West Quarry Mountain

As I was still getting into a hiking routine where I don't feel like collapsing afterwards (and I still am), I took several days off after my Copple Crown hike. I got to hang out with Jake one day, but the rest were pretty much just me sitting around and relaxing, and I was completely fine with that.

But the Belknap Mountains called my name, and Kevin and I planned a 3 mountain hike on Memorial day. I decided to head out to West Quarry mountain on the Friday before to knock another mountain off my list while testing out both the parking situation and the trail to West Quarry, which incidentally met with a trail for Rand Mountain, the one Kevin and I were looking into starting from. There is very little information on the internets on West Quarry and the mountains in our planned loop (Rand, Klem and Mack), so I needed to see if this was an option. This was a get-the-legs-moving-again hike mixed with a recon mission.

It was cooler than it had been and humid, with lots of clouds in the sky and a threat of rain, but I had a good feeling I was going to luck out. I headed out to the trailhead by turning onto 11A from 11 in Gilford, and turning left onto Glidden Road, which ends at Stonybrook Farm. I parked pretty much right where the tar turned to dirt, and actually left a note on my car apologizing if I wasn't supposed to park there. (It either was fine or nobody there cared). 

I had a pretty helpful account which I followed on my phone. The trail started fairly horribly, as it's just an overgrown road for just about a mile. 

I followed directions, staying right or straight and ignoring anything else, until I came to where Quarry Trail crossed over the road, which was fairly obvious and marked with white blazes. Left would take me to West Quarry, right would take me to Rand. I was happy to see that this would be quite easy for me and Kevin to get to Rand- after that was up in the air. 

I took the left and immediately entered hilariously overgrown, thick woods. It's clear that this trail isn't hiked often, or at least not this early in the year. 

I loved this though. So much of my love for hiking is being in deep, unexplored (at least by me) woods, following a trail to wherever it takes me. This trail was absolutely in the middle of nowhere, and I was surrounded by thick woods. And mosquitoes. Lots of them. I high-fived myself for stopping to buy bug spray. 

After not too long, I came to the old quarry site, marked by a sign. It wasn't much to look at though, just some big rocks and a few old tools and chains. 

It was quite overgrown and might as well have just been rocks in the woods, but I always appreciate signs explaining stuff.

A little farther up the trail, I came to a split I had been warned about. The guide said that there was a hard way and an easy way, but from reading the fairly destroyed sign, it seemed like either way you go, you're going to gain some fairly serious elevation, just one way was on exposed rocks and the other was in the woods. As it was sprinkling now and super humid and wet anyway, I took the in-the-woods route. It was surprisingly steep right away, but hey, they warned me.

Fog started to get pretty serious at this point.

The trail went from being gently rolling to pretty steep, then back to meandering with subtle elevation gain. It got more interesting too, with exposed rock sections, and a sudden "thick forest feel" with less small vegetation and lots of big evergreen trees that were fairly destroyed. 

And honestly, it started getting kind of scary. 

Trees were dead everywhere, branches were broken and scattered, sticking out like evil creatures in an endless fog. I was completely alone up there, visibility was rough, it was lightly raining, and it was getting awfully spooky. I loved it. 

And then I was at the top.

me being scared of forest demons

I wandered around the top getting more and more soaked from trees rubbing against me, making sure that I was actually at the top. A little down the trail, there was a sign directing me to East Quarry, which I didn't know existed. Even though you don't have to hike that mountain to get the hiked-all-the-belknap-range patch, I kind of wanted to. I was already up here, loosened up and positive. I had plenty of water and energy, but was worried that I was going to get caught in either a storm or at least serious rain. I battled with it for awhile, and decided to let fate decide it. Since I didn't have a coin to flip, I played 3 hands of blackjack on the stupidest iphone app ever. I lost 2 of the 3, so I decided to end my day here. 

I sat down and had my summit Snickers bar and some water, with this as my view:

I'd read there wasn't much for views up there, but I probably would have been able to see something, had I not been in a cloud.

I figured that out once I climbed back down from the higher elevation. I was in a cloud. It wasn't even raining at the bottom of the mountain. It was much lighter too. Here's the view of Rand Mountain on the ride home:

Yea, there's supposed to be a mountain there. 

All in all, this was a nice small hike. I wish I had gotten some views, I wish it didn't take a mile of a boring road to get to the trailhead (but at least you get rid of a good chunk of elevation gain with that road), I wish I wasn't wet and demolished by mosquitoes, but the trail itself was great. It was well constructed and interesting, and the woods at the top were awesome, and in the case of this hike, extremely spooky. Here's an HDR of the woods to bring out more of the evil:

And here's an instagram of one of the 20 or so Newts I saw on the trail. I tried so hard not to step on any of them, and I think I was successful. How rad is this little dude!?

Hike time: Between 2-3 hours

Mileage: The trail seems like it's only .6 or so once it starts, so a little over 3 miles total

Elevation gain: Looking at a map, it looks like between 800-900 feet 

Music: Vattnet Viskar- demo, Neon Trees- Habits, Moving Mountains- New Light, Deer Leap

currently listening to: Of Mice And Men- My Head Is An Animal