Drove up on Saturday and stayed at Christine's family lake house on Ossipee. The plan was to go hiking with Jimmy and my dad, but Jimmy was under the weather and had to bail. Dad and I got to the Sawyer Road trailhead near Crawford Notch on 302 at around 8:00 AM on Sunday. The hike was 10 miles round trip on the Signal Ridge trail with 3,250 of elevation gain. The first 2 miles were remarkably flat, with a bit of mud and one somewhat tricky stream crossing early on (stayed dry and carefully rock-hopped on the way up, but got lazy and just waded through on the way back). After roughly 2 miles, the trail grade stepped up considerably and remained pretty steep to the top.
At about 4.5 miles there is a brutal false summit but came with the reward of some really impressive views up on the ridge. The last half mile to the summit leads back into the trees and to a 30 foot fire tower. From the top you can see 43 of the 48 4,000 footers. It's a really beautiful spot, and one of the most impressive I've seen in the White Mountains so far. Because of Carrigain's prominence, there's nothing to block the view in any direction. Got down in about 6 hours a good deal ahead of book time.
No SLR, just iPhone pictures.
