Deer Mountain

PHOTO: We found what we were looking for on the South Peak of Deer Mountain. The heavily forested summit has no view but it the 153rd highest mountain in the State.

by Amy Patenaude
Outdoor/Ski Writer

In Pittsburgh, New Hampshire, just a few miles south of the Canadian border is Deer Mountain. The site of an abandoned fire tower and 153rd highest mountain in the State.
Adam and I drove up Route 3 all the way from Franconia and it was a slow drive from Lancaster to the tip of New Hampshire. Overnight it had snowed and the further north we drove the more the snow had accumulated. The plow-salt-sand trucks were just getting out.

I confessed I had forgotten to put the shovel in my car. I carry a shovel in the winter when going off to hike because I never know when I may have to shovel out a place to park. We knew there was snow in the north country but the snow banks were surprisingly high.

We arrived at the parking area on the east side of Route 3 across from Sophie’s Lane– a section of the Cohos Trail and the new four inches of snow had not been plowed yet. I carefully backed my car into a corner of the lot just off the pavement.

Adam and I were just finishing booting up and gathering our things when we heard the snowplow truck and the driver waved as he drove past. Then he backed up and waved us out. We jumped back in the car and drove it out onto Rte 3’s pavement. The plow driver made quick work of clearing the parking lot and he waved again as he continued off again. We took this as a good omen that we were leaving the car behind well off the road in a nice cleared lot.

Our plan was to go to the firetower and then bushwhack to the mountain’s higher south peak. Adam was getting to hike a new-to-him-trail, check off a tower on the NH Firetower list which he claims he doesn’t care very much about but mostly he was there to help me visit the summit of another New Hampshire Highest 200 peak in winter.

We snowshoed up the Cohos Trail and when we reached the part that is also a snowmobile trail we were surprised at 10am that there were no fresh tracks. We turned left at the well marked Deer Mountain Trailhead. There was so much snow. Over two feet and the trees were heavily laden with snow.

The Cohos Trails Association maintains the trail to the abandoned Deer Mountain Fire Tower.
Following the blue blaze markers that are nailed to the trees wasn’t easy. Besides often being covered with snow, many of the markers were missing because the growing trees popped the wooden markers off the nails that once held them. We saw a few that people had picked up and set on a tree’s limb. We did lose the trail once and had to fan out to discover it again.

The soft snow made for good snowshoeing. The stream crossings were still open and we had to carefully cross them. We started to see lots of wildlife tracks and scat. Rabbits, squirrels and moose were abundant. A pair of moose had bedded overnight right in the middle of the trail.

The abandoned fire tower is quite the site, over the last nearly 50 years the forest is trying to claim it. The metal framework of the structure stands with a spruce tree growing right up the middle. The stairway’s rungs have been removed and would be crazy risky to attempt to climb the tower.

We had a snack and didn’t rest long because we knew we had some real work ahead of us.
After retracing our snowshoe track about half a mile we left the trail and headed south into the forest along the ridge.

The temperature was hovering right at freezing so it felt almost warm and at least the snow wasn’t dripping wet or sticky. But there was a lot of snow and each and every time I pushed through the trees I was bombed with snow. Adam would still get clobbered with snow because somehow not all the snow hit me.

It was “only” a mile to the summit of Deer Mountain’s South Peak. We had our rain shells pulled tight over our heads. I tried to do my best moose impersonation and pushed and stumbled through the tight trees. Adam using his new Christmas gift, a compass, kept me pointed in the right direction.

Both of us took turns keeping the other motivated. At one point I whined that the only way this could be worse is if something was chasing us. We were also getting wet. Our body heat was wetting out our clothing. We joked about how much fun we were having and the funny thing is we WERE having fun.
When I bumped right into the summit marker we rejoiced for our good luck. It was a relief not to have to make an extra effort hunting for it. Again we took a short break and we evaluated our clothing situation. Wet mittens, wetted out rain gear and gaiters soaking through too. We were still both warm enough and made the decision to wait longer to change into our extra dry clothing.

We followed our snowshoe tracks out and it wasn’t easy in the thick trees because we couldn’t see ahead of us and of course more snow had fallen off the trees covering our tracks. But it sure was a lot easier not having to navigate and knowing the tracks would lead back to the open trail.

Before we reached the trail we stopped and put on dry mittens. We both carry more than three pairs, hand warmers and extra fleece gloves. My hands appreciated the dryness and the warmth.

Back on the trail we were amused by the new animal tracks that had used our tracks. A moose had walked a long way along our tracks while we were above on the mountain. Near the bottom of the trail someone with a dog had bare-booted our snowshoe track but they had turned around at the first stream crossing.
The snowmobiles had been out too and now the logging road portion was packed out hard.

We were so happy to be back at the car. We took six hours to hike just over 8 miles. We wasted no time taking off our wet clothes and changing into dry clothes.

It was still 32 degrees, Rte 3’s pavement was now dry and free of snow. I wished I could take all this snow home with me.

Have fun.