Feature Friday: Black Mtn Backpacking Trip Recap

Happy Friday! Look at me- I’m blogging twice in one week! I can’t remember the last time that I did this…maybe not since last year? I wanted to do a blog post about our backpacking trip that we did a few weeks ago to Black Mountain in Jackson, NH. First of all- we love Jackson. Kinda obsessed with it. It’s such a quant little New England-esque town and if you are looking for somewhere to visit in the White Mountains, I highly suggest going there! We booked this campsite via the Recreation.Gov app on my phone-> so easy to have all of my information saved in there and to easily browse campsites/cabins. This hike wasn’t too long (1.3 miles with just over 1,000’ elevation gain) and the parking lot was easy to find with the directions that were included in our email confirmation.

The trail was very well-marked and it took us about 40 minutes to get up to the cabin. We didn’t see anyone else on the trail which was amazing. We also had a bit of service at the top which was nice to still have the capability of using our phones, but not wanting to actually use them!

It was also really nice to have a cabin to stay at rather than bringing our tent with us (less weight)!

We had the most amazing view of Mt. Washington at the top as well. We could actually see the view from the top of the bunkbed -> it was an inexpensive place for a stellar view.

It wasn’t overly cold out the night that we camped, but had to take advantage of the wood shed next to the cabin and had a fire in the stove. It was so nice and toasty in there.

There were four rooms with each having one set of bunkbeds and everything was in really great shape.

I could see this cabin being a lot of fun with a group of friends in the winter (more body heat too)! You can book it throughout the winter, skin up to the cabin, and then ski down. I’ve always been really interested in doing something like that, but it also frightens me a bit because I do NOT like being cold (so winter camping = I just think of it as being really cold).

We ended up bringing our own water, but there was supposedly a water site near the cabin (we never did end up finding it, but I just don’t think we went far enough). There was also a really nice newly built composting privy there for the ladies (if you don’t enjoy going in the woods, which doesn’t really bother me too much - just as long as we bring a good shovel) and the cabin itself was really clean. We did bring some cleaning supplies (because COVID), however felt safe while in the cabin.

We watched the sunrise right from our front doorstep and brought our jet boil to make some dinner. It was so peaceful just being in the outdoors, but also feeling like we were ‘stepping up’ from camping in our usual tent too.

The hike down was a lot faster (took us something like 30 minutes), since it was basically all downhill. I think that it would be pretty fun to ski down it!

We definitely need to work on packing our packs lighter next time (hello, we’re two overpackers here), but it certainly was great cross-training! The cabin was $40 for the night and our reservation included the entire cabin (a steal compared to the ones in Colorado like this were usually over $100!).