Cheshire County High Point Trip Report
Mount Monadnock
Date: January 20, 2002
Author: Roy Schweiker
Snow the previous day and back roads were still not well cleared. As on my previous trip to Monadnock,
I had finally completed all the trails on the park map, I decided to start over with the standard route.
Park at the headquarters, where the state park service fee ($3 each 12 and over) is now charged weekends
year round and daily mid-April to Thanksgiving. Ask for the free park map which shows trails and contours,
it is a nice souvenir although you shouldn't need it for this route.
Click here for other trail choices.
From the main parking lot, take the path right of the trading post, cross another parking lot, and go left of
the Visitor Center which contains exhibits including a model of the mountain. There is a scale on the porch
where you can weigh your pack, mine was 19 pounds with crampons but not snowshoes. Take the
combined White Dot/White Cross Trail which here is a wide woods road, after a brief dip it begins a steady ascent.
Continue on White Dot where the White Cross Trail forks left, the trail becomes noticeably steeper
with stone steps and rock slabs to ascend. Above the upper junction with White Cross, the trail crosses a
gully with trees then the final 0.3 mile ascent of the rock cone is in the open. As noted in the BM data sheet,
the actual reference point is a drill hole one foot from the blank survey marker, and neither is on the highest
rock which is maybe a foot higher.
On the descent, remember there are trails in several directions and the White Dot/White Cross is the one that
drops off steeply southeast and is marked with white dots. I went down the White Cross Trail from the
upper junction, then the Spruce Link near the bottom.
I never did wear crampons but maybe half the other hikers did, and a few had snowshoes. Obviously in the
winter the best choice varies daily. One guy in the trading post had screwed machine screws into the soles
of his old boots for added traction.
Trip statistics: 4.2 miles, 1800 feet of gain, 3.5 hours.