08 May 2015: Moat Mountain (North, Middle, and South peaks)

My first hike in May was spurned by Bob The Love Goat’s desire to attempt a traverse across the Moat mountain peaks. We got Bishop X and Bob’s dog Boomer on board to come along on a warmish day in early May.

History: The name dats back to the late 1700’s, name given by local residents of Albany NH due to the numerous beaver points that gave the appearance of “Moats” around these peaks on the Eastern side.


Peak Elevation: North Moat: 3196 ft / Middle Moat: 2805 ft. / South Moat: 2770 ft.
Elevation Gain: ~2800 ft
Trail: Moat Mountain Trail (North to south from Diana’s bath to west side road)
Length: 9.7 mi
Time on Trail : 0900
Time off Trail: 1530ish

As this was my first hike of the year, I was pretty excited to jump into another 52WAV peak with some solid elevation gain to ramp myself up for another season tackling the 4000 footers. We did a north-to-south traverse, starting at Diana’s baths and ending at the trailhead on West Side rd. We left a car on the south end of things and zoomed up the road to get going. We started just around 0900, and promptly noted how well groomed the lower section of Diana baths was. Not surprised as it is a popular destination.

Shortly on the trail, we happened upon a man and his dog, this happened to be the Gentleman who wrote Following Atticus, Tom Ryan. After a brief chat we went our separate ways towards a not-well-marked trail past the water features on that side of the mountain. It felt as if we were the first hikers on this route in a long while, judging by the leaf cover where footpaths usually tend to lie on these trails. I have a feeling there are a number of mountain bike paths out this way, too – it just had that feel to it. After a bit of balking on the GPS we decided to head to the treeline and found the trail or maybe a herdpath up the mountain. Once we were above probably 2800 ft, we found some monorail snow cover on the path we were on. I post holed a bit but once the treeline broke the snow vanished. Now would have been a great time to apply Sunscreen, if I had any with me this day. I got roasted a bit. PSA: wear sunscreen.

The summit of the north peak was mostly bald and open views due to the ledges on two sides of the mountain and no other higher peaks around for miles. On a clear day like today was, you could see out to Franconia Ridge and maybe a bit past there, in the correct light. Middle peak was nothing too crazy , but South Moat was great views as well. Going up for Boomer was easy, he loves to just go-go-go, but the rock face on the descent from south proved difficult for him as he was unsure of his footing. BobTheLoveGoat took his pack off and helped him down the few rough sections but he seemed to truck onward after those initial tough spots for a young dog.


Photos:

The Moats (North, "Middle" and South Moat Mountains) 08May15

Note: this is a backdated entry made in 2017.