Distance: 5 Mile Loop
Difficulty: Moderate
The Harris Center has an array of hiking trails from the Channing Trail, Cobb Hill, North Pond Trail and many more. Probably the most well known trails are those up Skatutakee and Thumb Mountain. The trailheads is at the Harris Center on Kings Highway Road. Park in the center’s parking lot and head across the road to the trailhead. As you are walking up the trail make sure you keep your eyes open for beautiful wood carvings along the trail.
It is about a half mile hike to the fork in the trail. Right is Thumb Mountain on the Thumb’s Down Trail. Left is the Harriskat Trail to Skatutakee Mountain. We chose the Harriskat Trail to start our loop. The trail winds through the forest and makes a gradual incline up to the top of Skatutakee Mountain. It is a little over a mile from the split in the trail to the summit of Skatutakee.
It has been a couple years since we have been to the summit. The last time it was becoming overgrown. It was nice to see the trees have been cut back to get a beautiful view of Crotched Mountain and the Wapack Trail.
From Skatutakee’s summit we continued the loop via the Thumbs Up Trail. It is a little under a mile between the Skatutakee summit and the trail to Thumb Mountain. It is fairly flat through this trail. The Thumb Mountain trail is at the intersection of the Thumbs Up and Thumbs Down Trail. It is less than a half mile to the summit, it’s a steady incline up.
From Thumb Mountain summit you get sweeping views of Mt Monadnock.
After returning to the Thumbs Down Trail we headed back towards the Harris Center. On the way back we took a little stop to enjoy Jack’s Pond.
We continued down the trail which connected at the fork of the Harriskat and Thumbs Down Trail. Once back at the Harris Center we did a little over five miles. My husband and I loved this hike. Both summits offered beautiful views, but our favorite was the view from Thumb Mountain’s summit. Due to the difficulty in some spots and the distance of this trail it is for those who have some hiking experience.
