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Directions
This is Table Rock Trailhead in Grafton Notch State Park. We could have gone left at this point and had a much easier hike up to the table. The Park Ranger actually tried to talk us into going that way. He said this way was really hard on the knees. I guess he saw the knee support I had on my knee. But we wanted steep and we wanted to investigate the slab caves that you pass this way.
Just as we passed this rock, ET reached down and grabbed it. Our imagination runs wild sometimes. |
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The trail started out fairly level and followed along a ravine on the right. Plenty of roots and rocks to trip over.
The trail turns abruptly to the left and immediately becomes steep with some iron bars in rocks for assistance. This is what the Ranger called chutes and ladders.
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When the trail does level off, it is covered with large boulders that Connie and Joyce are working their way around and through. 
The boulder field was a hundred or so feet long and we enjoyed scrambling through it. |
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There were plenty of open spots to get great views of Old Speck. It looks like it spells Moab on the side, one of my favorite places.
Connie is saying, "How in heck do I get up through there?" |
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But they did make it up over after squeezing through some cracks. 
We made it to the slab caves. There were ropes inside to help getting from one level to another. This picture was taken from inside. |
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We are climbing down out of the caves now. We saw a Marine Corp cap sitting there and of course had to speculate that there might be a body or ghost in the caves somewhere, but most likely someone just forgot there cap. 
The slab caves were below the table so now we had to go around this sheer cliff, down into a ravine and up around to get there. My hiking book said to look up at this point and you couldn't miss seeing the shark's fin. It was right, you can't miss it. |
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Going down into the ravine some assistance was given. More chutes and ladders. 
Connie is starting up the last steep rocky assent to the table. |
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We made it to the top. A great hike. Steep and rugged but not very long.
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Great place for our lunch!
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Great views. You can see the road into Grafton Notch State Park.
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Joyce is checking to see what it looks like straight down
It's a long ways to the bottom
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View of Table Rock from farther down. 
Don't push!! I think it's time to leave!
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Joyce and Connie getting ready to head back down the trail. 
More iron rungs to climb down on the side trail back to the Appalachian Trail.
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We decided to take the AT back down. It's a bit easier on the knees. Here we've just got off the side trail and are starting down. The trail descends fairly gradually to the bottom. Pretty much like this all the way. 
On the way out of the park we stopped at this turnout to get a view of where we'd been. Table Rock is that flat rock just to the left of center. We traversed that cliff to get there. No wonder we are a little beat. Great hike though.
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