The trail begins along a narrow path with a gentle grade and quickly encounters a brook. It follows the brook for a time and crosses the brook twice. After about 0.7 miles, the trail swing around to the north, sweeping along a mostly flat section around a knoll to the west, then crossing a wooden footbridge over the brook, to a small beaver pond. It crosses the brook for the last time past the beaver pond. A brief steeper section, with a glimpse of a narrow waterfall, leads up to a plateau, along which the trail traverses for the last half mile, through fern and birch glades, on bog bridges over muddy areas, and through spruce forest.
The remains of an old fire tower are at the summit. The cab of the tower was removed when it was no longer in use, and later the wooden steps were removed as well to discourage people from climbing up the unsafe structure. There are now trees growing up through the center of the tower. The summit is mostly wooded, but some very limited views of nearby lakes and mountains are visible through the trees.
The Cohos Trail is a system of pathways and spur trails from southern Crawford Notch in the White Mountain National Forest through the Great North Woods to the Canadian border at far-flung Pittsburg, NH. Within this geography it stretches for 170 miles of wilderness hiking. To learn more about the Cohos Trail, visit their website, purchase the Cohos Trail Guidebook and support the organization.
For additional information, visit the Cohos Trail Association website, or contact:
Heading north on NH-3, go 12 miles from Happy Corner, or 3.8 miles from the Second Connecticut Lake Dam, to a logging road on the left (Sophie's Lane). If you see the Deer Mountain Campground on the left, you've gone 0.1 miles too far. Go 0.6 miles down the logging road, then turn left onto a narrower road at a sign for Deer Mountain Fire Tower. Continue 0.2 miles to the large clearing at the end, where there is room to park your car. There is a a sign and register box at the trailhead on the left of the clearing.
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