North and South Kinsman

Date: 7/16/2020

North Kinsman Elevation: 4,293’

South Kinsman Elevation: 4,358’

Miles: 10.5 miles

Time: 8 hours, 37 minutes (including lots of stops)

Trails: Lonesome Lake, Fishin’ Jimmy, Kinsman Ridge, to Kinsman Pond and back

Calories: 2,732 (this might not be quite enough since I think my band might have stopped recording at the lake on the way back)

Average HR: 121

Peak HR: 170

After two past hikes with no views to speak of, I was in need of some mountain magic (lol idk i just wanted an alliteration), and the Kinsmans did not disappoint. This was one of my favorite hikes yet and I got to do it with one of the best hiking partners out there.

Emma and I rolled out of Dan and Whits around 7:15am and, as usual, there was some difficulty finding the trailhead. Seriously, these places should have addresses. The Kinsmans are right near Cannon, which is where we got lost last time trying to find the trailhead too. Eventually we made it to the Lonesome Lake parking lot and got ourselves ready to go. To start this trail you have to go through a campground, which seemed surprisingly full for a Thursday morning, but I guess people are escaping to the woods in this #coronatime. We had good weather with a slight overcast and temps only in the 70s.

When I was doing research for this hike, I saw a few reviews on AllTrails warning about bears near the trail…As in, one person two weeks before had written the following review:

So…there was that. But Emma brought her whistle and with the most recent sighting being 13 days ago, we set out on the trail around 9am.

Lonesome Lake trail (1.5 miles) was pretty flat and easy and we reached the lake by 9:50. The lake is absolutely gorgeous and I am obsessed with it now. I’d hike over and over again just to the lake even though there’s no view. We spent maybe twenty minutes around there taking pictures and watching the ducks. People were already swimming at 10am, which seemed aggressive, but we were excited to jump in on our way back.

Next was Fishin’ Jimmy trail, which is part of the AT and is apparently a highly hated trail in the Whites…Facebook comments include “Fishin Jimmy is called F#%£in Jimmy for a reason” and “If Fishin Jimmy was a girl, I'd leave her at the alter.” But I didn’t see these comments until afterwards, so lucky Emma that I chose this one! I think people despise the typically wet rocks, the up-and-down of the trail that adds elevation both when you’re ascending and descending, and the fact that you have to cross the stream right near a small waterfall. But honestly we didn’t find Fishin’ Jimmy to be all that bad. There were definitely some difficult scrambles made more difficult by slippery conditions, but I thought it was kind of fun. I remember remarking more than a few times how I was feeling good that day and was really enjoying our hike, but maybe it helps to not know that generally people hate the trail you’re on.

Fishin’ Jimmy is 1.9 miles, and then it’s another .6 miles to the summit of North Kinsman via the Kinsman Ridge Trail. By now we were pretty tired and ready to hit the top. There was an amazing lookout to the left of the trail once we got up there (at 12 or so), and it was cool because there was an airport right nearby, so you could see the planes circling down to come land. We checked the ledge out for a bit without really realizing that we had, in fact, reached North Kinsman. So pretty quickly we turned around to continue our hike. Big fail. But, we only had .9 miles to South Kinsman and this section of trail was really pretty.

We got to South Kinsman around 1pm and sat down for lunch. This summit is a lot bigger and the views are pretty good too—we stood on a bigger rock though to make them better for our short selves. While we were eating a few people passed and encouraged us to continue just a bit further to a lookout ledge. Gonna be honest, I did not want to walk further away from our car, but we got enough recommendations that we had to. Luckily, it wasn’t far at all; just a little chilly and the views really were great.

After our pb&js and some photos, we turned around and headed back the way we came. We stopped for a second to enjoy the North Kinsman ledge again and then carried on to Fishin’ Jimmy. This section of trail did feel really long this time, but I think that may have been because I really needed to use the bathroom at the Lonesome Lake hut. It felt like we were close for long time, when really we were not…But when we rounded the corner and could see the trees breaking ahead where the hut stood, it was such a good feeling. The bathrooms awaited and I’m so thankful they’re open right now.

You can also go in the huts right now if you wear a mask and they have a bunch of snacks and things for sale. Emma got a giant corner-piece brownie and I got a chocolate chip cookie bar and they were both BOMB. We sat by the lake to eat and it was amazing. One duck was getting a little too friendly though and I was genuinely scared of it at one point since it was walking within inches of us and looked like it wanted some of our food. But I wasn’t sharing my cookie bar for anything and eventually the duck flew away.

At this point it was just after 4pm and not super sunny, but we decided we still wanted to swim in the lake. It seemed like too good of an opportunity to pass up. There’s even a dock installed against the shore, so we stripped off our boots and socks and waded into the water. It actually wasn’t too cold and the water felt so refreshing; we dunked our heads and changed into fresh, dry socks. We knew we were almostttt back to the parking lot at this point, so the rest was quick and I felt so much better after swimming. We got to the lot around 5:35pm and we were SO happy. This was a longgg hike and we were happy to take a seat back in the car. No bear sighting after all, just some ducks and a bunny that Emma thought was a baboon.