Mt. Percival and Mt. Morgan - 9/12/20
2212 feet, 2220 feet - 5.2 mi
This is one of my personal favorite hikes in New Hampshire, at least of what I've done so far, although frankly I don't expect that to change. Each peak is featured on a list of hikes known as the "Terrifying 25", comprised of trails in the state that are in some way, well, terrifying. Some are rumored to be haunted, some have you walking along knife-edge ridges with precipitous drops on either side. This one has you scrambling along cliffs, rickety ladders and narrow caves. On top of that, it's a relatively short loop hike with spectacular views of Squam Lake, giving you serious bang for your buck.
I've done this hike before, going up Morgan and down Percival. My brother Bill and I wanted to hike and so I suggested this one, going in the opposite direction. Due to the terrain, I left the dog at home for this one. We arrived at Mt. Morgan's trailhead, where I got the last spot in the small parking lot, and Bill found a spot across the street in the lot for the ever-popular Rattlesnake Mountain (an extremely easy hike with similarly excellent views, highly reccomend if you aren't much of a hiker or have small children). You'll note on the trail map that there is a trail that links the two trailheads; we walked a short way up the Morgan trail and didn't find it, so we turned back and walked along the road to the Percival trailhead, about 1/3rd of a mile.
The hike up Percival climbs steadily with good footing, for well over a mile. It is occasionally steep, but certainly nothing to qualify it as "terrifying". This starts to change around 1600 feet, where the trail turns sharply northeast and traverses the mountainside. The trail begins to get extremeley rocky, and above here where the trails turns westward again, is where the real fun begins.
From this point onward it is steep rock scrambles in a direct line to the summit. At a certain point, there is a sign at the foot of a large ledge offering you the options of summiting via the cliffs or the caves. The cliffs route is just more rock scrambling, but the caves is much more interesting. This is the final stretch before the summit and not for the claustrophobic or acrophobic. The path through the boulder caves is marked by a yellow arrow pointing into a hole in the rock, small enough that I had to remove my backpack and push it through first to fit. The cave opens up a bit past the opening, but there is another tight opening that you need to pull yourself upwards through to get out. I went through first, and turned around to take this picture of my brother pulling himself up through the exit.
Upon exiting the caves, you find yourself at the foot of another big ledge, the top of which is the summit. The route up is more rock scrambles along a narrow ledge, this time with a steep drop to your left. The summit is quite large and open with plenty of space to sit and take a break or some pictures.
From here, we followed the Crawford-Ridgepole trail towards Mt. Morgan. This trail connects several mountains in the area as it passes northeast/southwest through the Lakes Region. It would be about 10 miles to through-hike, but the portion between Percival and Morgan is just under a mile. It goes off the backside of the summit and then heads southwest. There is nothing challenging or remarkable about this portion of the hike. Nice smooth going through the woods, and we made it quickly over to Mt. Morgan. The true summit of Morgan can be found on a short offshoot trail to the right, and is entirely obscured by trees. We grabbed a quick photo of the summit marker and moved on.
Just a short distance on from the offshoot to the summit is a false summit of sorts, barely lower than the true summit and with much better views. It overlooks the same forest and lake as the view from Percival, but we didn't mind seeing it again. I definitely feel lucky to live with terrain like this barely an hour's drive away from home.
The trail continues down from here over the cliff, following another narrow ledge that descends to a rock outcropping. At this point, standing on the outcropping, those unfamilar with the trail may not be clear how to descend. The trick is to look behind you. There is a hole in the rock under the ledge you just climbed down. It's another small cave! We had to remove our packs again to fit in.
This cave is much smaller, but it opens out to another cliff, which you have to descend via a trio of sketchy wooden ladders bolted onto the rock. This is probably the scariest part of the hike, and is almost certainly easier to do in the upwards direction. Turning around on the cliff and inching backwards to get your feet on the ladder, then carefully climbing down and across while you hang 20 feet above the rocks below gets the adrenaline flowing. I snapped a picture of the ladders from below before we headed on.
From here, the hike is once again smooth going and unremarkable. There was a lot more distance to cover than we expected however, and our feet were starting to ache by the end of it. As we neared the parking area, we had a good chuckle when we realized that when if we had gone up the trail perhaps another 50 yards we would have found the connecting trail and not had to walk along the road to start out day. The parking area was just a bit farther down the trail and we arrived to find that people were looking to park, so we didn't waste time and headed out quickly.