Uncanoonuc Mt....times two

My friend Dan and I have been talking about doing a trail run on and around Uncanoonuc Mt in Goffstown. Actually there are two mountains, North Mt and South Mt and both are nearly identical in elevation (approximately 1320 ft) and about a mile apart as a crow flies. The plan was to cover as many of the surrounding summit routes and hit both summits in a single run. Unfortunately we never really found any decent trail maps of the area, just an old map from the 1930's when they used to have a snow train to the summit. The others were mountain bike GPS maps from various riders. We printed out what we had, packed our GPS watches along with a compass and headed to the Base Rd parking area below South Mt.

We headed up South Mt. first via the Summit Trail (or U.S.C. Trail on the old map). Very steep climb but it didn't last too long. We didn't follow it to the summit though, opting for a side trail labeled 'Walker' as we approached the summit. The trail gently traveled around the NE side of the mountain before hooking up with the Incline trail just short of the summit. It did offer nice views to the NE of downtown Manchester however.

View of Downtown Manchester from Walker Trail.

Incline Trail on South Mt.

We then turned right and headed up the last bit of the Incline Trail. Once at the summit we looped around once looking for the Eastside Trail. Not sure if we found it or not but after a VERY steep decent, we did find an awesome single track around the south side of the mountain, eventually hooking up with Summit Rd. A quick trek down the road to the powerlines and we were off on our next trail, following the lines for nearly 2 miles.


Powerline Trail

At this point we went on a several mile detour (aka lost), eventually coming out on a residential road. We were looking for a cross trail from South to North Mountains. After stopping and asking a neighbor for directions, we headed up Mountain Road and eventually found the trail we were looking for: Dorsey Ravine Trail. We followed this trail all the way to the summit. Stopped for a quick snack, snapped a couple of pictures and off we went down the other side of the mountain, hoping to find the infamous cross trail back to South Mountain.

Dorsey Ravine Trail on North Mt.


Near the summit of North Mt.


View of South Mt. from the summit of North Mt.

Shortly after passing a beaver dam and pond we can across a familiar sign: Bickford Lookout. Actually just Bickford was familiar since we saw a sign for Bickford Trail back at the start of our run earlier this morning. We must have finally found the cross trail. After taking a short detour to the lookout and taking the picture below we headed back to South Mountain.

Bickford Lookout

In all we traveled just over 10 miles, with nearly 3,000 ft of elevation gain (and 3,000 ft of elevation loss). All in all a pretty good workout for a couple of hours.