Mount Percival Trail - Mount Percival
TRAIL STATISTICS
Trail Distance: 2.0 miles
Trail Elevation Gain: 1,450 feet
Trail Hiking Time: 1 hour, 45 minutes
Trail Difficulty: Moderate
TOTAL HIKE STATISTICS
Total Hike Distance: 5.1 miles (with Mount Morgan and Mount Percival)
Hike Elevation Gain: 1,600 feet
Hiking Time: 4 hours, 5 minutes
Hike date: 06/13/2020
Description: In order for this trail to count for the Terrifying 25, you need to make sure you take the cave route when the trail splits just below the summit of Mount Percival (marked by a sign). The cave section is what lands this trail on the Terrifying 25 list. You’ll crawl through a few caves, climb over big boulders, and scale up steep ledges on this route. Check out our Youtube video here of our hike to Mount Morgan and Mount Percival!
Trails Used: Ascend via the Mount Morgan Trail to the Crawford-Ridgepole Trail to the summit of Mount Morgan. Continue on Crawford-Ridgepole Trail until you reach the summit of Mount Percival. To descend, take the Mount Percival Trail down. To make this a loop and get back to your car, take the Morse Trail back to the Mount Morgan Trail. You can do the loop in the opposite direction, but the best way to do this loop is clockwise by going up Mount Morgan and down Mount Percival, this way you avoid a risky descent down the ladder section. Since the Mount Morgan trailhead parking lot was full, we parked at the Mount Percival trailhead lot. Instead of using the Morse Trail at the end of our hike to form a loop, we walked along Route 113 at the start of our hike to get to the Mount Morgan Trailhead. We could have also used the Morse Trail at the start of our hike from the Mount Percival Trailhead, but we chose the road instead. For more details about the entire hike, check out the full report here!
T25 Trail Summary: After the summit of Mount Morgan, continue to follow the Crawford-Ridgepole Trail for 0.8 miles and you’ll reach the summit of Mount Percival. From the summit, you’ll have two choices to descend. Heading down to the right will take you through the cave route. Note that this portion of the trail lands the Mount Percival Trail on the Terrifying 25 list! You’ll scale down steep ledges and climb over big boulders to begin with. At times, to squeeze through tight boulders, we had to send our packs ahead of us and then shimmy through. The caves were really cool! The first one is clearly marked with a yellow marker and you sort of have to drop down into it but it isn’t too far down. Again, it is helpful here to take off your pack. The second cave is even bigger! Exercise caution when coming out of the second cave because it is a much narrower opening and sort of uneven footing (see the photo of Adam below). After the caves, the trail goes right back to normal with a mixture of rock stairs and dirt. The trail continues to descend at a fairly steep grade over many rocks and roots for about a half mile before it becomes a more moderate grade. After 1.8 miles and roughly 1,400 feet of elevation loss, you’ll come to the junction with the Morse Trail on your right. Normally, if your car is parked at the Mount Morgan Trailhead, you’d take this trail to get back to where you started. This link trail is only half a mile long and doesn’t really have any elevation change. It takes you through the woods as opposed to walking along a main road. But, since we parked at the Mount Percival Trailhead and did the road walk at the start of our hike, we continued all the way on the Mount Percival Trail to the trailhead. This was a really fun and enjoyable hike!
If coming from Morgan, the summit sign helps guide you to the caves
Heading down some steep slab as we start the cave route
Looking back up to some of the boulders we just came down
This is a tight spot with a pretty good sized drop down required
Lots of big boulders to navigate around!
Coming into an area with massive boulders. Almost time to enter the cave
Emily getting ready to make her way through the first cave
Your best bet is to take off your pack and send your body through first
Looking back at the cave we just came out of. It is a bit tight!
Adam making his way through the second cave, which is a bit bigger
Made it through the caves! A few more boulders, then it’s a nice descent
Junction marking the cave route vs the normal trail
Enjoying the awesome views from the summit of Mount Percival! Squam Lake feels so close. You can also see the Rattlesnakes and the Belknap Range way in the distance
Questions? Comments? Want to share your take on this hike? Get in touch with us using the contact page!
As experienced hikers, we always make sure that we are hiking with The Ten Essentials which include navigation, a headlamp, sun protection, first aid, a knife, shelter, extra food, water and clothes. Overtime, we have discovered some items that we always bring on our hikes and consider them to be our personal, expanded ten essentials.