Catamount Mountain, Pittsfield

As we continue living in isolation and practicing social distancing, the one benefit has been spending some quality weekend time with my family and pursuing our quest to reach all those fire towers. This weekend we headed to Catamount Mountain in nearby Pittsfield, NH. I had read several reports on this one and was a little hesitant as there are no official trails, so this would be our first bushwhack. I chose this one as all the reports I had read said it was relatively easy to navigate, even without a trail, and the total roundtrip was anywhere from 1-1.5 miles. We checked the access road to the cell tower on Governor's Road first, as I wasn't sure if it truly was a No Trespassing zone. It is. Gated and very clearly marked. We headed back to Route 107 and the pulloff just near Johnson Road. There is a woods road that heads off from this pulloff, but if you look just to the right of that road, there is a clear indentation and herd path that people have taken. We quickly discovered that someone has marked an entire route up with orange flag tape and cairns. So our bushwhack wasn't really a bushwhack. There is also a fairly clearly worn in trail from previous hikers taking this same route. It was almost easier to navigate than some other actual real trails I have taken that are maintained and officially blazed! That being said, you can take whatever route you feel, since there really are no official trails to keep on! About 2/3 of the way up you will encounter some moderately steep rock cliffs that are completely doable, just watch your footing with all the loose leaves around. We mostly followed the orange flag tape and had little issues. Once up the cliffs you will encounter a number of Posted signs for the cell tower on the summit. It was hard to tell where the private land truly was/if all the summit is private land or what the situation is. We looked around quickly, we didn't go near the actual cell tower, I later found out there is quite a collection of cairns on the other side, which I'm kind of bummed we didn't see.. but according to my Strava tracks, we did hit the high point elevation, so I'll happily check this one off the list.

Strava Activity