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Mount Weeks & South Weeks day hike |
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This day hike started at the small parking area for the York Pond Trail off of York Pond Road in the Berlin Fish Hatchery. From the parking area I took the York Pond Trail to the Kilkenny Ridge Trail to the summit of Mount Weeks first. From there I continued along the Kilkenney Ridge Trail acrosss Middle Weeks to the summit of South Weeks. For the return route I went back the exact same way.
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The starting point for this hike was a small parking area at the trailhead for the York Pond Trail in the Berlin Fish Hatchery about 7.4 miles in from New Hampshire Route 110. These two peaks would be numbers 59 and 60 on my New England Hundred Highest list. I had hoped to actually be at the gate to the fish hatchery around 8 when the gate was supposed to open and start hiking shortly after that but getting up there took a little longer than anticipated and as a result I did not start hiking until a little after 8:30.
There was a little bit of fall color here and there during the ride up, at the trailhead and also along the York Pond Trail. It was a beautiful morning for hiking and it took me a little more than an hour to hike the York Pond Trail to the junction with the Kilkenny Ridge Trail. There were a couple of stream crossings on the York Pond Trail but the water was low at all of these and they were quite easy.
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The hike up Mount Weeks was easy enough and I was on top of that after less than an hour on the Kilkenny Ridge Trail and almost exactly two hours from the York Pond trailhead. There is nothing much to see there so I didn't stay long at all, just long enough to get some photos.
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Going down Mount Weeks was easy enough but then the real fun started. I lost the trail completely after descending from there and starting up Middle Weeks. All of a sudden the trail I was on just sort of ended. I looked around and did not see any blazes on the trees. I backtracked a ways and did not find any blazes going back the way I came even though I was on a trail. It was a real trail too, not just a game trail, lots of people had obviously come this way. But it just ended. I wasted probably a good 15 minutes trying to find the right way to go and then just finally gave up. The top of Middle Weeks was not that far away and I knew the trail went over the top of that so I just used my GPS and bushwhacked my way up. I found the trail up there but in the end probably spent 45 minutes doing a section that should have taken 10. Now I was getting worried because the gate at the fish hatchery can be closed at 4pm. Everybody says that they leave it open leater and sometimes don't even lock it but the sign still says open from 8am to 4pm.
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Once I was back on the trail everyhing was fine. I met a woman with a dog coming down from South Weeks as I was going up and stopped to talk with her a while. She was the only person I saw all day and she said she started right at 800. She said the gate was open before 8 when she came in and didn't think they closed it promptly at 4. It was almost 1pm by time I got to the top of South Weeks and it had taken me 4:18 to get there. If it took the same amount of time to go back there was no way I would get to the gate anytime before 4. I stopped for lots of photos on the way up and a short break on top of Mount Weeks and I knew I would just have to go non-stop on the way back. I hoped I would not have any problems with the trail going down Middle Weeks.
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That hope did not hold true though and I lost the trail again, in very close to the same area. I thought I saw and passed the spot I lost it on the way up so WTF? There are blow downs all over the place in that area and also a pretty dense fern forest and it gets very confusing in spots. Again the trail just ended and there were no blazes on the trees in front or behind me. I did not waste any time here though. According the track in my GPS I was on (or very close to) the same route I had taken on the way up so I just started bushwhacking again and following that and in a few minutes I was back on the real trail.
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I made very good time apart from that and was back at the York Pond Trail right at 3pm with a little more than 2 miles to go. The ETA on my GPS said 4:08pm at this point though so I picked up the speed. This was a much easier section of trail and when the trail permitted it I actually jogged some sections. I gradually brought the ETA down before 4pm and arrived at the car with about 10 minutes to spare. I just threw the gear in the car and headed for the gate. It was only a couple of miles to the gate and I knew I would make it in time so I stopped for a few quick photos at York Pond on the way out. I stopped just outside the gate to get out of my hiking boots and back into my sneakers. My feet were a little sore after this one and it felt good to get the boots off. The hike was supposed to be exactly 12 miles roundtrip but it ended up being 12.5 for me because of the lost trail section on the way in.
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I made a brief stop at York Pond on the way back to the gate since I was pretty sure I had the time. The was lots of fall color at some points along the pond edge and I could see Mount Weeks directly behind one of these patches.
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I didn't stop much on the way home but I could not resist the view from the bridge over the Ammounoosuc River in Bethlehem.
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It was another long day. I was up at 4am and out of the house by 4:15 to get to the trailhead around 8:30. I stopped to pick up a pizza on the way home and got there just a little after 8pm.
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