Elevation: 1,325 ft (overall) 1,410 ft (total)
Time: 2:39 (Summit) 4:36 (Total)
Trails: Stinson Mountain Trail, Stinson Lake Outlook Path, Snowmobile Trail, Stinson Mountain Trail
Today's hike would be another one with my daughter while working on her 52 With a View list. This would be the first time for either of us here so we could bother check this one off the list. It would be #4 for here and #17 for me. Plus it would get me a bit of redlining in as well.
The trail starts off nice and easy with a flat surface and almost no incline. This makes for a nice warm up as you start out the hike. It gradually starts to gain elevation, but stays easy for quite a while. There are some rocks in the trail that are easy to get around and today there were just a few spots that were a bit muddy.
The trail starts off nice and easy
Gradually the trail gets steeper and narrower, but stays pretty easy. Slowing my pace down to that of a 7 year old today, I was able to find lots of smaller things along the trail to point out to my daughter so that I could teach her more about the forest while we hiked today. After pointing out some different mushrooms along the trail, today's hike quickly turned into her pointing out all the mushrooms along the hike.
A little rougher as the trail climbs
After the section of trail that follows the snowmobile trail is where the trail finally gets steeper and rougher. Those sections come in short bursts where it will be real rocky for a bit, then smooth again, then rocky again. Liliana made good work of these sections and found some fun in climbing over the bigger rocks instead of going around them.
A large rock in the trail
A rocky section near the top
The summit has a nice opening in the trees that provides a great view to the south out over the town of Rumney. From the higher points on the rocks or the old footings for the long gone fire tower you can also see over the trees to the northeast further into the big mountains of the Whites. We spent quite a bit of time on the summit today since the weather was so nice and I wanted to give Liliana a nice break so she wasn't too tired for the hike down. She was also having a fun time climbing over the rocks at the summit and finding all the grasshoppers that were jumping around.
View from the summit
View from the summit
Liliana at the top
As we left the summit we took the short side path that led to an overlook of Stinson Lake. There isn't much room at the viewpoint, but it does provide a great view over the lake and towards Mt. Moosilauke as well. The wind was blowing straight in at us from this direction, so we didn't stay too long as Liliana started to get a bit cool while not being on the move.
Stinson Lake from the side path
For the descent we used the snowmobile trail instead of the regular trail at the top. I like doing loops instead of following the same trail back down all the way, plus I figured the snowmobile would be smoother and easier hiking for coming down. The trail is wide and grassy, but enough people use it that there is a beaten path going down it so you don't have to walk through the tall grass. Once back to the normal trail, we followed that all the way back to the truck though.
Upper section of snowmobile trail
Lower section of snowmobile trail
This ended up being a very enjoyable hike with my daughter today. I think this is a very family friendly hike that isn't super hard for someone that doesn't have a lot of experience. The views at the top are nice and the side path to the view over the lake provides another good view that helps make it more interesting. Definately a hike we will repeat once my youngest daughter gets old enough to hike as well.
Google Earth representation of the hike
For all the pictures from the hike, just go to my gallery on SmugMug
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