Whiteface & Passaconaway

Take the bridge to Blueberry Ledge Trails

Hi!!! 

Whiteface and Passaconaway were my #12 and #13 so now I am 1/4 done the 4,000 footer list! It was good to get these two done but it was a long and steep trip. Laura, Moriah, and I did at least 12.5 miles! This is a hard trip for dogs. Make sure you are in shape and like to climb!

The parking lot is on the right side of the road and you have to walk to some of the trailheads. For the one we started on, you have to walk down the dirt roads and private driveways to the trailhead, but they are nice and let hikers in. We started on the Blueberry Ledge Trail and then took the Cutoff. It was the same distance, but it went a different way. The cutoff went near the water for a little bit and then starts climbing. It was STEEP! It was also dirt and not much rocks or roots so it was sometimes slippy. The whole cutoff was flat then STEEP then flat the STEEP.

one of many climbs

When you get back to the blueberry ledge trail, there are rocks and stairs. Then you start getting LEDGES! There are lots of rocks to climb. My Moriah tried to get me to go the way she went on one of them but I didn’t like it and got up easier another way. Other ones were big jumps so My Laura took my backpacks off for the narrow spots. They both had to give me some help on the big ones, but since I have four feet, some of it was easier for me than for my humans.

Oh yeah, blueberries! The Blueberry Ledge Trail is supposed to have blueberries on it. We took the cutoff for most of that part so it also cut off the blueberries. There were a few scraggly bushes when we came back to the main trail at the ledges but there wasn’t a good snack.  Luckily, Laura brought Backup Blueberries!

not many blueberries on the ledges... bring your own!

not-quite-peak marker

We had lunch on top of the USGS peak marker. It’s a nice spot to stop hiking if you don’t keep track, but the peak marker is NOT the real peak. It’s mean to put a peak marker there if it is not the real peak! You have to keep going on the Rollins Trail even though it goes down before going back up to the high point of Whiteface. We went right away after lunch because of dark clouds. I didn’t want rain again! At least there are trees almost everywhere on this hike.

Whiteface official summit

After you go down and up again it flattens out when you are trying to find where the top is. If you feel like you went over a speed lump, turn around and look for a pile of rocks. The pile is on the east side of the trail. There is also a smiley face in a dead tree so you can be happy to know that you found the top!  :)

There was a lot of up and down on the Rollins Trail and when we got to the little loop for Mt Passaconaway it started out looking nice but sure got STEEP again. There was also water on this beginning part of Dicey’s Mill Trail. And by water on it I mean the trail was the water or the water was the trail. (Laura note: I don’t know if this is normal, but it was a shallow stream down a short section of the trail.)  At the top, there is a mini-trail to the summit with a sign that is trying to point in the right direction. There is a tiny tiny pile of rocks in the woods to say you made it. It was so small that it only was as high as my chest! 

tiny Passaconaway summit cairn

We kept going in a loop back down to see a different trail. There is a trail that goes opposite the mini-summit-trail, but since it was cloudy we did not bother. (Laura note: I hear it has great views but it is .3 miles one way and loses elevation.) There were different views just around the corner anyway on the Walden Trail. Going down this side still had lots of steep. I almost did some headstands because it was so steep.

Once you get back to the Dicey’s Mill Trail and get below the ridge, it is a very nice trail. It was fairly smooth too, thought it took a long time to get back. There was one river crossing that had a fat log to use if you don’t like getting your paws wet. When you get to the end of the trail, you come out at someone’s farm yard. You just keep going on the dirt road back to the parking lot. We took a quick foot-dip in the river which was nice after the long long hike.

log bridge

Phew, I am tired just writing about it! I wrote a long blog for a long trek. This was fun but challenging. It is not easy at all for new dogs. Even if you are an old dog learning new tricks, it is very hard. There might be other options to get there that I haven’t tried. Do some good practice hikes before this one and work on distance if you do both at once!

Bye!

~Frisco

Whiteface, Passaconaway
Elevation: 4,020 ft, 4,043 ft
Trails: Blueberry Ledge Trail, Blueberry Ledge Cutoff, Rollins Trail, Walden Trail, East Loop, Dicey’s Mill Trail, Ferncroft Road
Distance: ~12.5 miles

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