July 13, 2023. Cranberry Peak.
NOTE: I will get the Bigelows themselves when I do the Appalachian Trail. I won’t post again here for that, that coverage will be part of my overall AT thru-hike YouTube/IG documentation.
Cranberry Peak is on the western end of the Bigelow Range. The Appalachian Trail comes up and over the eastern end and traverses much of the Bigelow Range before heading down a southern slope (without reaching Cranberry). I look forward to seeing all the AT bits when I do the AT.
Cranberry Peak was a nice little hike and brought some much-needed elevation gain back into my life. I have only hiked a handful of peaks with over 2000 feet of elevation gain since I finished hiking all the trails in the White Mountain Guide a year ago. For fourteen years, I hiked 2-5000 feet of elevation gain over the gnarliest of trails on a weekly basis. Though I have hiked quite a lot over the last year, including sequential 15-26 mile days, my elevation gain has been minimal. So my body felt good going up, like it was back into a familiar routine. I even ascended at my old fairly quick pace. I did take a bit more time on the descent, though…a reminder to me that my increasingly older knees need a lot of TLC when hiking down rocks-roots-boulder trails.
Bigelow Range Trail going up Cranberry Peak felt like an easy NH 4K trail, three miles each way with just over 2000 feet of elevation gain (similar to Tecumseh but with a bit more mileage). The terrain was similar. Once past the first few tenths of a mile, it’s rocks and boulders. There are a few teeny scrambles thrown in (nothing problematic).
It was a gorgeous day. The wind at the top felt lovely after a somewhat-buggy climb. After weeks of dealing with hot and humid conditions at home, I wanted to stay up there as long as possible. I met a solo woman my age on the summit who lives in Maine, and we chatted about northeastern hiking and various other topics. When I returned to the parking lot, there were a couple of obvious van-lifers hanging around, and I enjoyed checking out their rigs. On the way back to NH, I stopped by the small village of Oquossoc by Rangeley Lake, a place where my family vacationed two years in a row when I was in elementary school. I remembered the area fondly and had fun poking around. I eventually made it back home to NH after stopping by half a dozen other picturesque places (rivers, lakes, bogs) along the way. This was one of those random perfect days, I felt so grateful for it all.
