Jan 14, 2010
A nice day today. Clear and
relatively mild with little wind. I decided to take a hike up Blue Job
Mountain in Farmington, NH which is only a short distance from where I
live. I hadn't been up there in years and wanted to try out a new Kelty backpack
(Redwing 3100) and a new Garmin GPS receiver (GPSmap60CSx).
The trail head is located in
Strafford, NH on the 1st Crown Point Road. The GPS coordinates for the
parking lot are 43.32860 deg N, 71.12297 deg W. Here's a photo at the
trailhead parking lot:
Here's the KIOSK, also at the parking lot:
I decided to take the main trail to the summit of Blue
Job, continue on to the summit of Little Blue Job and return via a
different trail. Here's a GPS track of the trails I took:
The actual GPS track, in .gpx format is available in a
.zip file here.
That .gpx file can be input to Google Earth or to one's own GPS receiver.
From the trail head in the lower left above, the right
hand trail rises gradually, then moderately to the summit of Blue Job in
about 1/2 mile. There is a State of NH forest fire lookout tower and a
State Dep't of Safety communications tower at the summit. The
communications tower should not be confused with the State DOT radio
tower below the summit and indicated on the topo above. Here's a photo
of the fire tower:
The views from here are somewhat limited due to tree
growth unless you have access to the fire tower cabin. Even the views
from the available lower platforms leave something to be desired. While
there are some views to the east at ground level here, the views from
the completely open summit of Little Blue Job are far superior. Here's
the trail leaving Blue Job and heading to Little Blue Job:
Here's the view to the east from the summit of Little
Blue Job:
And a view to the north:
The trail that returns to the parking lot from here is a
pleasant walk with a gradual descent through a spruce and pine forest.
Here's one view of the trail:
Here's another:
And another shortly before the parking lot:
A great way to spend a couple hours on a nice winter
day.
Rod (NH)
January 2010
Home