woodland wanderings: Mount Parker: Uphill both ways

View of Mt. Washington from Mount Parker Summit

I was apprehensive about this hike. Everything I read said this a long, steep hike. In the logs, hikers agreed that Mt. Parker would be a more popular hike if you didn’t have to ascend and descend the Oak Ridge/Mt. Parker col twice. The 2800 feet of elevation gain combined with the 7.8 mile roundtrip is much greater than a number of popular 4k footers.

In addition, spring hiking is a crapshoot. You just never know what to expect, so I planned for the worst and brought everything; snowshoes, spikes, and bad weather gear. I was pleasantly surprised. The weather was great and the trail was much easier than expected. Personally, I enjoyed Oak Ridge and I didn’t feel it was too steep, coming or going.

The Langdon Trail, was mostly dry except for some easily avoidable muddy sections. Water crossings were either walk overs or rock hops on the lower elevations, no water on the higher elevations so bring water for your dogs.

At 1.5 miles in, the trail was so dry I decided to abandon my snowshoes in a hollow log and covered them with leaves. The ERD must have thought I hid some food in there because when I turned around to check on him, he was inside the log kicking out all of the leaves!

The ERD

There was very little snow until 2500 feet. After that there was a consistent, considerable layer of snow until you reached the summit. Nothing challenging, I just walked in another hiker’s old postholes. I bare-booted it all the way up, no spikes needed.

The trail is narrow and hard to follow in places; trail markers are faint and not well maintained. Just keep an eye out for faded markers on trees and rocks. It can be especially confusing in the areas where fallen trees are blocking and obscuring the already narrow trail. There are a number of fallen trees blocking the trail starting around 2200 feet. Even so, I made good time getting to the summit – much quicker than anticipated.

The views took my breath away! The ERD and I stayed for an hour basking in the sun and soaking up the views. I was the only one on the summit and didn’t see another soul until my hike down. I highly recommend hiking this trail before the snow melts on Mount Washington! It was a smooth hike all around – which is unusual for me – makes me wonder what’s in store for me on my next hike ;).

FYI, I stayed at the Swiss Chalets Village Inn, Bartlett. It’s clean, very reasonably priced, and they take dogs!

44 down 8 to go.