It was sunny and cool when 16 Denmark Mountain Hikers squeezed their vehicles into the parking lot at Noyes Mountain in Greenwood. Hiking today were Jeff Sturgis, Jacob Schor, Polly Lombardi, David Atchason, Janet Arens, Gordon Farrell, Susan Sedita, Robin Marciello, Tom Dugas, Sandra Bell, Jane Gibbons, Phil Johnson, Jonathan Weld, Judy O’Brien, Allison Cooke and Kathy Huchthausen. We usually are able to park in the field that is just beyond the small parking lot, but a new gate between them signaled that parking in the field is not allowed.
After our trailhead picture, we hit the trail at 9:30 AM under sunny skies and
temperatures in the 40’s. Janet volunteered to be the lead while Jacob was the sweep.
The hike starts out on an old farm road that skirts two fields that slope downward and provides a nice view over a picturesque valley. At the .3-mile mark, we turned left onto the Noyes Trail at 9:37 AM. We followed another old road for .4 miles until we reached the junction of the loop trails that circle the top of the mountain.
The Harvard Mine is on the western side of the mountain and there were several old roads that honeycomb the lopes. The trails use portions of these roads as they alternate between the roads and more typical mountain trails. We started out clockwise on the loop as we turned left at this junction at 9:55 AM and followed the Perham Trail.
This trail rose steadily following several switchbacks until, at 10:10 AM after climbing through a small gorge with extensive stone stairs, we reached Lynn’s Lookout, the first of several lookouts spaced out along this section of the trail.
There was evidence of significant trail work as it seems that every time we take this hike, new stone stairways appear on the steeper sections of the trail. After climbing a short steep section, we reached the summit plateau and had a pleasant ridge walk passing Eric’s View and Ellie’ Spot on our way to Shavey’s View, our destination for lunch. These viewpoints all had nice views of North Pond and Lake Pennesseewasee to the south, Pleasant Mountain to the southwest and the mountains in Evans Notch and the Whites in new Hampshire in the distance to the west.
Shavey’s View is a wide open area that is just above the Harvard Mine which was cut nto the side of the mountain. It is at the junction of two old vehicle trails that were used o service the mine when it was active. There is a wire rope that keeps people from getting too near the edge of the cliff. It seems that this area may be a local snowmobile destination in the winter. Arriving there at 10:47 AM, we enjoyed a very pleasant lunch break of 45 minutes under warm sunny skies as we socialized, enjoying our lunches and some blueberry scones that Gordon shared with us.
Many of us circled down under the man-made cliff to check out the mountainside mine just below.
Finally, after oursummit picture, we started on our descent at 11:45 AM as we continued clockwise on the loop by following the Harvard Trail.
Fifteen minutes later we almost missed noticing the true summit which is wooded withno view and is marked by a small sign on a tree to the left of the trail.
The descent was uneventful with a few tricky steep spots. As we neared the trail junction of the Perham and Noyes Trails, we descended an extensive stone stairway reaching the junction at 12:03 PM. From there we returned to the Noyes Trail and reached the parking lot at 12:30 PM. AllTrails had us covering 2.9 miles with 774’ of elevation gain after about 3 hours on the trail including our lunch break.
This was a wonderful spring hike with comfortable temperatures, warm sunlight and no bugs yet!
This coming week’s hike is to RattleSnake Mountain Hike on May 8. 2026. Hike information is posted https://denmarkmountainhikers.com/2026/05/02/rattlesnake-mountain-hike-may-8-2026/
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