Mt Sunapee
(2730)
Trail: Andrews Brook Trail
Date: Tuesday 11/30/99
Attending: Gabe, Simone, & John Chicoine
Miles: 7.2-miles back and forth Time: 3 hours to summit. 6 hour total,
AMC huts, / shelters / camping site:
Weather:35 degrees, partly cloudy, fresh dusting of snow, light spuratic flurries
To get there traveling west on Rt. 103 to Newbury, turn left on Mountain Road just before reaching the center of Newbury. (If you reach Lake Sunapee, you’ve gone about 1/2 mile past Mountain Road.) On Mountain Road travel about 1.5 miles over two small bridges. Just before you cross a third bridge, there will be a yellow farmhouse on the left, and an obvious clearing for parking to your right. The Andrews Brook trail starts at the guardrail for the bridge. The trail is a wonderful, moderate hike that continually crosses back and forth over Andrews Brook for most of its length. At one point the trail is Andrews brook (spring) for a 100 feet or so. The trail was muddy in some spots, and there is need of some trail maintenance, but we really loved this hike and recommend it to anyone, in any season. At the two-mile mark you reach a spectacular alpine lake (Solitude Lake). About .3 miles towards Sunapee summit you reach the White Ledge, towering over Lake Solitude. The summit of Sunapee is about 1.3 miles from White Ledge. The trip can be made into a nice 7 mile loop by hiking Andrews Brook to Lake Solitude, branching northeast onto the Newbury Trail to Newbury center, (don’t forget to branch left at this junction .2 miles over to White Ledge) then hiking the 2.5 miles on the road back to your car on Mountain Road. Gabe was getting cold, so we just headed back down Andrews Brook, but I know we’ll hike every trail on Mt. Sunapee (especially Andrews Brook) lots of times. We picked up a trail map from the Sunapee Ski lodge, and there are several trailheads from the Ski area. You can even hike the Ski Trails up to the summit. There is a 54-mile trail called “The Monadnock Sunapee Greenway” that starts at Monadnock State park ends at Sunapee State Park. This sounds like definite possible future hike.
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Mt Sunapee
(2730)
Trail: Andrews Brook Tr, Solitude Tr, Mt. Sunapee
Date: Sunday 7/2/00
Attending: Gabe, Simone, & John Chicoine
Miles: 7.2-miles back and forth Time: 3 hours to summit. 5 hour total,
AMC huts, / shelters / camping site:
Weather: 80 degrees, sunny.
This was our second time on this trail. The parking lot was almost full when we got there at 11:00. The trail was somewhat muddy, but just enough to be a nuisance. The heat was definitely there, but the Humidity was relatively low, so the hike was tolerable. We brought the good camera in hopes of getting some good shots, but the air was too hazy the get any great distance pictures. All in all the views were from the ski lodge are well worth the hike. The Lodge was open, and the lifts were running, so there were lots of people milling about the summit. A lot of people use the lift to get to the summit, and hike the 2 mile loop over to Solitude Lake and back. (For that matter, Simone is hoping to do just that with Marty in a few days for Marty’s birth day.) The mountain entertains an all summer Mountain biking crew that buy a day pass for $20.00 take the lifts up, and ride down. They can use the lifts all day, and take as many rides as they wish. For the up and downers, it’s only $7.00 for the lift. Gabe tried a new spin on the hike this time, he hiked the whole trail bare foot. He was a one day Mt. Sunapee legend. The bugs were much as expected, if we kept moving, we avoided most of them, but if we stopped for a short break, they would drive us to get moving again within a minute or so. The forest provided some relief from the direct sun heat, but not much, and for the most part, there was hardly a breeze to cool us down.
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