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| Trail-head |
This past weekend Paloma, John, Foster, and I
decided to head up to the mountains to tackle Carter Dome. John and Foster slept at our place the night
before so that we could get as early of a start as possible, anticipating that
Memorial Day weekend would attract a slew of tourists to the White
Mountains. We were up and on the road at
just after 5:40AM, and began our journey towards the Nineteen Mile Brook trail-head located just past the Mt. Washington auto road off of Rt. 16. The weather was quite cool, barely breaking
40 degrees on the drive up.
Our plan for the day was to hike up the
Nineteen Mile Brook trail to Carter Notch and the Carter Lakes, then take the
steep Carter-Moriah trail up to the summit of Carter Dome – a total distance of
10 miles round trip. I had toyed with
the idea of tackling all of the Carters but given that this was our first big
hike for the year I decided against it.
Plus, I wasn’t sure what the snow situation was going to be like at the
higher elevations.
We arrived at the trail-head parking lot at 8:30AM
and had to park on the road as the lot was completely full. There were already a few cars parked on the
road – looked like it was going to be a busy day. The weather was a balmy 36 degrees, and in a
rush out of the house I didn’t grab all of the layers I wanted to. Oh well, I figured once we got moving I would
be just fine. We officially hit the
trail at 8:42AM.
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| Johnny at the Lake |
The first four or so miles up the Nineteen Mile
Brook trail are quite pleasant and relatively easy. The trail follows along the Nineteen Mile
Brook, crossing it periodically. It was
quite scenic and enjoyable, even though I had already hiked down this trail in
the past when hiking the Wildcats. There
were a few areas where there was some trail erosion and mud but nothing too concerning
or difficult to get around. The river
was flowing quite aggressively due to the melting snow from this past
winter. For the number of cars we saw in
the lot, we encountered very few people on the way up to the Notch.
As we got a bit higher in elevation there was
some scattered snow in the woods but thankfully nothing on the trails at this
point. I could tell Foster was anticipating
some nasty potholing up ahead and it was funny to hear him talk about how much
he hates hiking in the snow. We reached
the split with the Carter Dome trail at 9:26AM though continued on the Nineteen
Mile Brook trail to the Notch. We
reached the Carter Lakes area 10:15AM, and after taking some photos of the
beautiful lake and the cliffs on Wildcat, began the difficult part of the hike –
1.2 miles up the Carter-Moriah trail to the summit of Carter Dome.
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| Snow! |
To say this section is steep is an
understatement. That being said,
however, there are plenty of hand and foot holds to hang onto and not much
erosion – which made this section mostly just physically tiring than technically
challenging, per se. My heart was beating
so hard at some points that I could feel it throbbing in the back of my
head. “Whew – this will get me back into
hiking shape in no time” I had thought to myself. John was pushing the pace up this section and
we all silently agreed to reconvene at the summit. The views from some points of this trail were
amazing – looking back over at the Wildcats and Mt. Washington. It was quite breezy at this point and my
hands were going numb – I estimated it to be south of 40 degrees up there. There was also quite a bit of snow but the
cold temps overnight froze it solid so you could easily walk on top without post-holing.
While this stretch was only supposed to be 1.2
miles, it seemed like it was triple that.
Once you get past the steep, slide section you continue the ascent
through another wooded section that drags on forever with minimal views. Unfortunately, the summit of Carter Dome is
the same way…not that exciting. I made
it to the summit at 11:24AM, John had made it there a few minutes before me and
Paloma and Foster arrived a few minutes after.
There was a friendly dog named Monty at the top who almost made off with
Paloma’s sandwich. While the sun was
shining bright on the top of Carter Dome, it was quite chilly so we quickly
wolfed down our sandwiches and snacks, took our summit photos, then headed back
down at 11:42AM.
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| Chilly Lunch at the Top |
On the hike up we had passed a short trail off
of the Carter-Moriah trail marked “View.”
We were too gassed on the way up to stop for a look but decided to hit
it up on the way down. It was only about
30 yards up the trail to a great lookout point, providing beautiful views of
the notch below and over to the neighboring mountains. Much better than the view (or lack thereof)
at the summit of Carter Dome!
We had to take extra care on the descent as the
trail was quite slippery with ice and water at some points. Paloma had prepared for this and put on her
microspikes – the rest of us bare-booted down.
Luckily no real bad slips or injuries!
We were able to get down from the steep part and back into the notch
pretty quickly, and began the long, easy descent down the Nineteen Mile Brook
Trail. The trails got a lot busier as
the day went on and now we were passing numerous people along our descent. At one point we came to a bridge and another
group of hikers were on the other side.
We let them go first but for some reason one of their dogs was terrified
of me and wouldn’t cross the bridge until I did and moved to the side. What did I do!?!?
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| Summit of Carter Dome |
The rest of the descent was pretty uneventful
and we were actually able to jog for long sections of the descent which helped
us shave off some time. We made it back
to the parking lot at 2:00PM on the dot, shed our gear and hopped into the car,
hoping to get out of the mountains before the evening traffic started. On the way home we stopped in Portsmouth, NH
for dinner at the Thirsty Moose. It was
quite delicious and much deserved after this 10 mile hike!
Overall this was a nice hike and while the
views from the summit are nearly non-existent, the look-out point and the
beautiful lake make it all worthwhile.
If you are up for it I would suggest grabbing all of the Carters at once
(Carter Dome, Middle Carter, South Carter) because we now have to make the same
trip up next weekend to finish them off!
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| "View" |
Trails: Nineteen Mile Brook, Carter-Moriah
Total Time (Including Breaks): 5:20
Distance: 10 Miles
Elevation Gain: 3,400' (approx.)
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