Starting out at the parking lot, you don't travel very far before you reach a fork in the trail. Go left, or go straight ahead - either way you'll get to the summit. I don't really think there's much difference between the two - the trails were very similar, and we could have done the loop in either direction without any problem. Laura voted for clockwise, so we turned left.
The trail was muddy in places (not surprising, considering we'd had over two inches of rain the day or two prior to hiking!)
It was not overly steep, but just steep enough to get our hearts pumping, since we tend to hike at a pretty good pace.
The summit consists of a couple ledges with views toward the south and east, and a little toward the west.
View of Pleasant Mountain
View of Kearsarge North and Chocorua
I did read in one hike report that although the hike is easily doable by children, care should be taken since there are open ledges with steep drop-offs. This is
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