Mount Hale
The Little River Mountains lie between Little River and Zealand River near the Pemigewasset Wilderness. They are also sometimes called the Sugar Loaf Mountains and include Mount Hale 4054 feet, Middle Sugarloaf 2539 feet, and North Sugarloaf 2310 feet.
A nice little day hike can be accomplished by parking at the Mount Hale parking lot 2.5 miles up the Zealand Road from Route 302 in Twin Mountain. The parking area is on the right and well marked. The Zealand Road is closed in winter so plan accordingly.
From the parking lot, take the Mount Hale Trail to the summit of Mount Hale, then the Lend-a-Hand Trail to the AMC Zealand Falls hut, thence to the Zealand Trail and back to Zealand Road where a walk of a mile or so will bring you back to your car.
Mount Hale is named for Reverend Edward Everette Hale who authored Man Without a Country in 1863. The lend a hand trail is also named in his honor for his work in the Lend a Hand and Lend a Hand Record. In 1870 Hale wrote in Ten Times One is Ten, “Look up and not down, look forward and not back, look out and not in, and lend a hand”.
The Mt. Hale trail is a pleasant hike, not too strenuous considering you are climbing a four thousand footer. The beautiful northern hardwood forest is serene and sound of water falls is often heard on the steep brooks to the left and right. The deep valley of Mount Hale on the left is nice in the morning sun. A series of switchbacks helps you through a steep section of mountain trail.
The summit of Mount Hale is bare and grassy, but the surrounding forest a hundred yards or so all around is steadily growing taller so that a good view is obscured. Over the years climbers have built a huge cairn of rocks, on top of which a 360-degree view of the surrounding mountains can be obtained.
I added several large rocks to the top of the cairn. Standing upon them, I laid claim to the highest point on Mount Hale since the fire tower was torn down some thirty years ago.
Climb the Mount Hale cairn carefully and enjoy the view. Remember to Lend a Hand and add your own rocks to the pile so you can break my record ascent of Mount Hale during the current millenium. Perhaps the top of the Mount Hale cairn will always be just a little higher than the surrounding trees, providing mountain views for years to come.
The Mt Hale summit holds the remains of a fire tower, with pieces of cement and iron rods sticking out here and there. A rectangular chuck of cement has reads “U.S.F.S 10-17-1928”. According to my sources, the fire tower was removed in the 1980's but I do not have an exact date.
Also on the summit is a green US Geological Survey disk, drilled into a boulder. The disk was placed during the days when position and elevation over long distances was found using triangulation from peak to peak and down into the valleys. It is apparent at one time the summit of Mount Hale was easily visible as now there would be no way to get an easy sighting on this boulder without building a tower of some sort high enough to clear the surrounding trees.
Supposedly there are magnetic rocks on Mt. Hale. I did some experiments with quite a number of the pebbles and rocks, placing them against the old iron bars of the former fire tower and even running my compass over them to see if there was a wild fluctuation in it's needle. I was not able able to find any magnetic minerals here, but if you do let me know as this is very interesting indeed.
The Lend a Hand trail from Mount Hale starts quite steeply. Not far from the summit is a large iron boiler laying in a spruce-fir forest just off the trail. One can imagine some fun was had years ago rolling the cylindrical boiler off the top of the mountain, perhaps when the fire tower was dismantled. Once of use to those who live and worked on the mountain manning the fire tower, the boiler is now home to mosquito larvae as it slowly rusts into the Mount Hale soil.
Soon the Lend a Hand Trail comes down into swampy areas frequented by moose and containing here and there large glacial erratics. A large number of wooden walkways of excellent quality have been emplaced in the swampy sections as you make your way downward toward Zealand Falls hut.
As you approach the Zealand Falls AMC Hut you are likely to hear in the distance a loud strange mechanical sound mixed in with the roar of the nearby brook. As you approach the hut you may come upon a most strange looking device responsible for this out of place sound. A number of arms and levers of most create ingenuity work day in and day out, automagically it seems, pumping water from the brook and sending it on toward the hut.
As to whether or not everything on this apparatus has a real purpose, or is a fanciful joke, I do not know. But it certainly is an entertaining device out there in the wilderness and makes the entire hike worthwhile in and of itself.
A short way below the odd pump contraption is the AMC Zealand Falls Hut. Run by the Appalachian Mountain Club the Zealand Falls hut is one of the easier huts to get to, especially if you come up via the abandoned railroad grade, now the Zealand Trail, at the end of Zealand Road.
Beside the hut are Zealand Falls, a long steep section of exposed bedrock over which the afore mentioned brook tumbles and falls on it way to the valley and Ethan Pond below. Fortunately at the falls itself it is difficult to see the hut when the foliage is on the trees, in the late fall and winter it is like the hut looms over the midsection of the ledge and detracts from it's beauty.
From Zealand Falls you can get a good view south of the high cliffs of the notch Whitewall Brook flows. The bedrock of the waterfall area provides a great place for a nap in the sun in preparation for the walk down the abandoned logging railroad grade most of the rest of the hike follows.
A short way below the hut is Ethan Pond and the Zealand Trail, which follows the old abandoned logging railroad grade for most of it's length to the Zealand Road. Being on an abandoned railroad, and following the Zealand River, the graded trail very easy going and is excellent for those who would like to just get out for a relaxing walk. The upper section of the trail just after the hut has a number of grassy ponds and swamps on either side of the grade that are frequented by moose, ducks, beavers and a host of other woodland wildlife. Fine wooded bridges cross the wetter areas and these provide excellent platforms for wildlife viewing.
In a few miles you will come upon a major trails parking lot at the end of Zealand Road. It is but a walk of little more than a mile down this woods road to the car parked at the Mount Hale trail lot. This completes the loop.