| Hiking Trail Conditions Report |
 | Peaks |
Bald Knob, Mt. Crosby, NH |
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 | Trails: |
Romley-Remick Road, Old North Groton Road, Bald Knob Trail, Beeline Trail, High Pasture Loop |
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 | Date of Hike: |
Monday, November 1, 2021 |
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 | Parking/Access Road Notes: |
Easy to drive by the trailhead if you're driving south on North Groton Rd as you can't see the sign for it from this direction. If coming from this direction (north) it will be on your left. I drove by it, turned around, and it was much harder to miss heading north since there was a sign for it on the right. The road in is short, dirt, narrow, and a bit rough. Be careful not to get yourself in a ditch. Be careful in low clearance vehicles. Don't be fooled into thinking that it's a driveway. There are only two parking spots on the left before the gate. |
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 | Surface Conditions: |
Dry Trail, Wet Trail, Wet/Slippery Rock, Standing/Running Water on Trail, Mud - Minor/Avoidable, Mud - Significant, Leaves - Significant/Slippery |
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 | Recommended Equipment: |
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 | Water Crossing Notes: |
Only minor water crossings on these trails though the water was gushing. If I were in trail runners, I may have gotten a foot wet on one of them but easy in waterproof boots. |
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 | Trail Maintenance Notes: |
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 | Dog-Related Notes: |
Didn't see any but I think these trails would be quite suitable for dogs. |
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 | Bugs: |
Nonee |
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 | Lost and Found: |
None |
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 | Comments: |
The trails are all blazed in yellow which can be confusing. The "road" trails are truly roads and thus very easy to follow. Other trails are a footpath thus not as obvious but not difficult to follow. Just follow the yellow blaze and small cairns around the ledges. Might need to use a little intuition on the ledges but nothing too difficult. No blowdowns that I recall. My friends who started before us ran into someone who was going out to do some trail work. I believe he was working on some drainage on the road. The "yellow-blazed" trail, unnamed on the online map and named as such in the SNH trail guide and redlining spreadsheet, did not seem to be signed, and we walked right by it at its jct with High Pasture Loop.
And so it begins...1 day in and 1 peak down. 364 more days and peaks to go. A great crew to start the 500 Highest with. Thank you Rick, Marie, and Barb for their company :) A windy but sunny and relatively warm day. Mid-high 50s in Plymouth and 52F at the trailhead.
Route: Romley-Remick Road --> Old North Groton Road --> Bald Knob Trail --> Beeline Trail --> High Pasture Loop --> Old North Groton Rd --> Romley-Remick Road
There was a kiosk at the start with trail maps inside of a canister but they were all out of maps, unfortunately. A very short ways in on Romley-Remick Road we noted a structure off in the woods to our left maybe 50ft off trail. We went into the woods to look at it and were quite enamored with it as we couldn't figure out what the hell it was!! Maybe part of an old dam? Some sort of plumbing system?? Very interesting looking and would love to learn more if anyone knows and cares to share :) Check it out for yourself! The hike started gaining elevation a little sooner than we anticipated; namely, shortly after we turned onto Old North Groton Road and crossed the little water crossing. We turned left at onto Bald Knob Trail and noted in 0.1mi where we'd be coming down on High Pasture Loop (the trail appeared to be narrow and a bit overgrown here though we'd find it quite easy to follow on the way down). When we got to the next jct, we turned left to stay on Bald Knob Trail and the forest soon began to change. We really enjoyed this as the forest was filled with some nice ferns at times, moss carpeted at others, had some nice cliffs, ledges, and rock formations, among other things. We made our way up to Bald Knob with nice views to Tenney and Plymouth mountains. Lots of ups and downs and "Are we there yets?" to Mount Crosby. Nice view toward aforementioned peaks and the Whites from the ledges (Sandwich Dome, Tripyramids, Tecumseh, etc). Some steep, semi-soil-covered ledge here but no real scrambling. We noted a few times where the ledge was quite wet underneath leaves here which we took care to avoid.
We walked around the summit a bit, making sure to touch the highpoint. Cairns in the area of the highpoint but not truly at it as I recall. No canister/jar was found. Not sure if true high point was on or off trail. We were also out there to work on our SNH redlining, so it's worthy to note that, though the trail maps indicated there was a "spur" that headed a short ways north off the summit. We never saw it. My friend's guess, and I think it's a good one, is that the trail used to cut back a short ways to Beeline (so the start/end of Beeline Trail was moved) Trail, and an out-and-back continued a very short ways. This changed and the spur became the end of Bald Knob Trail and Beeline Trail was extended to it. That't the hypothesis anyway.
On our way down, we meant to do an out-and-back on the "yellow blaze" trail shown on trail map (link attached below). We noted the jct with High Pasture Loop Trail but it didn't compute that this was where we needed to do our out-and-back. Oops. Guess we'll have to do that when we redline the rest of the area. Some steep pitches on the way down as on the way up but otherwise an easy, great afternoon hike. |
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 | Name: |
Liam Cooney |
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 | E-Mail: |
liamcooney96@gmail.com |
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| Date Submitted: |
2021-11-02 |
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 | Link: |
 https://forestsociety.org/sites/default/files/Cockermouth_WebMap2020.pdf |
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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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