Skinning up and skiing Mount Cardigan has been on my wish list for a long time, and yesterday, I finally got my chance. My son and his buddy were planning on trying for Tuckerman’s, but the conditions looked terrible, so I suggested Mount Cardigan instead as a training run. They jumped at the idea, and lucky for me, they welcomed me to the party!
Skinning up to the snowfields off Duke’s Trail
Getting There
Backcountry skiing in New Hampshire has gotten ever more popular and I’ve been reading about how wonderful Mount Cardigan is for a while now. David Goodman made it the second entry in his book, Best Backcountry Skiing in the Northeast, and the AMC has a very helpful page dedicated to navigating the mountain on skis. It also tells you the correct address to go to, which I highly recommend paying attention to. Don’t just put “Mount Cardigan” into Google Maps like I did, or you’ll end up forty-five minutes on the other side of the mountain, away from the best places to skin up. That was a long detour.
What you want to do is head to the Cardigan Lodge side of the park, from which you can start skinning on the Holt Trail. At the first split, follow the Manning Trail until it takes you to Duke Meadows, which is the start of Duke’s Trail and our chosen route for the day. As this was our first time to Cardigan and we got a late start (around 12p.m.), we decided rather than wasting time scouting more terrain, we’d take the first route we saw and give it a go. And we were so glad we did.
In the early going, we came across the old rope tow and this old car
Duke’s Trail
The skin up Duke’s Trail was beautiful. And interesting. At one point we passed an old rope tow with an abandoned car sitting next to it. As the story goes, the car was brought there for one purpose: to deliver its engine for running the rope tow. Once the engine was removed, well, there was no way to drive the car out of there, was there? I love that these relics remain on Cardigan, telling the story of what once was.
Continuing on, we passed signs for a few other ski trails, including Whitney Way, which looked particularly intriguing if we had a good snow day, but with conditions being what they were, we stuck to the plan and headed to the snowfields just below the Firescrew summit. It was the right move. The recent warmup had caused a mixture of slush and ruts that made skiing sticky and easy to trip on, and we wanted to make sure we hit the descent of Duke’s before the afternoon shadows caused a freeze-up. Once we were above the treeline, Cardigan rewarded us with a beautiful view (Cardigan is a 52 WAV Mountain) and we found a good place to de-skin and have a snack.
Not a bad spot for a sit and a snack
Sharing the Great Outdoors
The ski down was surprisingly good, even with the melt and ice. We all agreed that if we were here after a February dumping, this place would be incredible, and I’m making a note of it to make sure I don’t forget. Matt, don’t screw this up. First or second week of February, 2027, we ride. There are so many options to ski here, unlike a lot of other backcountry places in New Hampshire, that Cardigan really stands out. I can’t wait to return and explore more of it.
The best part of the adventure though, wasn’t the skiing, but getting to share the experience with my son and his friend. Sharing a love of the backcountry tops everything else when it comes to exploring the great outdoors. I’ve dragged my kids to all sorts of places that didn’t impart the same enthusiasm I had at first, but somehow, over time, if you keep taking them, they come to appreciate these places just as much as you do. Maybe even more.
There isn’t much of anything that’s better than that.
Hitting a jump on the way down Duke’s Trail