Distance: 2.5 Miles to Rose Mountain
Difficulty: Easy side of Moderate
When I plan for a group hike, I try to plan the route the best that I can. Sometimes it is difficult as not all trails have a lot of information about them. I feel like I am always taking a chance when I am leading a group hike. This past weekend was no different as the trail I wanted to do had very minimal information about it, but that is what makes it an adventure, right.
Pinnacle and Rose Mountain are located in Lyndborough, NH. To access the trailhead you take Route 31 towards the center of Lyndborough to Center Road. Follow Center Road for a couple miles and then turn left onto Mountain Road. I found that if you are coming from Wilton you can put 444 Mountain Road Lyndeborough in your GPS and it will bring you to the trailhead. If you are coming west from Greenfield/Peterborough you cannot type the address into your GPS as it can send you in various directions to roads that are not passable. If you are coming for that direction make sure you follow RT 31 until you hit Center Road.
The trailhead is on the left hand side of the road, across the street from the mailbox marked 444. I did notice that the numbers were fading, but my GPS brought me really close to the trailhead and I was able to find it. There is no marking on the trailhead, but it is pretty wide opening with a stone wall nearby. You have to park on the side of the road, so make sure you park as far off to the side as you can. This may make it difficult for winter hiking.
I could only find one map on these trails. It is not the best, but it gives you an idea. Unfortunately the trails were not on All Trails either.
Once you leave the road you follow the trail up a slight incline and then down over a stream. A few hundred feet is a fork in the trail and a picture of the map of the trails, shown above. We chose to bare left. The trail has a good incline to it. It is only about 3/4 of mile to the first mountain top, Pinnacle Mountain.
From here you are looking towards Manchester and Concord, there are some pretty good views. Behind you is a small sign pointing to Rose Mountain.
We followed the trail to another lookout point towards Mt. Monadnock. This is where we got turned around. From the lookout we went back the way we came to what I thought was the trail, but I did not see any markers so we ended up turning around again. After wandering around for about ten minutes we finally discovered the trail continued from the look out that we were at.
From here I cannot give clear direction on how to get to Rose Mountain as I am not sure I went the correct way. I kept following the trail and looking at my All Trails Map. Below is the trail I marked. I forgot to turn it on until about a half mile into a our hike.
We were able to stop at Lyndeborough Mountain, which is a small side trail. There was not a view from here, I would not recommend taking this side trail.
There was a cool old car in the woods, we were a couple miles in the woods, so I wonder how it got there.
We did finally ended up at Rose Mountain which has many cairns and a beautiful view of Mt Monadnock. It is about two and half miles, therefore roughly a five mile roundtrip hike.
If you are going to hike this make sure you have a good map with you and have a good sense of directions. I did really enjoy the hike as it is very beautiful with good views. I would like to go back and try it again and hopefully not get turned around.
