Yes! Mission complete! Today I climbed the last of the peaks waiting for me on the Belknap 12 list. The Belknap 12, or “Belknap Range Summits,” is a set of twelve mountains in New Hampshire’s Lakes Region that offer beautiful views of the surrounding area. They’re not too big. They’re not very difficult. But if you pace yourself, you should be able to complete them in no time. It only took me eleven years.
Yeah, that’s right—eleven. I climbed all of the 4000-footers in less than one year, but these suckers took me eleven. But there were several good reasons for this.
Here we go!
To Be Fair…
To be totally fair, it’s not like I was really chasing this list. I started exploring the Belknaps while on vacation at Lake Winnipesaukee years ago and slowly made my way through the list as time allowed. Apparently, time didn’t allow much, because I climbed Belknap Mountain back in 2014, and finally completed the list on Whiteface today.
Whiteface has been a problem running back to 2018 or so. On multiple occasions I went looking for the trailhead and I don’t know if it was the weather, a bad cell signal, or what, but every time I approached Belknap Road, I got lost. On one winter visit, I couldn’t see any discernible entry point for the Whiteface trailhead. The road was blanketed in snow, and it didn’t look like a plow ever came that way. Another time I asked an unfriendly face that was walking down the street if they knew where to find the trailhead, and they claimed they didn’t. Even if they did, I’m not sure I would have still hiked it. The way this person snarled at me got me thinking that if I went hiking, I was about to be entered as a contestant in The Most Dangerous Game.
Fall coming on the Whiteface Mountain Trail
Another Chance
But today, everything changed. I was originally planning on going up the Davis Path towards Mount Crawford, but I wasn’t feeling it, and the weather forecast indicated rain too early in the afternoon for my liking. So, I opted for something smaller. I’d been putting off Whiteface for years because of the creepy vibes it gave me on my previous visits, but given my energy level and the early morning sun, today seemed like the day to finally close out the list.
Before I set out, I made sure to google the heck out of the trailhead so there would be no mistaking where I needed to go this time. I pulled up satellite imagery and printed off directions in case my cell service died again too. But I had no problem finding the parking area today, which is just a short road walk away from the trailhead. The trailhead was easy to find because there were also four other cars at the lot with several hikers gearing up—totally different from my previous visits. I don’t know if people are getting more into hiking, but I keep noticing that the places I went to years ago where there was hardly ever a soul, now see a lot more visitors. That’s a good sign.
The two acorns look like buddies, don’t they?
Hiking Whiteface Mountain
Whiteface was easy. I wasn’t even running, and I made it up and down in less than an hour. You know when you finish something that you waited too long to do for one reason or another, and once you do it you’re like: really, that was it? Why did I put this off for so long? You know that feeling? That was Whiteface.
It was still a good hike, though, and if you wanted to turn it into something more, you could easily add in Piper Mountain for a bigger day. But it started raining a little on my descent and I wasn’t looking for much today, so I headed back to the truck. In typical Wrong Way Matt fashion, I somehow took a wrong turn on the way down and found myself on a private ATV trail. I guess there was a split I didn’t see on the way up, so I didn’t recognize it on the way down. Fortunately, I had a topographic map on my phone and was able to find where it veered back towards the way I came. It probably didn’t add more than five or ten minutes to my overall time.
A Nice Discovery
When I got back to the truck, I made a nice discovery. I like to make a habit of giving a few books away when I hike and often leave some copies on the back of my truck for people to take. Today I found that one awesome hiker, concerned that the rain might damage the remaining copies, placed some protective plastic around them. How cool is that? Mountain people are awesome. I highly recommend getting out there and meeting some.
Heading to the Mountains?
If you’re looking to share stories or get familiar with some other hikes in New Hampshire (or beyond), you can enter a peak you’re looking for in the search bar on the site, or head over to In the Mountains for more updates and photos.
And if you’re hiking the Belknap 12, you can check out the full list here.