| Hiking Trail Conditions Report |
 | Peaks |
East Hitchcock, West Huntington, NH |
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 | Trails: |
Hancock Notch Trail, Cedar Brook Trail, bushwhack, logging roads |
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 | Date of Hike: |
Wednesday, May 14, 2025 |
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 | Parking/Access Road Notes: |
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 | Surface Conditions: |
Dry Trail, Wet Trail, Wet/Slippery Rock, Mud - Minor/Avoidable |
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 | Recommended Equipment: |
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 | Water Crossing Notes: |
Easy |
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 | Trail Maintenance Notes: |
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 | Dog-Related Notes: |
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 | Bugs: |
None |
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 | Lost and Found: |
Found a trekking pole en route to West Huntington. Packed it out. |
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 | Comments: |
A tale of two (very busy bushwhack peaks this week!). East Hitchcock was an absolute breeze. After some good beta, Cookies on Top and I started our whack beyond the HOL, a few hundred yards before turning west, finding open mossy woods with a short steep section that led to the southern ridge and quick movement to the RHP. Followed the same path back and decided to go for West Huntington.
With our beta for West Huntington being minimal, we decided to utilize Teal Goat’s review from this past Sunday, where they found a skid path up to West Huntington up a northwest ridge. We tackled what we thought the “northwest approach” TG was referring to, but unfortunately entered the woods way to early and this is the main reason for my report. Don’t make the same mistake we did.
We started in fairly open woods, soon after the Cedar Brook Trail met the HNT and just before the Hancock Notch Tr turns steeply downward to the right. Not wanting to lose more elevation, and thinking this ridge was the one TG mentioned, we headed in and up. We found scrappy woods the whole way up to the ridge, but knowing the ridge was heading more towards Mount Huntington’s southern shoulder, and in an effort to shave off some elevation at around 3100’, I thought it best to try and follow the 3150’ contour around to the col. This was a bad call. A really bad call. What we found was a sidehill nightmare of tight woods, ledges, slick moss and some holes between boulders that were akin to the dark chasms in Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth. Somehow along the way, just before reaching the thick col, I stumbled upon a trekking pole. This find couldn’t have come at a better time and I just had to laugh. At that spot, when I was about to lose my sanity, another poor soul, at some point, had only just lost their trekking pole. The find pulled me out of my stupor and steeply up to the summit we went, finding the RHP.
After a break at the summit. We followed some herd paths which took us way off the eastern ridge we wanted to follow. After realizing this mistake, we tried to correct back to the ridge, but found it nearly impossible, so we descended steeply northwest, through agreeable woods, ultimately finding an old logging road (perhaps the skid road TC wrote about on Sunday?) that brought us right down to the trail and an easy .5 mile walk back to the car.
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 | Name: |
Mark S |
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 | E-Mail: |
wapacked@gmail.com |
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| Date Submitted: |
2025-05-14 |
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 | Link: |
 https:// |
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Disclaimer: Reports are not verified - conditions may vary. Use at own risk. Always be prepared when hiking. Observe all signs. Trail conditions reports are not substitutes for weather reports or common sense. |
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