You Are Here: Ragged Mountain - Mud Pond/Bulkhead/Balanced Rock

I haven't had a chance to hike with Laura in quite a while and tomorrow it's her birthday.. so what better way to celebrate than hike up a mountain with a billion mosquitoes. The weather, thankfully, was perfect. I'd had this hike on my radar for a while for a couple of reasons. It's described on the harder side of things. I'd heard steep and scrambly as well as navigation possibly being a little difficult. The navigation part has been mostly rectified with someone blazing/flagging the route in the past several months. We only encountered a couple of spots where we had to look around a bit for the next blaze, but found it without too much trouble. The rest of the way was well marked even if the treadway was not always easily identifiable. For those reasons I had kept this hike aside until I had a buddy. We arrived at Proctor Academy and discovered today was Graduation Day, however we were early enough that we were able to park in the far corner near the trailhead without anyone giving us any trouble. By the time we returned, the celebrations had come and gone and were in the process of being cleaned up. For this reason perhaps, we saw no one until the very end of our hike when we encountered a trail runner and her pup. The trail starts out on a gravel driveway from the parking area up towards the tennis courts, Here there is a kiosk with map and the trail marked Ragged Mountain Trail. We started out on the Ragged Mountain Trail, which is also Section 9 of the Sunapee, Ragged, Kearsarge Greenway so marked with the white trapezoid blazes. The lower section of the mountain has been revamped in recent months by Proctor Academy for mountain biking/cross country skiing, so there are quite a few trails all over the place, not all are signed and it could easily get confusing. In fact, we did find it a bit confusing at times, even with a digital downloaded map to follow. The SRKG is no problem, it's all the other Proctor Trails, and I wasn't entirely sure what was required for redlining. I had researched and tried to emulate what I had seen others do/what the guide describes to the best of my ability. The SRKG climbs a moderate little climb before leveling out a little and we came to an intersection with a map (the only one we saw all day like this). We took the right onto the trail which connected the Greenway with what I called "the other side" of the Proctor trail network. This descended slightly before reaching the other end and a junction marked Wilson's Wonder. We turned left here and headed up towards Mud Pond. There were 2 signed spur paths down to the pond. We took them both. The first had a tent platform and campsite, the second had a lean-to shelter, plus a much better view over the pond and the surrounding peaks. We backtracked to the main trail and continued on to an intersection pointing towards a cabin. The trail descended a little here before climbing back up and coming up to the cabin and tent platform. Behind the cabin was a sign pointing towards the Bulkhead. We continued on this trail which crossed a "road" and continued on towards the Bulkhead. The trail was relatively gentle at first but about half a mile in the fun begins. This was the section I had anticipated to be rather difficult. We found it very steep, but nothing crazy technical. About half a mile in there was a short rock scramble, which opened up to an amazing view towards Mt Kearsarge and over Proctor Academy and surrounds. We had a perfectly clear, bluebird day and it was glorious. Continuing up a little more rocky area the actual Bulkhead was marked with a sign, but I actually found the views from the lower overlook to be better. Feeling really quite good once we reached this point, I thought we had the hard stuff behind us. I was anticipating a rolling ridge walk for the next half mile over to Balanced Rock. It was not that at all. It was steep, rugged and steep (yes, I said it twice). I think the mental piece of a hike is just as important as the physical. If I know something is going to be hard, I can mentally prepare for it and that changes my entire perspective. Doesn't make it any less physically difficult, but my attitude is ready for the challenge. When a hike is difficult that I am not anticipating it to be so, the wind leaves my sails much more quickly. And that's what happened today. Had we known this section was going to be like this, I think the hike would have gone much differently. That being said, we did it and were grateful for the beautiful day. I think ascending this trail would be much more preferable than descending. It's under a mile but felt like 10 miles! Just before Balanced Rock is an open ledge area that you have to cross. I had seen this in pictures and was prepared for this section. It wasn't as hard as I had imagined it might be, but care is definitely needed as slipping would not be good. The views from these ledges was also spectacular. Same direction as from the Bulkhead, just a little closer towards Kearsarge. Balanced Rock is not too far past these ledges, and is basically a huge rock that has come to rest on another. We used this opportunity to stop for a snack. Initially my hike plan had been to continue up on the Greenway to East Ridge Trail, and take that out to Old Top, however we were pretty much cooked at this point. Laura encouraged me to at least take the section up to East Ridge Trail, so I wouldn't have that little "hanging chad" when I come in from the New Canada Rd side to finish the trail. As difficult as that was, even for just 2/10 of a mile, I was grateful to get that done. We descended back down the SRKG, which was steep, but the footing was much better. We were tired though so were a bit slower than normal making sure we didn't slip and fall on any rocks or roots. Once back at the intersection with the map we had crossed over at the start of our hike, we did the same and returned to the car via the "Proctor Trail" part of the network so I could cross that off my redlining spreadsheet. This was the area we got the most confused as none of the trails are labeled, but with the help of our digital maps and a screenshot I had taken of the trail network at the kiosk, we made it down without incident. A successful first trip to Ragged Mountain.

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