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I'm in the midst of a million hiking objectives at the moment, so when I have an opportunity to add another one to the list, I obviously take it. Liam invited me to join him on a trifecta of NH 500 Highest peaks-Cilley West, Grandview, and Mount Cilley. This is a fabulous off the beaten path journey with complete solitude, and it's especially enjoyable in the winter!
We started the day at the Elbow Pond parking area off Route 118 on Forest Road 156. This is part of an elaborate snowmobile trail system, but it's evident there haven't been many snowmobiles along this trail (although there were some old tracks on the trails. It was probably my coldest hike start ever, at -9 degrees, but it would warm up to the low 20s by the end of the day.
For a bushwhack, this hike is pretty self-explanatory and can be seen in my GPS t..
Buy my new novel Take to the Unscathed Road now!Follow me at facebook.com/justinraphaelsonauthor, instagram.com/jraphaelson, and twitter.com/jcxc44!
I'm in the midst of a million hiking objectives at the moment, so when I have an opportunity to add another one to the list, I obviously take it. Liam invited me to join him on a trifecta of NH 500 Highest peaks-Cilley West, Grandview, and Mount Cilley. This is a fabulous off the beaten path journey with complete solitude, and it's especially enjoyable in the winter!
We started the day at the Elbow Pond parking area off Route 118 on Forest Road 156. This is part of an elaborate snowmobile trail system, but it's evident there haven't been many snowmobiles along this trail (although there were some old tracks on the trails. It was probably my coldest hike start ever, at -9 degrees, but it would warm up to the low 20s by the end of the day.
For a bushwhack, this hike is pretty self-explanatory and can be seen in my GPS track below. You follow the forest road as if you're going to Elbow Pond, and once you reach a junction that has a sign that says Cilley Mt. Trail, you take it left. Using GPS, we were able to take this trail as close as possible to Cilley West and bushwhack about a half mile up to the peak.
There is a canister on the summit and in the winter you can get some nice views on the way down. Instead of retracing our steps, we cut down the trail heading further along the snowmobile path to save a little mileage.
On the way down we saw some old markings on the tree. Someone had been here before! 😛
We continued along the snowmobile path heading west once we regained it. For much of the day I kept remarking how many animal tracks we were seeing. This was real wilderness. Moose, bunnies, deer, turkey or grouse, etc. We even saw the spots where the deer slept at night, which were obvious because they had dug out little bare grassy spots under tree canopies.
Once we reached the height of land just about along the trail, we found the path of least resistance heading up to Grandview. This was the coolest summit of the day, as it technically has two. The first is a flat open area with nice views through the trees. We also headed over to the East peak where there are remnants of an old fire tower!
To get down, we found the least cliffy spot along the contour lines and made it back to the snowmobile road. From here, we simply decided to bushwhack straight up to Cilley as we would have to add some mileage if we kept using the snowmobile trails.
This was the most enjoyable bushwhack of the day, as the woods were completely open and we got into some conifer forests toward the top. We also hit both high points of this ridge, though if we had cut a little further right we would have saved some time. No matter, as Liam said, we were doing our due diligence.
The summit of Cilley also had a cool open area just before the top.
Instead of cutting down to the snowmobile trail, we decided we wanted to check out Elbow Pond on the way down. It was well worth the short detour.
It's a quiet spot in winter, but we still saw a handful of people hiking to it, so I imagine it is a popular locals spot year round. Its trail is not in the AMC trail map, so I didn't even know it existed. But I hope to return to it sometime in the summer!
We even saw a snowman on the pond proper! This was a magnificent journey and one of the reasons why I love bushwhacking obscure peaks. No crowds, and a true wild feel! I'd highly recommend this hike for those interested in bushwhacking through pleasant forests.
Total Time: 4 hrs 36 moving timeTotal Distance: ~9.1 milesTotal Elevation Gain: ~2267 vertical gain
Check out my hike on Strava.
https://strava.app.link/9q0vpbrvTmb
