Pack Monadnock summit
— — the smaller mountain, the longer view.
Not only on a wall.
“Pack Monadnock rises to 2,290 feet above Peterborough, in Miller State Park, the oldest state park in New Hampshire, set aside in 1891. From the open summit ledges a visitor can see Mount Monadnock to the southwest, the White Mountains to the north, and on the clearest fall days, the Boston skyline to the southeast. Hawks pass through in September by the thousand. A short auto road climbs from Route 101; the Wapack Trail comes the long way.
Pack Monadnock summit, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Pack Monadnock is the higher of two peaks in Miller State Park in Peterborough, New Hampshire, rising to 2,290 feet above the Souhegan River valley. The park was established in 1891 and is the oldest state park in New Hampshire. A 1.3-mile paved auto road, improved by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, climbs from Route 101 to a small summit parking area. The Wapack Trail, a 21-mile ridge route between Ashburnham, Massachusetts, and the summit, ends here. The name comes from the Abenaki and means 'little mountain.'
The summit ledges are open granite, exposed to weather from every direction. On clear days the view runs west to Mount Monadnock at 3,165 feet, north to the Presidential Range sixty miles away, and southeast to Boston, eighty miles distant. The Pack Monadnock Raptor Observatory, run by New Hampshire Audubon, has counted migrating hawks here every September since 2005; broad-winged hawk flights of several thousand birds in a single afternoon are not uncommon. The wind is rarely still, and the temperature at the summit runs ten degrees below the town at the foot.
Miller State Park is open daily from late spring through October, with a day-use fee at the gate. The auto road runs from the Route 101 entrance to the summit, with a small picnic area at the top. Three hiking trails — the Wapack, the Marion Davis, and the Summit Loop — give the mountain on foot in under two hours round-trip. Mid-September is hawk migration; mid-October is foliage. Winter access is on foot only, with the gate closed. The summit fire tower is open in season when staffed.