You Are Here: Grotto Cave

I have been somewhat hesitant about this little spur I needed as the description reads that it is a rough, somewhat hard to follow and steep spur to a cave in a col between Cardigan and Firescrew. Today, the weather was absolutely perfect, so Laura and I headed back down New Colony Road for the 3rd and final time to the Mowglis Trail intersection. We headed up Mowglis Trail and really just took our time enjoying the incredible weather and peace and quiet. We saw no one on our ascent. We enjoyed a quick break at the Crag Shelter before starting the climb up to Firescrew. This is by far one of my favorite mountains. The views are incredible, but the majority of the crowds are over on Cardigan. Even if you do encounter others, the summit is large, plenty of space for everyone to find a corner and just take it all in. We didn't stop on our way up, as I just wanted to get this cave over and done with. We did have one little mishap on our way off Firescrew where we followed a cairn, but that ended up leading nowhere. Not sure what that was about, but once we realized we backtracked and saw where we had gone wrong. Back on track, we headed towards Cardigan. I had pinned where I thought the Grotto Cave spur might begin based on some tracks I had been sent by a fellow Southern NH redliner I know in the Facebook group. Plus I knew there was a very faded blue blaze painted on the rock, however I wasn't sure if that was right along Mowglis Trail or a little ways along the spur. My pin ended up being pretty spot on and at a cairn along the trail, I spotted the faded blue blaze indicating the spur heading to our left. I was pretty psyched that we found it so easily and hoped that would bode well for the remainder of the spur. Initially the spur is flat and with a little looking around and basic intuition on where the trail might be we were able to spot the blue blazes quite easily. The views up alongside the Cardigan cone were a different perspective and show the craziness of Holt Trail, the one remaining trail I now have to do over there. The spur quickly starts to drop steeply. We still were able to find the blue blazes and were surprised to hear some voices come up behind us. A Father and his 2 young sons. I was concerned they were lost, but no they were also looking for the cave. We let them pass and it was actually nice having them there as they did the detective work of finding the blazes! We came upon a short, but really steep slope that required a butt slide down and I pushed to the back of my mind how we would get back up that. At the bottom of this slope was the one area it was tricky to determine which way to go. Follow the bottom of the slope to the right and there is a blaze hidden behind a fallen tree showing the trail continuing down. Here the trail is more of a woods section and wasn't marked, but the path was obvious. We quickly arrived at the cave, with a very overgrown section just before it, but the cave itself was visible by now so just pushing through the overgrown section was not a problem. There is a huge overhanging rock just before the cave, which I thought was cooler than the actual cave.. which is rather small and unassuming. The trail continues through the cave and I've read ends just on the other side. We ventured into the cave, but neither of us could really fit out the other end, so called it done. After some pictures and a quick break we started the steep climb back up. This time we stopped on the summit of Firescrew for a snack break and to enjoy the gorgeous weather before heading back down Mowglis Trail for the car.

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