We were surprised to look at the Garmin when we (finally) got back to the car to learn we had only hiked 12.5 miles. It felt more like 20.
We left the car at 4:20 pm and went up the Mt. Washington main trail. It was definitely hot, pushing 90, and we did encounter a few hikers coming down.
We took a left at the Great Wall and from that point forward saw no one (except, on the IHT just before we got back to the car there was a couple in a hammock strung on the Change Creek Bridge – how romantic!).
We took the Great Wall to the southern-most service road that is outside the forbidden Watershed boundary and, at the intersection of several old service roads just east of Greenway, we headed left towards the peak that Google Earth tags as Little Mountain and that local lore tags as Chester Mountain.
Whatever you call it, the fact that we were pushing a time limit – we didn’t want to be route-finding in the dark – precluded figuring out how to summit.
What we did was follow the service road that runs around the perimeter of the Hall Creek gorge, until the service road disappeared and it was very rugged bushwhacking until we finally hit the trail (or mountain goat path) south of Truck Summit.
We were pumped to get to Truck Summit, dark as it was getting, since we had a trail to follow the rest of the way. It is fun hiking with the headlamps, that’s for sure.
Along the way we noticed a trail heading towards a local summit, something we want to check out when we get a chance:
Here is the track:
https://adventures.garmin.com/en-US/by/djhiker/great-wall-to-little-mountain#.WU–y1GQypo
12.5 miles, almost 7 and a half hours, 3,800 feet of elevation gain and morning soreness.
UPDATE: 6/26/2017 – Checking maps I realized the trail we saw is actually Mailbox Peak. Great view of Mailbox, you can see how steep it is.