I took a couple of vacation days from work on either side of last weekend. Nothing serious planned in the way of travel or events; the hope was to spend some good time out of doors in new places. And that happened.

Friday looked to be a great day weather-wise, so I decided to check out a mountain over in New Hampshire reputed to have great views, Magalloway Mountain. Wife decided to come along for the ride, and since the hike didn’t look like it would take too long, she was comfortable with the idea of hanging out at the trailhead while I went up and down.

The trailhead to Magalloway is located off US Route 3 in that narrow section of northernmost New Hampshire, surrounded by Quebec and Maine. It’s north of the 45th Parallel.

Leaving US 3, you follow a fairly good dirt road for about eight miles, and then turn off onto Tower Road, which is a rough dirt road. A Jeep track. This shouldn’t be traveled unless your vehicle has appropriate clearances. It goes along for three miles, with plenty of rocks, dips and chuck holes.

Tower Rd. ends at the trailhead, and there is plenty of parking available. There’s also a his & hers privy handily located near the informational sign.

There are two trails on the mountain, Coot and Bobcat. I decided to ascend the Bobcat Trail, a decision I was later glad to have made. Bobcat headed straight up the hill, and was rather muddy. There must have been some rain the night before. The trail was steep, but short, and in many places very tight- I don’t think it gets used as much as Coot Trail.

Bobcat Trail connects to Coot a bit shy of the summit. Coot Trail is more fire road than trail. At the trail junction is the first vista available to the north, and once you continue up Coot Trail the fire tower soon comes into view.

Once on the summit plateau, there are a couple of sealed up camp buildings along with the tower. There’s a short trail off to the east labeled “Overlook”, so I thought I’d take a look over there before climbing up the fire tower. The detour paid off, for the short trail ended up at a magnificent view from the cliffs on the northeast side of the mountain.

I returned to the fire tower and made the obligatory climb up. The ladders were pretty steep, but the structure was very sturdy.

And the views were fantastic!

Returned to the trailhead via the Coot Trail, and as mentioned earlier was glad I didn’t ascend on it. It’s nothing more than an old rocky fire road, with little character. The trip down was quick.

The entire trip up & down plus topside wandering was about two miles total. Elevation gain, including the tower was over 900 feet, so it was fairly steep. Well worth the effort though, for Magalloway offers some of the better views I’ve found in northern New England. There were a few others on the trail that Friday, but not so many that you’d take special notice of it.

Wife was still there waiting for me when I got off the trail. Our plan was to saddle up in the Jeep and head for a spot over in Pittsburg for lunch. We said goodbye to her little friend and headed back towards paved roads.

Our destination for lunch was the Buck Rub Pub on US Rt. 3 in Pittsburgh. We had been here once before, and thought that earned a return visit. Wife had a chicken wrap with sweet potato fries while I had a Buffalo Burger Wrap. Both were good and the beer was cold. Not that there are a ton of choices up there, but if you’re in the neighborhood the Buck Rub Pub is worth a visit.

This had been an excellent day so far, and all that was left was the ride homewards. We headed south on US Rt. 3 with the windows down and the stereo cranked up, enjoying the 78° sunny afternoon. It reminded me of driving my old Chevy Nova on a similar day in July over 40 years ago. The windows were down then as well, with the vent windows pointing in. Then the stereo was an under-dash 8-track player pushing a pair of Jensen speakers mounted under the rear window. But the music was mostly the same. Heh!

The trip had one more surprise for us as we came across VT Rt. 105, just east of Brighton.

The second moose sighting of the summer!

There was another mountain that weekend, and I’ll cover that one in the next post. Thanks for stopping by!