You Are Here: Eastman Mountain

Another perfect weekend in New Hampshire. Another opportunity to check off a mountain peak on the 52 With a View list. This time I chose Eastman Mountain. I knew with it being a holiday weekend many peaks would be busy, Eastman seems to get less traffic from the reports I could find. There are a couple different ways to reach Eastman, I opted for the longer, but much more gradual ascent via Slippery Brook Trail and the Eastman Mountain Trail. My day started with a massive bonus prize in seeing a moose just a couple tenths from the trailhead. Only the 2nd time I've seen a moose while on a hiking trip and definitely the closest encounter I've had. The trail starts at the gated end of Town Hall Road in Chatham. It begins with a 2 mile walk on an old logging road, which is very gentle and peaceful as you feel like you are in the middle of nowhere. The Fall foliage is past peak, but had a soft yellow glow on this crisp morning. Follow the main road as a couple of older roads merge in. At 1.8 miles there is a tiny arrow sign pointing left and about 0.2 miles after that a large log blocks the road with another arrow pointing right and onto the actual trail portion of the hike. From here the trail ascends and descends, sometimes moderately, sometimes a little more steeply, but nothing ever really crazy. The hardest part about this for me was making sure I stayed on the trail. I didn't see any blazes at all (however I have since read there are apparently some sparse and faded blazes, I must have just been looking down when I passed them). I did lose the trail very briefly just once at a blowdown, in which the trail followed what I thought was a dry stream.. I'm not sure if it does ever get wet, either way, follow the streambed for a few hundred yards and the trail heads off to the left. For the most part the footbed was obvious, though I did feel like I was off trail many times due to the deep leaf cover, but other than the one time, I wasn't. Eventually you wind your way around to a pine forest, which is my favourite kind of trail. Along the way there were glimpses over to Sable and Chandler Mountains and occasionally South Baldface came into view. It was just a very lovely walk in the woods. At roughly 4 miles, you reach an intersection with Baldface Knob Trail and Eastman Mountain Trail. I headed down Eastman Mountain Trail which reaches the summit in 0.8 miles. The first half is relatively flat, even descends a little. You can see brief glimpses of Eastman ahead. The second half was what I considered rugged and steep. Even though these sections are sometimes hard for me and I am very slow in ascending, I can do it knowing they are short! I reached the summit in which there was a large cairn and while it isn't completely open with 360 degree views, there are outlooks and paths in almost all directions to create a 360 degree panorama. It had warmed considerably for a Fall day and I enjoyed the summit to myself for quite a while having a snack before heading back down. One of the best parts of the day was in 9.5 miles and 6 hours, I only encountered 5 people total. 2 on Slippery Brook Trail, 1 on Eastman Mountain Trail and a couple on the logging road when I was practically back at the car. After seeing the massive amount of cars at the Piper Trail for Mt Chocorua on my way home, I knew I had made a good choice.

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