My sons and I took the opportunity to get some hiking in while visiting my sister in Littleton NH. So why not try the toughest hike on the Appalachian Trail.
We got dropped off at the Notch Trail head off of Success Pond road just NE of Berlin NH. It is about 2.5 miles to the AT from there. Nice easy trail.
Then the notch trail hits the AT right at the Mahoosuc notch.
That is where the fun starts. Over, under, around boulders. The kids love it.
Then you get out of the notch after about a miles and the real challenge begins. Mahoosuc arm. This thing is 1800 feet up over about a mile. Much on slick rock straight up. I didn't get any pictures of climbing because we were worn out. But the view from the top was nice. That's looking back towards the notch.
After reaching the top we had another miles to get to speck pond shelter. All downhill. We hung out hammocks over a tent platform using three trees. Didn't get any pics because we are and went to sleep. We did remember to take a pic next morning but only after hammocks were packed away.
We left the campground and had a good climb to almost the top of Speck Mountain. Then all down hill for 3.5 miles to Hwy 26 at Grafton Notch State park.
This hike was tough. the thru hikers we met said this was the toughest since starting in Springer. The notch is fun but then you have to tackle the arm which was the killer part. We hiked right at 12 miles total over two days. There are some other campspots between the notch and arm so this could have been stretched out over another day or two.
But I'm glad we did it. The boys are very proud of what they accomplished. Next year the youngest wants to climb Mount Washington.
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Originally Posted by JoshuaTrees
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