Mount Isolation

Date: 10/18/2020

Elevation: 4,004’

Miles: 14 miles

Time: 8 hours, 4 minutes

Trails: Rocky Branch to Glen Boulder and back

Planning this hike took us all over the map from the Carters, to the Carters + Moriah, to Owl’s Head, and finally to Mount Isolation. We welcome back Josie to the blog (woot woot!), who greatly helped me plan this adventure and then traverse it with me. She came up with the long trek of the Carters and Moriah until the snow saved my legs from that.

The first flakes of the season came up through northern New Hampshire on Saturday, when Josie was surprised with seven inches of snow at her cabin in Bethlehem. She suggested that we do a hike with less elevation instead and more tree coverage—like Owl’s Head. Then we realized that Owl’s Head requires some river crossings that could be flowing pretty high and fast due to snow melt, so we switched to Mount Isolation. Little did we know that Isolation requires many river crossings as well…but more on that later.

The typical trail up Isolation is Glen Boulder, which is a pretty exposed trek that I will definitely want to come back for since it’s so beautiful. We (aka Josie since she knows more about the mountains) decided to take Rocky Branch though since we/she knew there would be less snow under the tree coverage. So we started our hike at 8am after a gorgeous drive in through North Conway; I was driving in the valley looking up at a snowy Mount Washington and I couldn’t help but just smile to myself as I took in the foliage in the foreground and the snow in the mountains behind. Pre-hike anticipation is so real.

sunrise coming up to New Hampshire

Rocky Branch has only 3,503’ of elevation gain, so the whole trail is very mild with none of the typical super steep sections of the Whites. We started in the foliage with beautiful leaves all around us and it was cold, but we were moving at a good pace and warmed up quickly. Gotta wear those layers!! I want to say after 3ish miles(?) we passed a group of three younger guys who were coming back down the mountain with big overnight packs. They warned us that the river crossing was rushing really high, so they had decided to turn back. We wanted to see it for ourselves, so we pushed on and soon came to the Rocky Branch River. The boys were right in that the river was high and crossing would be tricky, but we were determined and, honestly without too much effort, soon found a place to cross. We were a little confused why the guys had turned around…But we were on our way and that’s what matters!

We thought we had gotten through to the other side and we were good to know, but it turns out there were four more crossings on our ascent. The next four were easier than the first, but I still managed to fully step in the freezing water at one point. RIP, but I always have my extra pairs of socks. At one point we tried to bushwhack to avoid two river crossings, but gave up that adventure after realizing it wasn’t really saving us any time.

We left our autumnal surroundings and entered winter as we rose in elevation. The snow was melting onto us from the trees and had already flooded most of the trail as we got higher and higher. You could kind of rock hop to avoid the giant puddles, but it was WET. Josie took a pretty good fall on a slick root and we were both damp by the time we reached the top.

^swipe!

this was the best i could do to show the snowy foreground an the autumnal background

We had the summit to ourselves with an amazing view of Washington above us. It was snowy and cold up there too, but it looked like a winter wonderland. Below you could see where it was still fall, so that was a really cool juxtaposition. After some food and a quick clothing change to put on a dry shirt and my rain coat, we were back on our way.

swipe thru^

We started passing many more people who had come up Glen Boulder Trail until we hung the right back onto Rocky Branch. Once we managed the first three river crossings, we decided to bushwhack past the last two so we wouldn’t have to deal with the more difficult final crossing. Unfortunately, this bushwhack still led to me falling right on my butt in a smaller stream…That water is COLD! But you know, at that point I was already pretty soaking from the rest of the hike, so what was a little more water at that point.

Just after 4pm we were back to our cars and dry clothes. Our boots were completely drenched and our Crocs felt amazing. She had already shared her scones and her carrots on the hike, but Josie had one more treat in chocolate chip cookies for us too. YUM.

Starting this journey I would have totally balked at a 14 mile hike, but I did it! And I loved it! And I wasn’t even that sore, which is truly the real win.