| Hiking Trail Conditions Report |
 | Peaks |
Carr Mountain, NH |
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 | Trails: |
Three Ponds Trail, Carr Mountain Trail, Donkey Hill Trail, Mt. Kineo Trail |
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 | Date of Hike: |
Monday, January 12, 2026 |
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 | Parking/Access Road Notes: |
Three Ponds parking lot marks the end of maintenance of Stinson Lake Rd. Beyond there, the road is not plowed and is gated a little further down. The parking lot, however, is plowed and could hold about 10 cars. 0 cars in lot at 9am and 0 cars when we finished at 4:30pm, but at least one other car did pull in between those times. |
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 | Surface Conditions: |
Snow - Packed Powder/Loose Granular, Snow - Unpacked Powder, Snow/Ice - Frozen Granular |
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 | Recommended Equipment: |
Snowshoes |
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 | Water Crossing Notes: |
The major river crossing on Carr Mountain tr. is ice bridged, but you have to go upstream about 0.1mi to cross. The other small crossings on Donkey Hill tr. are a combination of ice bridges and rock hopping. |
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 | Trail Maintenance Notes: |
There is a tree down partially obstructing Carr Mountain tr. close to the jct. with Three Ponds tr. There are a few more trees down on the higher slopes of Carr, but they are all small and easy to go around. The sign for the jct. of Carr Mountain and Three Ponds trails is looking a little worse for wear. It is still readable, but a corner of it has completely rotted and fallen off. |
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 | Dog-Related Notes: |
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 | Bugs: |
None |
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 | Lost and Found: |
Found microspikes for one shoe on Mt. Kineo trail, brought them back to the trailhead and left them at the kiosk. |
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 | Comments: |
The snowmobile trails all have well packed snow and could be bare-booted, though we chose to keep snowshoes on so we didn't have to take them off and put them back on several times. The lower slopes of Carr Mountain have about 6-10in of snow with a relatively hard, frozen surface, but not quite hard enough to stand on top of. The mid slopes have a combination of harder snow with very fluffy snow on top. Due to high winds last night at this morning, drifts have filled in holes from bare-booters with extremely soft powder, and this has produced brutal ankle rolling conditions as it's impossible to see where holes in the harder snow are. The upper slopes (>2700') are all unpacked powder ranging from 1.5' to 2.5' in depth. Above 3000' there is some drifting in places producing the 2.5' depths, but these are very soft and pack down to be pretty even with the rest of the trail. Summit temps were pretty cold, with light rime icing, and deep drifts. The Donkey Hill and Mt. Kineo trails had very similar conditions to the lower slopes of Carr, hard surface snow, with softer snow underneath, and full of bare-boot tracks making it very slow going. |
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 | Name: |
Mountain Goat |
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 | E-Mail: |
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| Date Submitted: |
2026-01-12 |
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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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