Mt. Monadnock, sometimes called Grand Monadnock, perhaps the second most-climbed mountain in the world (after Mt. Fuji in Japan), is covered with hiking trails as the accompanying trail maps show. Many of these trails climb the southern faces of the mountain, visible in the photo at the top of this page. Mt. Monadnock has been a Mecca to hikers since at least the mid-eighteenth century. Henry David Thoreau was just one of the champions of this peak's grandeur.
Much of the mountain's lower reaches are forested with a mix of hardwoods. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, large swaths of the mountain had been cleared for farming and herding, creating views of and from its slopes that were considerably different than what you see today. As you ascend, the hardwoods are replaced by evergreens, growing ever more stunted at higher elevations. The upper third of the mountain is exposed rock, largely the result of fires that engulfed the peak. There seems to be a great mythology about the fires, especially that they were purposely set to kill wolves that preyed on the flocks of sheep kept on the mountain. At least some sources say that most of these fires were accidental. See The Annals of the Grand Monadnock, first published in 1936 by Allen Chamberlain (Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, 1975).
Located in southwestern New Hampshire, Mt. Monadnock is no more than a two-hour drive for most residents of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Providence, RI and Hartford, CT. Albany is perhaps three and one-half hours away. New York City is about four and one-half hours.
The Park Headquarters hosts a campground, a store for campers and hikers, restrooms, large parking lots (though they can quickly fill on good hiking days), picnic areas, and park offices. As of May, 2006, none of the other tracts provide more than a little parking and outhouses.
While all of the trails are different in some respects, at some point each involves walking over steep terrain composed largely of very uneven rock surfaces (old talus slopes and scree). Other sections of the trails are broad rock faces, and all the trails begin in deciduous forest.
The trails are well established, though erosion and "bootleg" trails occasionally can be confusing, and soil has filled the areas between the rocks, but feet, ankles, knees, hearts and lungs will all get a good workout. In keeping with most New England trails, I find these more challenging for their distance than the majority of trails in the rest of the country, as they tend to avoid the inconvenience of switchbacks as they climb the mountain..
Leaving from the Monadnock
State Park headquarters (fee: $3.00 pp, 2006--no pets allowed!)
limits your options. Other trails begin from all sides of the mountain.
The two most popular trails are the White
Dot Trail and the White
Cross Trail. The Spellman
Trail
and the Red
Spot Trail are two alternatives that offer longer hikes but are
more and less challenging, respectively. Both of these latter trails connect
from and with other trails along the way.
A second tract of the park, signed Old Toll Road (fee: $3.00 pp--no pets here, either, or anywhere on the mountain), provides a parking area only, with access to the Old Halfway House/White Arrow trail complex providing a host of secondary trails. Many years back, the Old Halfway House/White Arrow Trail was the primary route to the summit. For hikers looking for a more "pure" (read: hiking only, a couple of modern outhouses at the trailhead but no other amenities) experience than found at the Park Headquarters, the Old Toll Road is an easy location to reach and it has a fair amount of parking. While a single trail (and a parallel gravel road) leaves the parking area, the number of trails that branch off at various points leads to a wide range of experiences. Often, the hiker finds himself alone on the lesser-known trails.
A third tract at Gilson Pond provides free entry and picnicking, with access to the mountain via the Birchtoft Trail. In 2006, a new campground is being built here, replacing the individual campsites at the Park Headquarters.
There
are also several trails originating along local roads, including the
Marlboro
Trail (western slope), Dublin Trail
(northern slope) and the
Pumpelly Trail
(eastern approach). One final warning--no pets are
allowed anywhere on the mountain.