Mt Hale

The Summer is flying by ever so quickly. I had read how Mt Hale was one of the "easier" 4000'ers, plus it was on the NH Fire Tower list as well. Bonus. We were up and on the road early and about halfway up it turned very overcast and some raindrops started to fall. This hadn't been in the forecast I had read. I quickly looked again and sure enough, "7% chance of rain".. We drove in and out of some relatively heavy downpours, but I was determined to keep going. You never know what the weather might be like on the other side of Franconia Notch, plus I felt that if it wasn't raining when we arrived at the trail head, we would take a chance and head up anyway.. the trail was only 2.2 miles long, I had not read about any rock slabs or ledges that might be treacherous in wet conditions, plus this was a viewless summit, so if we were in cloud it wouldn't matter. We arrived at the Hale Brook trail head on Zealand Road around 8:30am and geared up. I had driven past Zealand Road so many times on our way to Bretton Woods for skiing or various races over the years, I have been chomping at the bit to do this hike and cross it off the various lists it sits on. The trail was damp, but never really wet. The climb is moderate (per my definition) but nothing crazy. There were no real flat sections, it was (or at least it felt like) climbing the entire way.. but I never stopped at any point thinking "I can't do this anymore".. naturally I had to take breather breaks and normal rests, but I was never thinking "make it stop".. which I have done before. I could tell we were hiking up into cloud, which had the boys rather fascinated. It was slow going for a 2.2 mile trail,  but we eventually made it to the summit, which is basically a small field with a large cairn in the middle. There are some of the former fire tower artifacts. But no views to speak of. After a quick snack and a couple of summit pictures, we headed back down. It sprinkled on us a little as we headed down, but soon we were under thick cover and didn't get wet at all. We passed a few parties on our way down. I think the viewless summit on an overcast day is a draw for anyone who needs this on their NH48, just like us! Back at the trail head and another successful hike for our little trio. I know the boys would never voluntarily say "hey, let's go for a hike".. but afterwards when I always ask "did you have fun?".. hearing "oh, it was good".. is success enough for me. I'm so glad we got at least one 4K in this Summer.

Strava Activity

Cameron's 2nd 4000ft summit

Aidan's 3rd 4000ft summit