NH 48 – Mount Moriah Solo Sunset Hike in Autumn

Hike Date: October 19, 2017 (Thursday)

This was the second of the three day-hikes I did over two days before two-day backpacking trip over Hale, Zealand, and Bonds to wrap up my Northeast 115 List. I hiked Wildcat D in the morning before doing this hike in the afternoon.

Mount Moriah has several different trails leading to the summit. The most commonly used trail is via Mount Moriah trail. For this hike, I used Stony Brook trail mostly because I knew I was going to have some headlamp hiking. The contour-lines on the map looked easy / flat at the beginning hence at the end of the hike, making it a safer route to do in the dark with all the fallen leaves on the trail in October.

Once I parked my car at the trailhead, I saw a couple finishing their hike. I asked them if they hiked Mt Moriah and what time they started and how long it took them. They told me they started at 8:30 AM and it was 2:30 PM at that time. That meant this hike should take roughly about 6 hours. I had 4 hrs of daylight left at that point. I said to myself, let’s go do this! 🙂

Foliage on the flat part of the trail

The trail passed a bridge at the beginning. Then it was relatively flat for 3.6 miles before it started gaining significant elevation. The next stretch after the first initial flat part was a gradual elevation gain before it junctioned with the Carter-Moriah trail. From that point on, trail got pretty steep and almost all of the elevation came from the final 1.5 miles leading to the summit.

One of many views from the ledges along the way to the summit

The views along the ledges on the way to the summit was outstanding. The trail led to a junction with the Mount Moriah trail, where I made a left turn to get on that trail. About 0.2 miles into that trail, you would make another sharp left turn that would steeply bring you to the summit in 0.1 miles.

On Summit

The summit had awesome views. It was very windy on the summit. So, I did not spend too much time – only to take some videos and pictures.

Sunset from the Ledges

On the way back, I caught amazing sunset from the ledges. There was nobody else on the trail. I wanted to get back down the steeper parts before I needed to use headlamp, but I could not make it down that far. I took my headlamp out and started using it half the way before the trail joined back on the Stony Brook trail.

I was a bit nervous about hiking down in the dark with headlamp with all the fallen leaves on the trail, making it hard to see where the trail was going as well making the trail slippery. But to my surprise, I was hiking better with headlamp than I would during daylight. During the day, I always get distracted looking around seeing things around me. But with a headlamp, my eyes were only focused on the trail and since I just hiked up on that same route, I was able to follow where the trail was even with thick leaves on the ground covering the trail. Hence, I never got lost.

At times I was getting nervous thinking what if some wild animal attacked me. There was no other human on the trail. At times, I could hear animals in the woods. I would make sound on the ground using my hiking poles so they would not approach me. I thought at least one animal was even following me through the woods!

Two hours later, I started to see electric lights in the distance from the buildings near the trailhead. I knew that I was getting close to civilization 🙂 . But the trail was just going on and on. I was eagerly waiting to see the bridge that was at the beginning of the hike. I was able to recognize the last water-crossing which I knew was about half an hour into the hike. The final half an hour seemed like forever. It was partly because I was very scared to be alone in the dark with no human around.

I eventually saw the bridge. I was relieved that I made it out safely without getting eaten by a wild animal or getting lost on the trail; and I made a promise to myself that I will never do this again (hiking in the wilderness alone in the dark). But with all of my other similar promises, I know I won’t keep this one either 😉

Next day I hiked Mount Cabot to wrap up all of the day-hikes I had left to do to finish my list.