You Are Here: Table Mountain

It was overcast with pleasant temperatures today. While a bluebird day is amazing, sometimes fabulous views also come about under overcast skies. The contrast of the mountain profiles with the clouds and sky can be quite dramatic. That was our experience today on Table Mountain. Laura and I headed up relatively early as we were concerned the small parking area on Bear Notch Rd would be full. We had read it only accommodated 4-5 cars and no road parking was allowed. We were surprised to get there and only see 1 car. The parking area is definitely small and quite eroded, I'm not even sure how 4-5 cars would fit. They would have to be creatively parked for sure. We were excited at the prospect of the mountain not being crowded. Especially for a peak on the 52 With a View list and it being a long weekend. The first mile or so of trail is very pleasant, very moderate and no issues with footing whatsoever. The trail meanders alongside a brook for a little while with some pretty cascades before eventually veering away and up. There were a couple of crossings of said brook, but all were easily rock hopped today. The climbing began gently at first and got steeper as the trail progressed. There was a small section of very steep rock, that would be quite sketchy if wet. This was the trickiest part for me of the day and took me a while to navigate up. Thankfully there were just enough trees alongside that I was able to pull myself along, but it took some careful foot placement and trust in the trees being strong enough to hold me. The rock had a sandy gravel coating in some areas that made it just slippery enough to not be able to get a grip on the rock itself. Once up you are greeted with a small open ledge area that has awesome views across to Square Ledge and Passaconaway beyond. The ledge is steep and gravelly, so care is needed while crossing as there was a high drop off over the ledge. Continuing up over more gravelly area, another ledge is reached, similar to the first but with a more expansive view. One more ledge area, which gives the mountain its 52 With a View status looks over Chocorua and beyond. The true summit is about another 1-2 tenths beyond the ledge. Continuing on the Attitash Trail towards Attitash Mountain, an obvious path heads left and up through a steep wooded area to an open flat (but wooded) summit. It was almost like a campsite. An old rusty can is hanging from a tree and we also found a brand new sign in register jar just hung a couple days earlier! We headed back to the ledge to sit and enjoy a snack. It sprinkled just a little but thankfully didn't develop into anything as I didn't want to think about going down the steep slabs while wet. We actually just sat and enjoyed the peace for quite some time. It was perfect. I had been nervous about going back down those short steep sections, but as is typically the case, down was better than up. We were able to butt slide a little and let gravity do the job. Overall a really nice hike, with good bang for the buck as far as effort goes.

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