Sunrise / Sunset Hikes

[DayTrip]

Another item on hiking bucket list for this year is to catch a sunrise and sunset on top of a mountain. Making a list of two categories:

1) Night Hikes in an out (easily negotiated terrain via headlamp, not super long to get to summit/get back to car)
2) Overnight Hikes (legal camping areas as close as possible to summit; no shelters/huts/official tent sites; less popular the better - don't want a group of people up there with me)

My current list of possibilities is:

Night Hikes: Imp Face, Middle Sugarloaf, Mt Clay (via Jewell Trail), Mt Flume (via Osseo Trail)

Overnights: Mt Hight (Current Top Choice; Are campsites on spur path South of summit legal? Well worn but very close to trail - 200' rule?), Mt Isolation (how close can you get with campable terrain - probably would come up Davis Path), Slide Peak (only did in winter so I don't know if woods between Glen Boulder and summit is campable - was covered in snow)

Any suggestion or tips would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[dug]

I watched the full moon rise overnight on the top of Isolation. We weren't camping, we just rested on the summit slabs for a while then hiked out after a spectacular sunrise.

 

[TJsName]

Jefferson via Caps Ridge, you can start your descent at dusk and hut the woods at dark. Quite nice!

 

[SherpaWill]

Mt. Liberty via Liberty Springs Trail. Stay the night at Liberty Springs Campsite.

 

[MichaelJ]

West Bond, staying at Guyot campsite.

 

[peakbagger]

Garfield has multiple unofficial campsites very close to the fire tower. The woods are thick enough that if bad weather does approach there is some cover. It appears popular so no guarantees for a quiet spot. One major caveat is to carry up whatever water you need. There is an old water source near the top but the heavy use, thin soils and terrain all make it a bad water source to trust as it should be assumed to be contaminated with human waste.

Do note that summits along the AT get a lot of thru hikers camping at or near the summit of mountains, be it legal or not. They tend to come late and leave early. I expect some folks use the bootleg campsite on Jewell trail to access the ridgeline at night.

I expect Starr King is now going to get popular again since the view was cleared. There are unofficial tent sites in the woods to the east of the summit.

Folks also camp out on the ledges of Mt Hayes in Gorham, if you drive up Hogan Road and take the Mahoosuc trail, the trail is basically a set of very old woods roads. Not far from the ledges is Popsy Spring. Mt Hayes has a great location for viewing sunrise lighting up the presidentials and its hard to beat for Sunsets. As this section of the Mahoosuc trail is south of the AT junction it doesn't get a lot of traffic. If you time it right the blueberries are usually pretty good.

Ranging over to Maine. I expect Andover Whitecap would be quite the place with 360 degree views (and loads of berrys in season). I am not sure if the land trsut that owns it allows overnight use so it would need to be checked.

 

[Scubahhh]

Sunrise fom Moosilauke is awesome. The walk up.fom Glencliff on the AT is about 4 miles, and pretty easy with a headlamp. If you get up an hour is so before sunrise, you can hunker down out of the wind in the stone shelters. Even better if you can go when the weathers good me the moon's full. Just don't think about Doc Benton!

 

[RoySwkr]

One well-known hiker finished his goal of being on each NH4k summit at midnight, usually by camping nearby. He chose to repeat 3 summits where he discovered later that his campsites were illegal.