Back to New Hampshire this morning to bag my ninth peak. I decided to balance the mountains with spectacular views with the less-than-stellar peaks, so today's challenge was Mt. Tecumseh, the shortest of all 48, at 4,003 feet above sea level. We departed the Mount Tecumseh Trail from the Waterville Valley Ski Area at 9:30am.
From the ski area, we had nice views (the best views of the day since Tecumseh had little to offer...) of the Tripyramids.
I did my research before the hike and learned that the trail can be tricky to follow at some points, particularly at a point where it crosses a stream but also appears not to cross the stream. Somehow we missed the stream crossing anyway. We backtracked but still couldn't seem to find the real trail, but we figured if we stayed along the stream we would eventually run into the trail again, according to the map. Unfortunately, this ended up turning into major bushwhacking and a dangerous water-crossing. However, after a lot of (probably) unnecessary effort, we found the trail again. The trail was not well marked at all...many of the blazes were badly faded and the fresh snow on the trail just added to the problem.
After crossing the stream again and a little bit of climbing, we reached the only view along the trail, and it was quite limited.
It wasn't a particularly memorable hike, but it was nice to be in the serenity of nature once again. The trail climbed consistently. We were able to bare-boot it most of the way until we encountered large ice-flows toward the summit. We put on spikes and continued pushing onward and upward. Finally, the trail flattened out and we crossed over toward the summit. We were given a choice of routes to the summit, and we chose the left trail (in case you were wondering, both were "the one less traveled" since we were the only people who climbed the mountain all day).
The summit spur trail reminded me a lot of the spurs to Mt. Field and Mt. Tom (the views were similar as well...nonexistent)
After a short climb, we reached my 9th summit.
The descent was long, and it snowed steadily the entire time. By the time we reached the water-crossing (the one we had missed on the way up) it was getting dark, but I realized why I had missed it. It is marked by a double blaze (a very faded one) but the blaze is pointing in the wrong direction and would be difficult to see from the other side of the stream. Unfortunately, the stream was also swollen and there was no where safe to cross in sight. We bushwhacked down stream a little ways and luckily found a fallen tree that was suspended across the stream and we were able to cross there. We finished our hike and were glad to be done with Tecumseh. It was nothing spectacular, but it was certainly a unique experience, and another peak in the bag. 39 to go!
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