WeRmudfun
New member
Sunday we hiked to our 89th peak on the NH Fire Tower List of the 93 towers that are standing, once stood or were proposed. NW Hancock was the one that started us on this sometimes crazy quest last year. We were checking the trail conditions on the Hancock's on NETC and saw a report from a couple who had just finished their 91st fire tower site, NW Hancock. We had already completed the 15 that the state of NH has, so we were curious and emailed them. The rest is history. We ended up taking the pup up the Hancock's anyway, but didn't add in NW Hancock at that time. I think I can say that if we did, we would have never continued to pursue this list. 
I'm glad we waited, it has been an exciting journey so far with lots of history.
We looked at the different ways to attempt this peak. Tim wrote that great report a couple weeks ago using the slides. We knew a couple guys who did it coming over from North Hancock and didn't recommend it, they said try it from Cedar Brook trail, so that's what we did. We parked in the lot at the hairpin turn and started along the Hancock Notch trail to Cedar Brook Trail. After the junction with the Hancock Loop trail, it was all virgin ground for us. Once we got into the Pemi Wilderness, the trail took a nose dive. There were sections where the water was running over the trail. Other sections had unavoidable boot sucking mud, a real pleasure to hike in.
We had researched the TOPO maps and thought maybe we should hike the trail all the way to the ridgeline and start our bushwhack there. The contour lines showed it not to be as steep as other approaches. As we neared the spot we were targeting, we looked at the map and GPS and saw that we could shave some time and mileage starting the bushwhack sooner.
The spot we picked to start the bushwhack was a nice open woods area. That didn't last, as soon we started the ascent we hit an area of blowdowns, then blowdowns hidden by new pine growth. It got miserable pretty fast. The more we tried to skirt around it, the more we ran into. There was one point it took us an hour to go 0.2 miles. We eventually got up on the ridge line only to realize that was a mistake, it was completely dense up there, so we came down and skirted along the side while still going up in elevation. That was a joy on the ankles.
There are a lot of dead trees out there too. I was shocked by the amount of times I would grab a tree for support only to find out I was taking it with me or knocking it over. There were spots where the ground was moss covered which felt good underfoot until you realized the ground was letting go under you. It felt like we were postholing in some spots. I'm still not sure how, but eventually we were standing in front of the last obstacle before the summit and it was a thick dense area. We made it through and found artifacts right below the summit. They were a welcome relief after the bushwhack we had just come through.
The summit gave us more artifacts and the canister to sign. We read all the entries and there weren't many. We added our own entry, explored the summit for more artifact, then had lunch. We knew we had a long haul out of there, so we finished lunch, looked at the map and decided a direct descent back down was the route we were going for. It was extremely steep heading down the way we went, we both fell a couple of times and we knocked over a lot of trees, still can't believe how dead the forest was.
Both of us were thrilled to see the Cedar Brook trail again, but we still had miles to go to get back to the trailhead. We tried to kick up the pace, but we were beat, so we got out just as the sun was setting. The parking lot was mobbed with people trying to take pictures of the sunset. We couldn't have left if we wanted to, so we sat on the wall and watched it set ourselves. After the sun set, everybody pulled out including us. We headed back towards Lincoln and didn't even make it a couple miles before traffic came to a stand still. We later found out it was like that all the way into Lincoln, IQuest let us know it was an accident down by the condos. We turned around and headed home via Conway...way out of our way. We got home at 8:45PM grabbed a drink of choice and hit the hottub! Long hike, long drive, long day...NW Hancock off the to-do list.
I'm glad we waited, it has been an exciting journey so far with lots of history. We looked at the different ways to attempt this peak. Tim wrote that great report a couple weeks ago using the slides. We knew a couple guys who did it coming over from North Hancock and didn't recommend it, they said try it from Cedar Brook trail, so that's what we did. We parked in the lot at the hairpin turn and started along the Hancock Notch trail to Cedar Brook Trail. After the junction with the Hancock Loop trail, it was all virgin ground for us. Once we got into the Pemi Wilderness, the trail took a nose dive. There were sections where the water was running over the trail. Other sections had unavoidable boot sucking mud, a real pleasure to hike in.
We had researched the TOPO maps and thought maybe we should hike the trail all the way to the ridgeline and start our bushwhack there. The contour lines showed it not to be as steep as other approaches. As we neared the spot we were targeting, we looked at the map and GPS and saw that we could shave some time and mileage starting the bushwhack sooner.
The spot we picked to start the bushwhack was a nice open woods area. That didn't last, as soon we started the ascent we hit an area of blowdowns, then blowdowns hidden by new pine growth. It got miserable pretty fast. The more we tried to skirt around it, the more we ran into. There was one point it took us an hour to go 0.2 miles. We eventually got up on the ridge line only to realize that was a mistake, it was completely dense up there, so we came down and skirted along the side while still going up in elevation. That was a joy on the ankles.
There are a lot of dead trees out there too. I was shocked by the amount of times I would grab a tree for support only to find out I was taking it with me or knocking it over. There were spots where the ground was moss covered which felt good underfoot until you realized the ground was letting go under you. It felt like we were postholing in some spots. I'm still not sure how, but eventually we were standing in front of the last obstacle before the summit and it was a thick dense area. We made it through and found artifacts right below the summit. They were a welcome relief after the bushwhack we had just come through.
The summit gave us more artifacts and the canister to sign. We read all the entries and there weren't many. We added our own entry, explored the summit for more artifact, then had lunch. We knew we had a long haul out of there, so we finished lunch, looked at the map and decided a direct descent back down was the route we were going for. It was extremely steep heading down the way we went, we both fell a couple of times and we knocked over a lot of trees, still can't believe how dead the forest was.
Both of us were thrilled to see the Cedar Brook trail again, but we still had miles to go to get back to the trailhead. We tried to kick up the pace, but we were beat, so we got out just as the sun was setting. The parking lot was mobbed with people trying to take pictures of the sunset. We couldn't have left if we wanted to, so we sat on the wall and watched it set ourselves. After the sun set, everybody pulled out including us. We headed back towards Lincoln and didn't even make it a couple miles before traffic came to a stand still. We later found out it was like that all the way into Lincoln, IQuest let us know it was an accident down by the condos. We turned around and headed home via Conway...way out of our way. We got home at 8:45PM grabbed a drink of choice and hit the hottub! Long hike, long drive, long day...NW Hancock off the to-do list.
