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Ski
Hiking Trail Conditions Report
Peaks
Peaks Black Mountain - Northwest Peak (Wentworths Location) , NH
Trails
Trails: Bushwhack, road walk
Date of Hike
Date of Hike: Sunday, September 25, 2022
Parking/Access Road Notes
Parking/Access Road Notes: From Rt 26, I turned onto Coarser Brook Rd and followed it for more than 2mi to where an overgrown grassy centerline road diverges right. BE WARNED: the bridge which this road uses to cross the drainage has a huge hole in its center. If your wheel hit it, you’d be in deep doo-doo. I’m not sure how but I didn’t notice this on the way in. Just a loud thud in my car. Can’t imagine my car caused it as I thick I would’ve been stuck or took the bridge down with me but maybe I’m wrong. In any case I saw it on my way back out and was damn careful to avoid it. Still a nice loud thud though. I obviously wouldn’t pass over this bridge again until it’s repaired. In 1/3mi this grassy centerline road forks. A right will take you east toward the main peak of Black Mtn and a left will take you north toward the northwest peak of Black Mtn. I went left. The road was raised enough in the center that my 7in of clearance sometimes scrapped it. Very narrow and very overgrown too. Some blowdowns I had to move as well including one I wasn’t able to remove but basically lifted up and over the car. That was interesting. Fearing that the worst was yet to come, I parked in a place I could turn around in an old clearing a little more than a 1/2mi from the fork. All these roads are shown on Gaia.  
Surface Conditions
Surface Conditions: Dry Trail, Wet Trail, Mud - Minor/Avoidable, Mud - Significant 
Recommended Equipment
Recommended Equipment:  
Water Crossing Notes
Water Crossing Notes: Rock hopable  
Trail Maintenance Notes
Trail Maintenance Notes: N/A 
Dog-Related Notes
Dog-Related Notes: Brush might be an issue  
Bugs
Bugs: None  
Lost and Found
Lost and Found: None 
 
Comments
Comments: Day 329, Peak 310. 2nd peak of the day after Rice Mtn. From where I parked which was just south of a drainage, I went into the woods and followed the drainage just north of east in brush. Some moose paths and all thought so not too awful. I finally crossed the drainage and kept a better line at about a 1/2mi from my car. Wet around the drainage. Easy grades to here. I then whacked steeply N then NE up to the summit. I don’t recall the woods terribly well but I think once on the other side of the drainage they were no longer brushy and more genuinely woods. The steep ascend up the SW side of the mountain, I think was more of the old skidder road in the softwoods variety but I could be mistaken.

In any case, I was happy to make it to the summit and thought I’d found the highpoint but no register. Probably because there were a bunch of blowdowns here. I did look around elsewhere and didn’t find anything until I was about to give up but finally found the register in some thick but not blowdowny stuff. Right in the center of the highest contour on Gaia. In spruce. I wonder how many people miss this one. Others spoke to how hard it is to find in their sign ins. I decided on the summit to W/SW off the summit and hit the road around the 2200ft contour. This would avoid crossing the drainage and the brush hopefully and wouldn’t involve a road walk back to my car if about a 1/2mi. This was an excellent choice. I had much easier going on my descent (not that the ascent was awful or anything but it wasn’t exactly pleasant either). From the summit, I backtracked back toward where the blowdowns where I first thought the highpoint was as heading any other direction from the register was very thick. Once back in more reasonable woods, I began slabbing W/SW down the mountain. It occasionally looked like I was headed for some thicker stuff but I never really hit any. Mostly good woods and a pretty quick descent.

The hike was a little more than 2.5mi with around 950ft of gain. It took me 2hr15min to complete. 36 more days and 55 more peaks to go…  
Name
Name: Liam Cooney  
E-Mail
E-Mail: liamcooney96@gmail.com 
Date Submitted
Date Submitted: 2022-09-27 
Link
Link: https:// 
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