-Rodgepole Trail. Soaked up the views for a second on a Percival and then headed down.
Only saw two people all day. One that did and our and back to Squam from Doublehead Trail that had cleaned out the waterbars, and one just below the summit of Percival along Mt Percival Trail that was headdd up. He said he saw five people going down so I imagine several people were doing the Morgan/Percival Loop and had parked in the Morgan lot. |
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 | Name: |
Liam Cooney |
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 | E-Mail: |
liamcooney96@gmail.com |
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| Date Submitted: |
2019-12-16 |
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 | Link: |
 https:// |
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Disclaimer: Reports are not verified - conditions may vary. Use at own risk. Always be prepared when hiking. Observe all signs. Trail conditions reports are not substitutes for weather reports or common sense. |
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