| Hiking Trail Conditions Report |
 | Peaks |
Perry Pond Peak, Prospect Hill - West Peak, NH |
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 | Trails: |
Bushwhack, Border Swath, Cohos Trail/Sophie's Lane |
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 | Date of Hike: |
Friday, October 3, 2025 |
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 | Parking/Access Road Notes: |
We launched from the drivable end of Sophie's Lane, with our car spot from this morning still at the border station. Sophie's lane was unpleasant to drive - no specific area was unpassable, but it's a lot of miles on a rough road. It felt worse than much of the stuff in the Coarser Brook area and was bad enough one group member (the hero) offered to walk the northern, undriveable stretch of Sophie's Lane/Cohos trail back to the car to save us having to drive another vehicle in there 2 ways. |
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 | Surface Conditions: |
Dry Trail |
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 | Recommended Equipment: |
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 | Water Crossing Notes: |
We stayed below the mud others have referenced, but still found some running water in places. Swath was dry. |
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 | Trail Maintenance Notes: |
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 | Dog-Related Notes: |
Champ would like more moose friends please. Tucker has enough friends already.
Seems like dogs aren't welcome on 4th CT lake trail, but fine on the swath? |
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 | Bugs: |
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 | Lost and Found: |
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 | Comments: |
Traverse #2 for the day. We took a pretty straight line up Perry Ponds Peak, in generally good woods, navigating one area of cliff bands. This was steep in places and flat in others. Got a bit tight towards the summit, but we found the cannister a bit NW of the first area we searched. From here, we headed towards the southern curve in the swath, between Prospect and Prospect west. This worked pretty well, and we crossed Perry stream around 2625ft. Ascending up to the swath was slower and more annoying, partly because it was the end of a long day and partly because the topography kept wanting to pull us up towards Perry Bog. We even had a false peak, and another ridge to descend before we hit the swath. Short section of the swath, including one of those short but unnecessarily steep sections without much of a foot path to get to Prospect W, found the cannister on the southern bump as described in other reports and headed back on the swath to the border crossing. Prospect (main, not W) has what seems like a freshly cleared summit, with gorgeous, near 360 views. Best views of the day. Then there were maybe 4 more of those short/steep sections, making the swath harder than we were expecting. One of them was pretty sketchy, with the only passable spot being a narrow/eroded chute on the US side - felt like navigating cliff bands!
Took us about an hour from the car to PPP, another hour from PPP to west prospect, and another hour from west prospect to the border crossing.
We briefly contemplated doing this whole day without a car spot and trying to cross the CT river over to Sophie's lane after descending Scott Bog South, but I'm glad we didn't. Driving up Sophie's lane, we noticed how brushy and difficult the area to the east was. I'm sure there would be a way to do it, but you could easily end up in some nasty stuff trying to cross the river |
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 | Name: |
Big Al Dente |
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 | E-Mail: |
bigaldentenh@gmail.com |
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| Date Submitted: |
2025-10-04 |
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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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