Catamount Mountain in Pittsfield NH
| Date: | 6-8-2025 |
| Location: | Pittsfield, NH |
| Distance: | 1.65 mi |
| Elevation Gain: | 372′ |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 23 min |
| Parking: | 5+ cars |
I have to admit, this was a little more than I expected. I was pleasantly surprised. Since I could not find an official trail to start from, I decided to park at a pull off on at the height of land, across from Johnson Road along Rt. 107.
There is room for 5 cars on the pull off. There is a small ATV trail that leads into the woods. I followed it in for a bit but then decided to bushwack up to the summit.
My GPS did pretty good at navigating me up. There were a few areas of wetlands and swamps I had to move around. I usually don’t tend to think about wetlands when climbing a mountain but there they were. There were also lots of blowdowns all over the place. I seemed to pick up a number of heard paths that led up the hill.
About halfway up there is a flat land with a lot of wetlands and some small ponds. This was a little tricky to avoid. As I got toward the top I found a wide path, almost a road, so I followed it a short way till there was a sign that said no trespassing.
I could see a small clearing to the left of where I was standing, so I headed over to see if there was a view. There was no view, but I did find a more traditional path. There was a cool cairn that kind of looked like a “Witch Duck”.
The path continued up to the top of the hill and did not have a No Trespassing sign. So I went up. There are a few more cool cairns on the way to the top. At some point I bet there were some great views but now all the trees were grown up and were full of leaves.
On the way down I decided to follow the path that I discovered. I appreciated the subtle placement of rocks as trail markers. Every so often a stone would be placed awkwardly and that indicated that I was still on the path.
The path took a sharp right from my original route at the swamp area. I decided I would follow the path always to the road and just do a road walk back to the car. The trail also dropped a 100’ lower than where I parked.
When I reached the road I was not far from my parking. I was about a 5-minute walk back to the car.
This was a much cooler hike than I thought it would be. The cairns at the top were well constructed and that was worth the walk up. It was not a long hike either. About a half hour up and about a half hour down. And I got to check of another fire tower site.
