Epic Owl's Head Aventure Trek!

Follow the Tail!

Hi!!!

I did Owl’s Head with my Moriah and my Laura. Owl’s Head has the longest trail to summit of the NH 4,000 footers. The good thing is that 8 miles is almost flat. The bad thing is that the one mile is up-up-up! We did this big-mountain trip on the almost summer solstice day so we could have plenty of daylight. Some people will camp overnight but we knew Team Locomo could get it done!

You start at Lincoln Woods and take the Lincoln Woods trail for 2.9 miles. It is really very flat but you have to watch out for the old wood railroad ties. Don’t trip! You still have a long way to go. The next trail is Franconia Brook Trail and you get to cross the brook a few times. After that is Lincoln Brook Trail and guess what? You get to cross the brook a few times! I lost count of how many water crossings we did but two of them on the Lincoln Brook trail were hard! Laura and Moriah brought water shoes for those because there aren’t enough rocks to jump across. We looked around for good places to cross but in the end I just had to go in the deep sections and even SWIM part of it!!! (Laura Note: Frisco doesn’t like swimming.) Those two river crossings are close together or easy trails so you humans can keep your water shoes on in between them. All the other water crossings were much much easier.

STEEPNESS!

Eventually, you will get to a trail that goes up the infamous Owl’s Head slide. You don’t actually see the slide at the start of the trail. Just keep an eye out because sometimes the cairn gets taken down. The slide is the tough part for humans and dogs. It is super steep and there are really loose rocks everywhere. Also, the slide is not just loose rocks. Sometimes it is wet rocks. Sometimes it is loose dirt. Sometimes it is mud! We saw a guy coming down with a tiny puffball dog who was scared of me and yapped. She got to be picked up and carried down. My Laura said no to carrying me.

Victory!

Luckily, the slide is only a mile long. When you get to the top there is a clearing that was called the summit but it is not REALLY the summit. The 4,000 footer club accepts it though because there isn’t a real trail to the true summit. There are trails, but they are all over the place! We easily found the big-cairn summit marker but we almost got lost trying to find the right trail back to the slide. We saw other people going towards the summit which helped us find the way.

Lunch break on the slide with the only view

There were bugs every time we stopped so we had our lunch break on rocks halfway down the slide. It was good to have a break down the slide because that’s the only place with good views and going DOWN the slide was worse than up! The 16 miles of flat trails during the day was ok but the one mile up and one mile down was what got us tired.

When we got down the slide, we only had 8 miles left to go! It seemed like a lot but really wasn’t too bad. I felt like the water crossings were easier on the way back. (Laura Note: I think watching Toby the Corgi cross the rivers helped Frisco be brave.) We also got the LOCOMO-tive going on the smooth parts and ran. Love the running! Just don’t trip on the railway ties! At the very end we caught up with some nice guys we saw at the beginning of the day. They said hi to

post-hike selfie!

me every time we crossed paths. We even saw a deer walking across our trail when we were almost back to the car! We got back in time for the clouds to look stormy. It was a long trip but pretty fun and post-hike chikkin nuggets made it worth it.

Something helpful about water levels:

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nh/nwis/uv?site_no=01074520

Bye!

~Frisco

Owl’s Head
Elevation: 4,025 ft
Trails: Lincoln Woods Trail, Franconia Brook Trail, Lincoln Brook Trail, Owl’s Head Path, unofficial “trail” to summit
Distance: 18.5 miles