NH 48 – Wildcat D Early Morning Autumn Hike

Hike Date: October 19, 2017 (Thursday)

This was the first of the 3 day-hikes I did over two days before two-day backpacking trip over Hale, Zealand, and Bonds to wrap up my Northeast 115 List. Since I was planning on doing Mount Moriah in the afternoon, I wanted to get an early start for this hike. As I am always guilty of sleeping-in, I did not get on the trail until 8 AM!

I left my car parked at Pinkham Notch Visitor Center and took the Lost Pond Trail across the street to connect with Wildcat Ridge Trail. Though flat, Lost Pond Trail was not very well maintained. So it was a slow going 0.9 miles.

If you start the hike from Glen Ellis Falls trailhead, you can visit the waterfall at the beginning of the hike.

Glen Ellis Falls – Picture from a different trip (07/05/2015)

The Wildcat Ridge trail however was very well maintained. It is very STEEEP from the start. One would have to scramble steep rock-faces and boulders to get up. I was not going very fast. An AT section hiker with heavy pack zoomed past me. He was a young man in his 20s; so obviously, duh! I used the opportunity to enjoy some amazing views along the way though.

Steep section on Wildcat D  (07/05/2015)

Going down the steep trail (pic from another trip)  (07/05/2015)

Towards the end of getting to the top of Wildcat E, I came across three hikers on the trail who started before me. They let me pass them. About 10 mins later, I reached the top of Ski lift. The summit is less than 5 mins from there. I decided not to stop at lift area or linger too long there and continued towards the summit. Once I got to the summit, there was a viewing platform. I went straight to the top of the viewing platform and took pictures of the views.

In the meantime, the other three hikers came up to the summit. One of them took my summit photo.

Wildcat D Summit (10/19/2017)

Without wasting any more time, I started heading back down. Once back at the lift area, I asked a guy who was working there if I could hike down on the ski slope. He said yes and showed me the way to go. I was glad I would be able to take a different route back down than the one I took up. It is always nice to use a different trail to go down than the one to get up.

The ski trail dropped me off 0.75 miles North from the Pinkham Notch Visitor Center and I then had to do a road walk to get back to my car.

Once back at my car, I ate some lunch, used the bathroom, then drove over to the Stony Brook Trailhead to do my second hike of the day up Mount Moriah!