You Are Here: Rose Mountain

Another area to explore that I had never even heard of. I headed to Lyndeborough to hike to Rose Mountain. There are 2 ways to get to Rose Mountain, I opted for Helen's Trail to Summit Trail. The trailhead is unmarked on Mountain Road in Lyndeborough. There is a pull off for a few cars. I was surprised to see 4 cars already there. The trail immediately starts climbing to the first small peak, The Pinnacle. Much of this route is along a snowmobile corridor, so the trail is a little wider. There are blazes, but relatively sparse in places, but the trail was easy enough to follow. I would recommend having a map of some sort however, as there were a lot of offshoots, since most of this is on private land, and I didn't really find many of them marked, so without a map it could get confusing. The climb up to The Pinnacle was on the steeper side. The summit is open but there are no views due to trees. There was some rock slab and a tiny peek a boo view, but today was so hazy there wasn't really anything to see. The trail then descends a little to a small view area with a large fire pit. From here, although you are going up and down, it is very, very mild. The majority of the ascent was getting up to the Pinnacle. I did find it start to get quite buggy from here and had to don my bug net as swatting just became too annoying. Lyndeborough Mountain was the second peak. There is a snowmobile sign pointing the way up about 0.1 miles. Again, no views, but wide open slab with trees all around and another big fire pit! Continuing towards Rose Mountain, I joined Summit Trail and climbed the gentle ascent to the summit. Another wide open space, still no views, but there is a 0.15 mile spur from here that takes you to an open area where there are views over towards Monadnock, Crotched Mountain and the Wapack area. There is a giant cairn along this spur at a small viewpoint. And yet another huge fire pit at the end of the spur. Unfortunately today with the Canadian wildfire smoke, I could barely see anything, so I didn't really linger. I backtracked the way I came, however before the ascent to the Pinnacle, there is an unmarked path to the left that the Guide describes as closed, but open.. it was easy enough to follow, even some random blazes in the middle of it. Got a bit more rustic as it continued down, but was still easy to follow. This bypasses returning over the summit of the Pinnacle for a quicker descent, rejoining Helen's Trail not too far from the road. I'll have to come back and do Summit Trail proper, which I actually don't mind revisiting this area. I enjoyed it!

Strava Activity