Tag Archives: family hikes

Exploring Caves and Climbing Ladders in the New Hampshire Lakes Region

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The boys take a break from the chill in the relative warmth of the cave’s interior.

Our only regret is that we have arrived at the cave too late.  This roomy cavern, formed by boulders and slabs of rock that fell from the mountain long ago, offers both space to spread out and shelter from the wind on this chilly afternoon in early November.  The cave would have made the perfect lunch spot, but we’ve already eaten.

The day is not exceptionally cold – just early November chilly.  Here on this ridge above Squam Lake, my son has refused to abandon his shorts, although he willingly dons his hat as the wind blows. His friend Tucker borrows my gloves.  From the 2220-foot summit of Mount Morgan, we watch snow falling on Franconia Ridge, to the north. But on the southern side of this ridge, a dull November sun lights up Squam Lake. The ridge, which forms the backbone of the Squam Range, creates a barrier between the harsher weather of the White Mountains and the milder conditions in the New Hampshire Lakes region – a perfect destination for a late fall hike.

Intrigued by reports of ladders on Mount Morgan and the cave on Mount Percival, I’ve been waiting a long time to hike this 4.7-mile loop.  These extras offer a great hook for enticing my son to the mountains. Rocks! Ladders! Caves!  Hiking doesn’t get any better for 11-year-olds, even for today’s computer-addicted boys.

We decide to hike the loop in a counter-clockwise direction, heading up the Percival trail for a short distance and then cutting over to the trail to Mount Morgan (the cut-off trail has a different name which escapes me, but it is the only cut-off and well-marked).  The trail up Mount Morgan climbs gradually – not steep at all — until eventually it reaches what seems like a sheer rock wall.  Correction: it is a sheer rock wall, hence, the ladders. (However, a few steps in the other direction takes hikers who don’t do ladders up an alternate route that offers more psychologically stable footing).

Climbing ladders on Mount Morgan

We behold the ladders – three of them, one stacked atop another, straight up the rock.  The final ladder requires some Spiderman-type footwork, in which a hiker has to reach a leg over the rock and then pull up with the hands to get onto the ladder (probably not suited to very young children, but the perfect challenge for two 11-year-old boys).

We climb the ladders. No one slips and dies.  After five more minutes of climbing on the rocks, we reach the summit of Mount Morgan, where we can feel the chill blowing down from the snowy north.  Hats and gloves come out and, after briefly admiring the view, we continue on the Crawford-Ridgepole Trail, aiming to descend by the Percival Trail.  The boys are starving by now, so we stop in the woods to eat our lunch out of the wind, and then continue on, arriving at the summit of Percival (2212 feet) within a few minutes.

Not too cold to pose for a summit shot on Mount Morgan.

After some photos and another quick view of the wintery scene to the north, we follow the arrows pointing straight down the rock face.  Up close, I see that we are not scrambling straight down a rock face, as the arrows suggest.  We pick our way down amidst boulders and rocks, all very safe and protected.

Finally, we arrive at the tight entrance to the cave.  One by one, the boys push their feet into the opening and drop themselves inside.  When my turn arrives, I pull off my daypack – I can’t fit through the opening while wearing it – and slither feet first into the cave.

Jeremy peers through the opening after squeezing his way into the cave.

I love this cave! Slabs of granite have crashed at crazy angles.  Light filters through the cracks. The ‘floor’ is layered with boulders and granite slabs.  Rain and snow probably do trickle inside, and sleeping on the uneven, angled floor wouldn’t be that comfortable, but still – what a perfect shelter.

“We should have had our lunch here,” Tucker says as Jeremy investigates campsite possibilities.

Next time, maybe we will start the loop in the opposite direction, so as to time our arrival at the cave with lunch.  On the other hand, if we take the trail directly to the cave, we will miss the ladders on Mount Morgan, because the ladders are designed for going up rather than going down (at least for most hikers).  My husband points out that we can always detour down from the ridge to the ladders and climb up again. It’s only a short downhill/uphill detour.  But then again, we could bring more snacks, climb the ladders first, and hold off on lunch.

Mount Percival also offers many interesting cracks and rock formations to play in.

These decisions can wait until another day, because we will be return. This hike is a winner, a gem, like many other “smaller” hikes I have discovered in northern New England these past ten years.  In my younger days, hiking meant climbing the biggest mountains.  The day usually started with a 6 a.m. departure to the mountains and a nine-, ten- or 12- mile slog up and down steep trails, followed by pizza and total exhaustion.

I didn’t want to give up hiking when I became a parent.  But I knew that I couldn’t take my son up big mountains and still enjoy the experience.  (Some children might enjoy the challenging of trudging up and down steep mountains for many miles, but mine is not one of them). Discovering these shorter hikes, many full of intriguing features like the rock cave, has been a fringe benefit of parenthood.  I’ve also learned that a great hike doesn’t have to be a 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. ordeal.

Squam Lake View

I might have forgotten to mention that the hike offers great views of Squam Lake.

We finish this hike by three p.m., leaving plenty of time to browse in the emporium that is The Old Country Store and Museum in Moultonborough, where locals and visitors have browsed the uneven wooden floors since the 1780s.  I love that we are ogling the penny candy in what may be the oldest store in the United States.  Alas, the store does not sell hot drinks for our cold hands.

I still like hiking big mountains.  As I’ve written before, I’m pecking away at my 4000-footer list.  Now that my son is getting older and has greater mental stamina and physical endurance, we’ll be trying some more challenging hikes. But the old equation of “big mountain” = “hike” has been permanently revised.  Now, I’ll hike any mountain — or even a hill with a view — and call it wonderful.

Details and resources

The Morgan-Percival Loop trailhead is located on Route 113 between Holderness and Center Sandwich, NH.

Hiking Trails in the Lakes Region offers information on a variety of hikes in the Lakes region, where almost all of the hiking is family-friendly for both young kids and teenagers and everything in between. The New Hampshire Lakes Region Tourism Association website also offers information on hikes in the area. 

Rock scrambling on Welch-Dickey Loop Trail

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After a mile of hiking at a moderate grade, we burst into sky as we reach the open ledges on the side of Welch Mountain.  My three 11-year-old hiking companions skip across the flat patches of granite to the ledge that drops down the side of the mountain.  I can hear their voices as I pull up behind them.

“Totally awesome.”

“I’ve never climbed a mountain this high!”

“Let’s find some rocks, and see what happens if we throw them down.”

Standing on this granite platform, with its wide-open vista of the Sandwich Range and Mount Tripyramid, the boys feels as if they are on top on the world.  But we haven’t traveled all that far—this ledge sits at about 1,600 feet, (about 700 feet of climbing) and it only took 45 minutes of steady hiking to get here. Unrelenting views will continue, more or less, for the next two miles, when we continue the hike up to the summit of Welch Mountain and over to Dickey.   Attaining these views for relatively small effort is the magic of the Welch-Dickey Loop, a 4.4-mile trail in Campton, NH, just off the road (Route 175) to Waterville Valley.

As I catch up to the boys, I rein in their dance along the edge of the mountain.  “Don’t go any further on that ledge.  Stay here. NO FURTHER!”

Three boys hold up the sky on the ledges on Welch Mountain.

The ledge isn’t exactly a cliff, but slopes in a gentle curve downward about 150 feet, to the trees below.  The grade probably isn’t as steep as it seems in my head, but eleven-year-old boys lack experience in judging steepness and angles, and how quickly a foot could slip, a body tumble.   A fall might not mean death, because the trees would grab the tumbling boy, but at minimum, it would mean rescue, a broken limb, possibly worse.  The boys – my son and his two friends – are my responsibility today and I intend to return them home without injury.

We sit by the edge of the ledge and eat our sandwiches.  Tanner announces that he is going over to find some rocks.  I tell him to stay with us and finish his sandwich.  “I want to enjoy my lunch,” I say. “It’s hard to relax if I think you might fall over the edge.”

These are good kids, and they comply.  After refueling, the boys search for rocks and take turns hurtling small missiles down the ledge and watching them skitter into the trees.  Then we continue on, climbing up higher on the sloped rocks.    The hiking is not easy. My calves burn as I climb up the rocks using both hands and feet.  But the scrambling is fun, the perfect hike for 11-year-old boys who might get bored trudging through the woods.

Getting ready to head for the summit of Welch Mountain.

Hiking with kids is alternatively wonderful, nerve-wracking and annoying, sometimes all at the same time.   I love bringing my son and any other takers to this world of rocks and views, and witnessing their awe.  But the ledges, along with rock jumping and bursts of trail running, are nerve-wracking.  Foot-dragging is annoying, although this group is pretty game.  At one point, I have to deal with the fact that one of the boys has stepped, with his sock-clad foot, into his own poop.

Hiking with these boys, I also feel time sliding down these granite slopes. Today, just after completing fifth grade, going on a hike with someone’s mom remains a fun adventure. Will that still be the case next summer?  At one point, they will pull away, and organize (I hope) their own hiking trips.

Except for the small aggravation of some black flies, this Friday in mid-June is the perfect day for hiking Welch-Dickey:  sunny skies are moderated by a light breeze, not a cloud in the sky.  We stop frequently to drink water. On a hotter day, I would definitely bring more. I warn the boys never to drink directly from a stream, even it looks crystal clear, explaining that most water sources in these mountains are contaminated with giardia or other bacteria.  “But you can drink it if you treat it with iodine tablets, or filter it,” I explain.

“Like they do in The Hunger Games,” my son Jeremy observes.

In need of more adventure, the boys scrambled up this rock formation, which might be a glacial erratic dropped on the mountain, or part of the mountain itself.

At one point, climbing up a short steep patch, my foot slips, and I slide down the rock slab a couple of feet.   Startled, the boys turns around. For a milli-second, they look scared. No one asks me if I’m all right – I’m not sure it would occur to them to ask – but I tell them I’m fine anyway.

““But this is why I am not kidding about respecting these ledges,” I say. “You can easily slip.”

They definitely get the message.  At the summit of 2,605-foot Welch Mountain, we stand on tops of the rocks, but well clear of the edge, and take in the wide-angle view of the mountains surrounding Waterville Valley. I point out the ski area buildings on top of Mount Tecumseh. Way below we can see the patch of granite where we ate lunch.  Above, a group of five ravens soar in the sky.  Across the little V-shaped valley that clefts Welch and Dickey Mountains, we can see an impressive ledge that drops straight down into the cleft.

Taking in the views on Welch Mountain.

“I want to hike the Appalachian Trail some day,” Howie announces.

Everyone groans when they realize that we need to head downhill and then hike uphill to

Heading down into the col between Welch and Dickey Mountains.

get to Dickey Mountain.  But the summit (2,734 feet) isn’t as far as the perspective suggests.  We make it in about 20 minutes, and are treated to views of Cannon Mountain and the Cannon Balls in Franconia Notch, and Mount Lafayette and Franconia Ridge.   Black flies on the summit chase us into the woods.

We pound downhill through the woods, crossing several open patches of granite before stepping out onto the steep ledge that we could see from the Welch summit.  On the ledge, I can see the darker area where thousands of footsteps have carved a path. I know that this ledge is the steepest on the trail.  With sensible adults, perfectly safe.  But nerve-wracking, with bouncing and skipping 11-year-olds.

“Stay away from the edge,” I remind them. “Stay to the right. When you guys are teenagers, you can come up here and do whatever you want.  You only read about one teenager falling to his death every year in the White Mountains, so you’ll probably be fine.”

After hurtling some stones into the ravine, we continue our descent, stepping over rocks and roots on the trail as its angle gradually decreases and flattens.  At about 5 p.m., we exit the trail to my car.  Although we have only encountered a couple of other parties today, I can tell this hike is popular, because the parking lot is huge.  Empty trails are part of the joy of mid-week spring/early summer hiking.  By the Fourth of July, this parking lot will be a mob scene.

Although this hike took half as much energy as the 4,000-footer hike I completed earlier in the week, I feel equally as ruined. Ice cream beckons, then the long drive home. Before immersing themselves in Nintendo DS, the boys agree that they want to do another hike.

“But not for a while,” Jeremy says.

“Definitely not,” I say.  “We need to forget how hard this hike was before we do another.”

I suppose in that way, hiking is bit like childbirth.   You want to experience that bliss again – the views, the openness, the feeling of being on top of the world. But kids and adults like need time to forget (or nearly forget) the sweat and aching legs. Then, we’ll be ready to hit the trail again.

Post-hike note:

Travelling to Campton from the Seacoast makes for a long day trip. In retrospect, I would have left earlier, and planned on swimming and wading in the Mad River after the hike, then getting ice cream or an early dinner afterwards before heading home.  At least two low-fee National Forest campgrounds are located off Route 175, and the area is a great destination for a weekend camping trip.

A good resource for family hikes is the AMC publication, Nature Hikes in the White Mountains, by Robert N. Buchsbaum, who offers a detailed description of this hike and many others of varying lengths and difficulty.

Directions:

I-93 to Campton/Waterville exit (just past Plymouth).  Take Route 49 towards Waterville Valley.  When 49 intersects with Route 175, continue another 4.5 miles and turn left on Mad River Road (crossing the river). Follow for .7 miles, then turn right on Orris Road.  The parking area is about a half-mile up Orris and hard to miss.