Whitewall and Thoreau Falls
Saturday, 04-Jul-2015
Tags: NH / Hiking
This is not a trail guide. If you are planning to hike any of these trails refer to a real trail guide such as
(for the White Mountains) the
AMC White Mountain Guide.
We decided to do long, relatively flat, scenic walk today rather than a peak. Thoreau Falls (and Whitewall Mountain on the way) is one of our favorite scenic walks, but it is about 5 miles into the wilderness, so it is a 10 mile day.
The hike starts on the Zealand Trail (the trail into
Zealand Falls Hut). The trailhead is at the top of Zealand Road about 3 miles off of US Rt. 302 (the first mile is paved and the rest is gravel). The Zealand Trail is a roughly 3 mile walk into the hut. The trail is quite flat. It starts at an elevation of about 2070 feet. At the 2.5 mile point where we left the trail, the elevation is about 2450 feet. So it rises less than 400 feet in 2.5 miles. This is very mild. We left the trail about a quarter mile before the hut. The last tenth of a mile up to the hut is pretty steep, but at that point, you are there.
The trail is heavily traveled but well maintained by the AMC. It is blazed with light blue blazes. With well placed rocks and wooden bridges, the trail is pretty easy. There are several small water crossings. None of them was difficult but a few required you to stop and think before crossing. Earlier in the spring they might have been more difficult.
The first half of the Zealand Trail isn’t very interesting. The second half traverses several beaver ponds (on wooden bridges). Quite a few beaver dams are visible and frogs inhabit several of the ponds. There is a great deal of interesting plant life in this area. The AMC recently rebuilt a long bridge across a large beaver pond. The new bridge is impressive in both its length and its construction.
Beavers at work.
Tall Meadow Rue along the trail.
At about 2.25 miles the AZ trail leaves to the left and goes towards Mt. Tom (and Wiley and Field), three 4000 foot mountains that provide part of the north eastern border of the Pemigewasset Wilderness and south side of Crawford Notch area.
At 2.5 miles Zealand Pond comes up on the right. Just beyond, the Ethan Pond trail leaves to the left. The Ethan Pond trail is part of the Appalachian Trail.
At this point the Zealand Trail becomes the Twinway (also part of the AT) and continues to the hut and beyond. We turned onto the Ethan Pond trail. This is the AT in the north and east direction (i.e. towards Maine rather than towards Georgia). The Ethan Pond trail is also pretty flat here. Over the next 1.3 miles it descends about 25 feet. The trail is narrow but easy with just a couple of small water crossings and rocky areas.
About a mile in it opens up to the side of Whitewall Mountain which forms the eastern side of Zealand Notch. If you look at the side of this mountain from a distance it looks like it has a white wall. The area is one HUGE rock slide. Above the trail and below for about half a mile are rocks. Big rocks, little rocks, rocks everywhere. We have walked to this point to eat lunch in the past just because it feels so foreign. Like a moonscape on earth.
Looking south through the Zealand Notch, with Carrigain peeking out on in the distance on the left, with North Hancock in the distance on the right.
Looking up Whitewall’s jumble of rocks.
Looking across the notch to Zeacliff. We have taken pictures of Whitewall from there.
Looking back north through the notch, with Zealand Hut marked in red, and Mt. Hale in the distance.
We walked another mile, mostly on the Ethan Pond trail, and then taking a right on the Thoreau Falls Trail a short way to Thoreau Falls, a waterfall on the North Fork of the Pemigewasset River.
Thoreau Falls is not large in terms of width or height but there is a lot of water and quite a bit of drop. The result is a picturesque water fall with lots of sitting rocks in the middle.
Looking up the falls.
Looking down the falls.
The water was really rushing.
Looking down the falls towards Mt. Bond, Mt. Guyot, and Mt. Zealand left to right.
We ate lunch at the falls and relaxed a bit.
Mountain cranberry on the way back along the Ethan Pond Trail on Whitewall.
As we headed back along the Zealand trail with Zealand pond on our left this time, we took this shot of Zealand falls across the pond.
The trip was about 4.75 miles and 2.5 hours walking in each direction, for a total of 9.5 miles in 5 hours. Below is a Google Earth shot (rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise). The white wall of Whitewall Mountain can be seen.
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Larry and Eileen Samberg
