Mt. Tecumseh - 05.30.2015

Total Mileage: 6.67 mi
Elevation Ascent: 3,130'
Elevation Descent: 3,133'

Trip Report:

My girlfriend and I drove up to the White Mountains yesterday to hike Mt. Tecumseh.  It's nice being so close to up there now that we live in MA!  Took us a little over two hours to get to the Waterville Valley ski area parking lot by the trail head.  My girlfriend hadn't been hiking in a long while so figured this would be a nice, rather easy hike while also bagging our first NH 4000' peak!

Painted Trillium, Trillium undulatum

The trail for the first mile or so pretty gradually climbs in elevation.  It more or less follows Tecumseh Brook for a little ways, making a couple of minor crossings not long after starting the hike.  About a mile in we descended back down to Tecumseh Brook, where we crossed again.  This time a bit more considerable crossing, but nothing serious, just some slippery rocks.  

Tecumseh Brook

Some small waterfalls here, great sounds of a babbling brook.  Filled up my water bottle and treated it and started moving again.  

Start of the stone stairs

After crossing the brook, the trail starts to climb at a pretty good rate, though never getting crazy, all the way up to the ridge below the summit of Tecumseh.  

A short spur trail brought us out to this view on one of the ski trails

You get some decent views of the Tecumseh summit through the trees along part of the trail. This whole section was actually pretty well built and well maintained.  Towards the top of the climb the trail turns into a long set of stone steps. We passed an annoying group of Boy Scouts here; we'd been hearing them yelling as they went up the mountain most of the way.

This is what most of the trail is like going up

This eventually flattens out right as you get up to the ridge.  The trail is nice and flat for the most part, walking through a great fir/spruce forest.  

Trail on ridge below summit

We went up to the summit on the blue trail and this was our "toughest" hiking of the day, skirting along the side of the summit.  The summit was busy, lots of people having lunch.  We sat down, rested, and ate some snacks.  In the meantime, the Boy Scouts arrived and took over the summit area, so we took some pictures and headed back down the way we came.  

View from the summit, looking at the Tripyramids

Back at the trail junction, we took the Sosman Trail over to the south peak where the highest ski lift goes to.  Easy trail over, you come out at a radio antenna for WVFM(according to Google), walk through another 50' of trail and pop out at the ski lift. 

Radio antenna on south peak of Mt. Tecumseh

Really nice, clear open views of the valley.  Great views of Mt. Osceola and the Tripyramids. Took some photos 

Framed view of Waterville Valley from south peak

We hiked back to the trail junction and turned back down the Mt. Tecumseh trail the way we came up.  Took a while going back down, though steady it's pretty steep.  I mean, we were coming down from over 2,000 feet above the parking area.  We stopped at the brook again for a few minutes and got some water and rested.  I splashed some cold stream water on my head which felt really nice in the afternoon heat.   We continued on for the last mile or so and made it back to the car.  Changed up and went into town.  Had a really great, super filling burger with an Angry Orchard hard cider at The Valley Pub and Grill.

I thought this was a great hike!  Good mountain to introduce people to New Hampshire and the White Mountains.  Good payoff at the end with great views, not too difficult but still gave you a taste of hiking in the Whites.

All of my photos can be seen here: https://www.flickr.com/gp/49411498@N07/54465C