For those unfamiliar with this hike, Percival and Morgan are two small peaks in the Lakes region, just north of Squam Lake. There are two trails that go from the road to the peaks, a nice ridge walk and a connecting trail down low so you can make it a loop. Mohamed and I have done some early season warmup hikes in the southern Whites for several years so this was no exception. Stopher joined us as well. We met and parked along the road by the trailhead and started up around 10:00. There were some other cars, some people were hiking Rattlesnake just across the road, but most were headed the way we were.
The hike up was uneventful, it's a nice climb. We went up Mt Morgan first, via the Mt Morgan trail. Just before the top we encountered a few patches of snow and ice, nothing dangerous but enough to make glad to have brought along ski poles. We paused at the summit ledges trying to pick out the Lakes Region peaks, Stopher won. After a short break we headed along the ridge to Mt Percival via the Crawford-Ridgepole trail. Along the way we paused at one of the views along the way and picked out peaks to the north.
At the summit of Percival we paused again and ate our lunch. It was going to be a fairly short hike so we weren't in any rush. There were many other hikers hanging around up there so we hung around and chatted. When we decided it was time to go, Mohamed decided to loop around while Stopher and I decided to take the Caves route. There are two small caves that the trail loops through on the way down requiring some scrambling, sliding, and not a little bit of gripping the ice with your toes. The worst section to the Caves route was covered in ice, making for a feet first slide through an opening that frankly isn't any larger than I am wide with no view of what's ahead. But we survived and met up with Mohamed on the other side. Nothing major to report on the way down except for a lovely fresh tip up of large perportions.
