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2023-04-14
Mt. Cabot
Posted by PeterD on May 19th, 2014 in Hiking/Trekking

Our plan was to do Cabot on Saturday, and the shorter Waumbek on Sunday.  The drive to Jefferson, NH was over 3 hours, so we wanted to make the most of it.  As with most of our hikes, we start planning in January for the season – many of the overnight accommodations fill up quickly, so we start early.  We found a very nice Inn nearby to both mountains – the Jefferson Inn.  As it happens, we were the only ones in the Inn – nice place – probably packed in the winter season!

We’d kept a careful eye on the weather all week.  The forecast was for rain for our planned hike on Saturday.  But we’re veterans – we’ve done 40+ peaks – so this sounded like a grin-and-bear it sort of hike.  As Saturday neared, the weather was forecasted to improve after the front moved through in the morning hours, so we planned a late start.

Jeanne trailhead
sloppy
Sloppy trails for most of the hike

Thing is, the York Pond trailhead starts in the Berlin Fish Hatchery – which closes the gates at 4pm.  We hit the trail at 10:30am (remember the rain?) for a hike that had a book time of 6 hours – we were cutting it close.

As usual though, Jeanne took off like a rocket, and we start slogging our way through some of the muck that was to be most of the hike.

The good news – the weather guys were right – no more rain, so we never really needed to put on our rain gear.  Though the rains were draining down the trails most of the time, so it made the going wet and a bit sloppy, but that’s what gaiters are for!

Cabot is mostly a woods walk – there is supposed to be a few views – and in fact, there was even a sign for a view (check out the left photo below).  On the way up, the clouds still obscured most of the view, though on our way down, the improving weather gave us a bit more to see (right).

flower
Lifting clouds
Lifting clouds
Not much of a view today
Not much of a view

We didn’t run into many hikers along the way.  The combination of the weather and the location of Cabot itself – the northern-most 4000 footer, make this a little traveled path.

All together, this was not particularly strenuous hike, and we were treated to some early-spring mountain fauna along the way.

Combined with the quiet stay at the Jefferson Inn and a wonderful dinner at the Moonbeam Cafe, this turned out to be a very enjoyable (though, wet!) walk in the woods kind of day.

Oh, and we made it back to the car in plenty of time before the gate closing!

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