Mt. Tecumseh

This past weekend I headed up to New Hampshire with my buddy Mike to knock a 4000 footer off my list. For those of you who don't know, New Hampshire has 48 mountains who's elevation is above 4000 feet, and it's a sought after accomplishment to hike all of them. I by no means am racing to complete this list, but it's nice to bag a few of these peaks once and a wile and who knows maybe someday I will complete the list.
I got to talking with my friend Mike about doing one of them in the winter to see how it was, weather wise, and we decided on Mt. Tecumseh which ranks in at number 48 on the list, just making it with a elevation of 4003 feet. Mt. Tecumseh is part of the Waterville Valley Ski Area and has multiple well maintained trails leading up the mountain. Due to it's location there is plenty of parking in the ski area parking lots providing easy access to the main trail head of Mt. Tecumseh trail. We headed out onto the trail at about noon and had a pretty steady pace most of the way up, until about the last mile which was moderately steep, and since the trail was complete snow, a pretty good challenge. The landscape was staggering due to the amount of snow and ice covering everything, even more so due to the moderate winter this year which I'm used to. After walking on a narrow trail through frozen wilderness we reached the summit which had slightly obstructed views due to it's location below tree line, which was probably for the best since I'm sure we would have froze to death had it been above treeline. After a short break, the cold set in and we headed back down the mountain. The Sosman trail hadn't been traveled on since the last snowfall so we decided to go down the same way we came up; on the Mt. Tecumseh trail. Since the trail was completely snowy and steep, it was a perfect opportunity to slide down most of it, and believe me I did. It took roughly 3 hours to climb the mountain and only 45 minutes to race down it, and we were back at our car by a little after 4 pm. This was a great hike and exactly what I needed after a long and pretty terrible week. I will no longer hesitate hiking in the winter now as this was a great and very different experience than what I'm used to.

Mileage: 5 miles

The hike down.

A view on the way up.

Frozen forest.

Frost.

Snow terrorist.

Icicles.