You Are Here: South Uncanoonuc

We had more snow on Friday! Most areas in New Hampshire would be well covered in a decent base of snow by now. I chose to hike at South Uncanoonuc in Goffstown. I had been up this mountain several years ago, but at the time was only concerned about bagging the peak for the NH Fire Tower list. This time I was focused on redlining the area. There are actually several trails around the slopes of this mountain and although the actual summit is a "forest of antennas" as described in the AMC South Trail Guide, there are several view points around. My friend Laura came with me today and we finagled a round and about loop that covered almost all the remaining trails that I hadn't covered on my first trip up. We parked on Summit Road at the Kenlaw Trail head. Typically there is a pullout for a couple of cars, but this had not been plowed. There was already 1 car parked roadside, so I pulled in behind it. I could see the trail had been barebooted, but was super powdery, so we opted for snowshoes and carried our spikes just in case. Turns out we needed snowshoes the entire hike. I have learned that snowshoeing takes a lot of energy! We hiked just over 6 miles and it took us just under 6 hours! Granted we did stop and admire the incredible snow/ice artwork on all the trees many times, as well as consult our map apps to make sure we were covering all the area we needed to. We passed several viewpoints that we also stopped to admire, and stopped to chat with a lovely lady and her pup for a little while. Our basic route was Kenlaw Trail to Bickford Trail. We got a little turned around at the intersection with Link Trail. The tough thing with Winter hiking is people tend to create their own tracks sometimes and it's hard to tell whether this is an actual trail or not. Also, this mountain has several "unmaintained and unnamed" trails that we found ourselves on a couple of times. For the most part, the "official" trails are signed and blazed relatively well. I had read online about people being upset when Winter hikers don't use snowshoes on unpacked snow, and never really thought much about it.. after today, I can see why! Boots really make a different impact on fresh snow that can create ankle rolling tough stuff to walk on. We did our best to pack a nice solid base with our snowshoes for anyone coming through after us! We got to Bickford Trail and did the quick out and back to the powerlines and then went on to Scout Trail. Every now and then a slight breeze would dislodge snow from the trees and it would "rain" down over us with the sunbeams creating an incredible sight. We went up Summit Trail to Walker Trail. This was the steepest section of the day. From Walker we headed up the last small section of Incline Trail, which is one of the last remaining trails on this mountain I need to complete. I'd read about the steepness of this trail and looking down, I can see why it's called Incline Trail. That will be waiting for another day! At the top we were surprised to encounter a small private drive with some houses that have an amazing view over the valley. We rejoined Summit Trail and followed that around the perimeter of the antennas, crossed the road and followed an unofficial trail called Views Trail on our map apps over to a vista across to North Uncanoonuc. We did a quick out and back to the summit (it's in a fenced off area with a communications tower). Back to Walker Trail and Summit Trail, then down Taber Trail and back to Kenlaw and the cars. Taber Trail had a sign marked as 0.6 miles, when it reality it was 0.9 miles. It has a lot of switchbacks, had not really been broken out and we were tired. This trail felt like it took a million years! Overall though, a really super day. Comfortable temperatures for the most part and a feeling of being much further away in the woods than you actually are.

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