Mount Tecumseh

Date: 5/31/2020

Elevation: 4,003’

Miles: 6.3ish

Time: 4 hours, 25 minutes (took our time on the way down)

Trails: up Mt. Tecumseh Trail, down Sosman Trail and over to some of the trails at Waterville Valley Resort

Calories: 1,465

Average HR: 117

Peak HR: 178

Ayoooo (iykyk), graduated from college on top of a mountain!!! Amherst held our Zoom commencement just after I summited Mt. Tecumseh, so my degree was conferred while I was 4,000 feet up. Definitely not how I pictured it but definitely memorable.

Earlier in the week I had made plans to hike on Sunday with the amazing Emma and Sarah, to then realize a few days later that it would be smack in the middle of my Zoom graduation. I figured I’d rather be hiking than sad on Zoom, so I went with our plan.

We left Norwich around 7am and got to the trailhead at Waterville Valley Resort around 8:30am. It was a lil chilly, maybe around 50 degrees, so we put our sweatshirts on and got going. We chose Mt. Tecumseh Trail, which is 2.5 miles long. First up are a few small brooks to cross and some gradual hiking. About 45 minutes in, there’s a lookout to the left of the trail that opens up onto one of Waterville Valley’s ski trails—good views to give you a glimpse of what’s to come from the top.

Soon after that, the trail gets pretty steep and doesn’t really stop. It’s basically like a rock staircase that makes your quads burn. Emma was setting a pretty good pace too and apparently we didn’t need to stop for water breaks. No snow though!

I should probably get better about marking down specific times but after about an hour and 40 minutes of hiking, we reached the summit! At 4,003 feet, Mt. Tecumseh just barely makes it into the 4000ft. club and is the smallest of the 48. The top of mountain is treed-in on one side and even though it’s the smallest of the 48 4,000 footers, there’s still a great view from the tallest rock up there. There are also a few separate patches of rocks that make for good little benches to sit on. With strong gusts of wind (in the parking lot we had heard someone mention 30mph gusts), we all whipped out our brightly-colored winter hats and we looked guuuuuud.

We ate some food and Sarah had chocolate chip cookies to share. You can always count on her to bring the chocolate chip cookies hiking. Shout out Sarah. After a bit, I decided to bring out my graduation cap that I had been keeping in my backpack. I mean, I had to wear it at least once on my graduation day. By this time, the next group of hikers had reached the summit and they all clapped for me when I put on my cap. So pure!!

I think we spent around 45 minutes at the top and then we descended via the Sosman Trail (2.6 miles), which eventually spits you out at the uppermost reach of the Waterville Valley chairlifts. Soon after we began on Sosman, it started to snow—I’m not free from winter just yet I guess. After 0.4 miles (according to my guidebook), there was a wooden bench from which you can get another great view. No idea how the bench got up there, but here it is:

Again according to my guidebook, after 0.8 miles we got to the chairlift at the very tip of Waterville Valley. We explored the lift and the transmission tower a bit, and this is where our journey became very windy (I mean that as in “we wound down the mountain” in a sort of twisty, carefree way, rather than to describe the weather). We chose our paths kind of haphazardly, just taking care not to go down any black diamonds; I think we went down “Scramble,“ “Main Street,” “No Grit,” “Oblivion,” and “Valley Run,” and avoided the more ominous-sounding “True Grit” and “Ciao.”

The great thing about going down this way was that you got a unobstructed view of the entire valley the whole time. The sun and clouds illuminated and shaded the trees in greens and blues. Sarah or Emma commented how it was cool to be in a place that’s not really how it’s supposed to look when you normally see it—as in, you’re really only supposed to be on a ski mountain under a chairlift when you’re surrounded by snow and it’s 30 degrees or colder. But instead, we were treated to this almost apocalyptical vibe that I guess you get when you’re in places in the seasons in which the places aren’t really meant to be in use. Just strange to be in a place where you can so clearly see the snow in your mind because you know it’s practically meant to be there for the chairlift and the trails and the trail signs don’t really serve a purpose without it.

But even without snow or skis, Sarah still taught us how to traverse the trails as you would on skis—cutting back and forth and switchbacking down to save our knees. But all the same our toes still crammed into the front of our boots in a less than pleasant way.

I think we took a more roundabout way down, but eventually we made it back to the main lodge and the parking lot. This one felt a lot easier than Moosilauke and I’m hoping that’s because my body was more used to it and not because it’s a smaller mountain. I guess we’ll find out next week on Mt. Moriah!

So grateful to have such amazing friends to laugh-until-you-cry with, celebrate with, and talk with—because it really is more than just hiking on these adventures. Getting tendy over here :’) I love my friends. See you next week!!