South Baldface: Returning to an old favorite

Since I have haunted the White Mountains since the mid-1960s, there are many hikes that I can return to and feel like I’m coming home. One of my favorites is the 7.4-mile round trip hike to the summit of South Baldface (3,570 feet) in North Chatham.

Though especially enjoyable in the winter, the spring is another great time to climb up through the pastel green leaves of its lower forest, then the challenging steep ledges with violet-colored rhodora in bloom and outwards views of endless green, then witnessing the wide sky above the contoured gentle slopes of bright granite, then the compact stunted spruce forest just before the revelation on the bare summit of a snow-laden Mount Washington to the west.