High Camp on the Timber Camp Trail
| Date: | 11-17-2024 |
| Location: | Waterville Valley, NH |
| Distance: | 6.56 mi |
| Elevation Gain: | 995′ |
| Total Time: | 4 hr 40 min |
| Parking: | 20+ cars |
It was a bright and crisp Sunday morning. My friend Jack invited me to join him on a hike up to the High Camp Site on the Timber Camp Trail in Waterville Valley. We were supposed to go up this spur the last time we hiked to Greely Ponds but did not have enough time.
When we got to the Livermore parking lot there were only a hand full of cars. It was sunny and about 26 degrees when we parked. We collected our things and grabbed our packs and we were off. Instead of walking on Livermore Road we took one of the ski trails.
We crossed the bridge and started out down Greeley Pond Trail. This was a different trail from when we hiked it a month ago. All the leaves were off the trees, and everything was so gray compared to before.
The first part of this trail went quickly. There are some nice fine evergreen corridors and again some beautiful bare Birch trees. Eventually we got to some of the elevation on the trail.
At this point the trail starts to climb again steadily. We could see the brook we followed in get further and further below us. This trail is in great shape and looked to be cleared out by the trail maintainers. All the water bars were clean and the trail looked raked in some areas.
Once we reached the Hight of land on this trail we knew we were not far from the Timber Camp Trail. When we got there, we took a quick break and some photos before our accent.
The Timber Camp Trail will take us to the High Camp site. It starts off somewhat moderate as it angles up the slope. Then it switches back sharply and then again angles up.
We reached a large sandy clearing that we could climb up that offers some beautiful views of the Tripyrmids and we could see over to the Kancamagus Highway through the Greeley Pond gap.
We could also see on of the pull offs just above the Hancock Trailhead. I’ll have to look for this spot next time we stop at that outlook. We continued up for a ways longer. The trail started to level out a bit as we followed the brook up.
After a bit of walking, we finally made it to the site of the High Camp. There were a couple of artifacts left around the camp. We first saw a 55 gallon oil drum up there. We inspected it and made sure there was nothing gruesome inside. (you never know).
We also found some old metal jugs and some cables around the property. There is a cairn in the middle that marks the location of the camp. There is also a heard path that must lead out to the East Osceola Cliffs for climbers.
We decided we had followed it long enough and started to head back to the camp. Once we got back Jack brewed up some coffee and snacks. We hung out for a bit and enjoyed the sunshine.
Afterwords we cleaned up our stuff and started to make our way back down. The return trip seemed to go much quicker. We made it back the sandy clearing we stopped at in a short amount of time to see if we could spot a helicopter we heard. So we took a few more pics while we were there.
Before we knew it we were back on the Greely Pond Trail and began the march back to the lot. There was a small decent, but the majority of this trail is flat. We made it back to Livermore Road and walked back to the car.
This was a fun hike and it is pretty laid back with only about a 1000’ of elevation over a number of miles. It would be fun to camp overnight up at the High Camp sometime. Spooky but fun.
