New Hampshire fire towers

 I love lists! A while back I finished visiting all of the active standing fire towers in NH.  Then I slowly started picking off the INACTIVE standing towers.  Recently I started working on the NH rail trail list which offers a patch to those who recreate on all of the more than 40 trails.

New Hampshire Rail Trails Challenge – NH Rail Trails Coalition (nhrtc.org)

I kicked off my vacation week by figuring out a loop in way up Northern NH that'd get me the final two fire towers I hadn't visited and the northern most rail trail.  I easily convinced teammate Paul Baz into accompanying me.  It'd be good to have someone along on this long day and Baz always seems up for an adventure.  

I studied "Map Man"'s report for Whitcomb which has a challenging approach via logging roads and some confusing ATV trails to reach the tower.

Ascent of Whitcomb Fire Tower Peak on 2019-07-13 - Peakbagger.com

The day would feature over 500 miles of driving with two fire towers, a rail trail, two times crossing the 45th parallel and 15 hours in the car (and of course 13 miles of running).

I was up at 2:45 am and out the door by 3 for the drive up to Randolph where I met up with Baz.  We quickly saddled up and headed even further north.  The trip report was generally spot on and we got to the trailhead at 7am.  It was nice and cool but not cold as we jogged up the ATV trail.  We had a minor error as the TR doesn't exactly match the reality on the ground now.  Basically once you turn right off of the main trail you really just stay on the biggest trail right to the summit.

Whitcomb fire tower | Run | Strava

The tower was very nice and we climbed it for the excellent views.

Next up we headed north but the GPS took us down a logging road that became impassable.  We bailed and went back out the way we came in.  We had a slight navigational error as I was looking for "Sophies Way" but never saw a sign for it.  We very nearly made it to Canada (only a couple of miles away) before returning to the road near Deer mountain campground.  We lucked out as the rain we'd been driving through dissipated, and we had perfect weather for the run. The trail up Deer mountain was well marked and we were rewarded with the remnants of the fire tower (with a tree growing through it).

Deer Mountain - Peakbagger.com

Deer mountain fire tower | Run | Strava

Next up was a longish drive south to the Colebrook welcome center.  They have parking and easy access to the Coos recreational rail trail.  It was sunny and really warmed up as we headed out for a nice out/back 3 mile run.

After that I dropped Paul back at his car at the Appalachia parking lot and an hour later I was at the Franconia notch bike trail for the final run of the day.  I was greeted by an empty trail and some very nice fall foliage.