Back to the Squams: Cotton & Livermore

We’ve been signed up for the Squam Rangers challenge for a few years, but it’s mostly been on the back burner while we wrapped up other hiking patch programs. This year we’re out of excuses… aside from logistics.

But those logistics are so discouraging! As I’ve said before, we’re definitely spoiled by having the Belknaps right in our backyard, so driving an hour to hike is automatically demotivating. This is made worse by many trailheads in that area being crowded, so timing can be difficult. Plus there are some seasonal road and trail closures to factor in. 

Then there’s the even bigger logistic of the Squams patch being a redlining challenge. Ugh, redlining is so annoying and inefficient! Esp. when it’s not local! Simply looking over the map to select a route this week proved frustrating. Even before we started, Hummingbird and I were ready to quit. Honestly, this hike did not encourage us to continue. 

how I feel about redlining 😂

Sometimes the benefit of redlining is that you discover new wonderful trails that you might not have hiked otherwise. I cannot say this has been the case in the Squams so far. Certainly there have been gems; Morgan & Percival, West Rattlesnake, Eagle Cliff (all obviously well timed, and ones I wanted to hike anyway)… but trail conditions have proven rough around the other peaks. There was our infamous bailout after hiking the CRT from Doublehead to Morgan, and now this unexpectedly challenging “little” hike on the lower peaks of Cotton & Livermore. 

The Squams have been described as “rugged.” I think that’s an apt description. Cotton Mountain may actually be one of the best examples. It has one of the lowest summit elevations, but it is in no way easy! Reviews warned that it was steep, but I really didn’t expect to struggle as much as I did.

It’s likely that the temperature didn’t help. We hiked on this day because it was supposed to be milder, but I guess just because it was no longer 90 doesn’t mean cool enough to hike comfortably. It was in the 70’s, but felt like mid 80’s as we climbed. I suspect we might have struggled slightly less if temps were in the 50’s. 

Cotton Mt. trail started right off the bat with less than ideal conditions. Tight growth, loose gravel, beach sand (?!?)… not a great first impression or physical warmup. (I mean, the sand was nice and soft, but it does get draining.) And then the climb… it’s approximately .7 miles, but feels like 2. Man, I was dragging ass. Am I really that out of shape??

After hauling ourselves to the summit, we didn’t even get a reward for our effort. There was a sign in the trees, and what looked to be an old viewpoint nearby that was overgrown, so you could only see pieces of the lakes filtered through foliage. That was disappointing. But Livermore was supposed to be nicer, so all we had to do was traverse the ridge over to the next summit…

the “view” on our first peak

Nope. The trail description said there was a “small” descent off Cotton before continuing up to Livermore. Nopety no! I swear we descended the entire freaking mountain before having to climb the entire next mountain! 🤦🏼‍♀️ Thank God these are the small ones! (The bigger peaks are actually easier because they have a real ridge traverse in between.)

That col was not easy either. More steepness in both directions. There were some interesting parts on the descent, at least, which I probably would have enjoyed going up more than down - in cooler weather - but I was not presently loving any of it. Sadly, it was probably also one of the best sections of trail too. 

so grateful for this bench

Finally we made it to Livermore. Thankfully the view was as lovely as advertised. I rested on the very welcome bench for a few minutes before snapping some pics. As a Lake Winnipesaukee native, I hate to say this, but I kind of think the Squam Lakes are prettier than our big lake. Maybe it’s just the vantage points. Maybe it’s just that they’re a different view than I see more often. Of course they’re all beautiful! 

at least we finally got a payoff!

Time to move on… When we started, we had the option of doing an out & back or a loop. Obviously we were not repeating the trail we just did, so a loop it was. We hoped it would be better conditions. Surely it couldn’t be worse, right?

Have we not learned to never say that? 

Frequently throughout this hike I commented than I was glad we’re in a drought, because you could tell several parts were mucky or actual runoff streams in the wet season. A few parts actually were STILL mucky. The footing wasn’t great on many parts of the trail. A couple spots were downright sketchy. There were very few very short sections that were actually fairly pleasant, but overall we were kind of miserable. And to top it off, it was buggier than expected - more than lately - so, yeah, ugh. 

one of the few “not bad” pieces of trail, short lived

Well at least most of it was downhill. Most of it… Following our descent, we hooked up to an old access road or something to that effect. We hoped it would be relatively smooth sailing from here. (Again, do we ever learn?) 

We first turned left to hit a short piece of redlining that would be obnoxious to clean up later if we missed it. The trail had some rolling hills, which were mildly annoying due to our remaining energy levels, but not unusual on such trails. I was happy to find a bit of reward at the end of this trail in the form of a horse farm with a view, so it definitely didn’t feel as pointless as it could have. 

a pretty little spot at the junction of the old "road"

can't deny those farm houses have a nice spot!

We backtracked up the hill to continue to the end of the trail, still hoping it would become more like an average carriage road. Unfortunately the further along we got, the worse the trail became. One section was so overgrown and grassy/bushy that we double checked we were still on trail. Larger sections of it were in very poor, washed out conditions. 

We absolutely have zero interest in ever hiking here again. Which sucks, because if we do keep redlining, we still have a middle trail up to Livermore to tag, and this is the only efficient way to get to it. Sigh. 

 

pretty sure the actual trail is that mess of a rocky runoff bed; people obviously skirt the edge where possible - it isn't always

At the end of the sucky trail, we had a road walk along Rt. 113 back to the parking lot. We originally weren’t entirely looking forward to this part, but it was welcome after dealing with the awful trail conditions. Thankfully traffic was light and we still had daylight, so the road walk was perfectly safe. 

In total, our hike was just under 5 miles and “only” 1400 feet of elevation gain, but it definitely felt like a bit more. At least I wasn’t overly broken from it after the fact (I shouldn’t be with those stats!) So while I disliked more about the hike than I enjoyed, it was still within my physical abilities. It just didn’t feel much like it at the time. 😂

Will we return for more redlining or give up on this challenge? The jury is out. We’re still talking about it and tracking hikes, but for so many reasons, Hummingbird and I both are iffy about doing it all. Even Hawk is unmotivated, claiming there’s nothing of interest for him here besides Morgan & Percival. 🙄 (And he’s the one that signed us up for this thing in the first place!) I definitely don’t agree with his opinion (there are several points of interest out here), but I do maintain that redlining is annoying and inefficient, and I am discouraged by the trail conditions in so many regions of the Squams. I also remain concerned about my physical ability to do the northern summits, particularly Black Mt up to Sandwich Dome. The stats for a redlining route up there really push my limits, which have only decreased in recent years. 😕 Based on how hard little ol’ Cotton Mt. was this week, I am definitely in no shape to tackle those bigger peaks any time soon. 

Honestly, I started toying with the idea of just creating a peaks patch for the Squam range! It would be a lot more attainable, but still challenging enough. And I could always earn that AND the redlining patch if I decided to go all in. Or I could just call hitting all the peaks good enough, and only hike the other trails that sound appealing. We'll see. It might be worth thinking about. 

Who else might be interested in a Squam Range peaks patch? 

last Squam hike or more to come?

Maybe this redlining challenge will end up like the Belknap Grid… I’ll keep track “just in case,” with no intention of actually finishing it, then end up doing it anyway. Hawk is convinced “we’ll get you those trails somehow.” I’m less convinced. But heck, I keep track of the 52WAVs I’ve hiked, and I will definitely never finish that list, so it certainly doesn’t hurt to track the Squams too. You just never know.