Whiteface and Passaconaway are located in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. They are two peaks apart of the infamous 48 4000 footers to hike in New Hampshire. These two peaks are some of the lower stature mountains but offer great views and topography if hiked the right way. In this article, I will explain the best way to hike these two peaks along with an alternative route. If you are simply interested in peak bagging, I will explain the fastest way to grabbed these peaks along with some others.

In this article, you will read about Whiteface and Passaconaway, Whiteface and Passaconaway loop, Mt. Whiteface Blueberry Ledge Trail, Whiteface and Passaconaway trail conditions, Mount Whiteface and Passaconaway, Mount Whiteface and Passaconaway loop, Whiteface and Passaconaway AllTrails, Whiteface and Passaconaway difficulty, and more.

This article is all about Whiteface and Passaconaway.

Whiteface and Passaconaway:

Whiteface and Passaconaway are located in the Sandwich Range of the White Mountains. The Tripyramids, Whiteface, and Passaconaway are the most well-known peaks in this range. North and Middle Tripyramid along with Whiteface and Passaconaway are the four, 4000 footers in the Sandwich Range and on the New Hampshire 48 list. You can hike all of these together. However, it is MUCH more enjoyable to pair the Tripyramids together as one hike and Whiteface with Passaconaway as another separate hike.

Mount Whiteface & Passaconaway Blueberry Ledge Trail

Okay, the first and BEST way I recommend hiking Whiteface and Passaconaway is via the Blueberry Ledge Trail. It is an AWESOME loop hike. This is the way I hiked Whiteface and Passaconaway, and would re-hike this in a heartbeat. The scenery was really pretty, and felt like quintessential New England/Maine.

Now, on AllTrails this loop hike is not called the Blueberry Ledge Trail Loop. Instead, it’s called Whiteface and Passaconaway Loop Trail.

{Recommend Post : Trail Report & Routes for Mount Tripyramid}

Ferncroft Road Trailhead

First, you will park on the Ferncroft Road Trailhead, just outside of Sandwich, New Hampshire. Then, you will walk on the gravel road towards the couple of houses. You will NOT walk into the woods, like you typically do for a hike. You will walk on the gravel road for about half a mile then turn left onto Squirrel Bridge. There are road signs, so you will see those as well when walking. Very shortly, you will come upon another intersection where you want to stay straight to the Blueberry Ledge Trail.

You will stay on Blueberry Ledge for about 3.5 miles until you reach the summit of Mount Whiteface. To me, this whole trail felt like Maine. There’s so many pines and pine needles on the ground, with lots of rocks, it really feels like you are in Maine or at least somewhere in New England.

The elevation gain wasn’t too bad to get to Mount Whiteface. You will gain about 3,000ft of elevation, which is pretty average with all of the New Hampshire 48 hikes. However, this trail is really nice. You won’t have to awkwardly step over multiple rocks, branches and roots. It’s a lot of nice, grippy, rock slabs.

Getting to Mount Whiteface

A little bit before the summit, there is a viewpoint for Mount Whiteface. This is where my friend and I actually ate lunch instead of the actual summit of Whiteface. The actual summit of Whiteface, doesn’t have a view or a marker, it is in the woods. In addition, our lunch was cut short due to some potential rain. However, it only drizzled for about 15 minutes then the rain complete stopped for the rest of the day. Also, the clouds were high enough in the sky, that we still got really good views while hiking to Whiteface.

Again, near the summit of Whiteface, you will get really cool views of the area. Now, also near the top of Whiteface there are some tricky rock scrambles. The rocks should be grippy enough to hike them without any issues. However, if it has recently rained a lot, this might be a different story. For me, there were two tricky parts, where I had to stop and think about how I was going to hike up. These parts were a little hairy to hike up.

Otherwise, this trail doesn’t have any scary parts. But, we did hike this trail after a couple days of no rain, so the rocks we climbed up were very grippy. Also, the light drizzle we experienced was almost at the summit of Whiteface, after the tricky rock parts.

Hiking to Passaconaway

After you take in the views on Whiteface, it will be about a 3 mile trek to Passaconaway. However, this trek is not bad. You will lose a lot of elevation, then it will be pretty flat, then about half a mile to Passaconaway you will hit decent elevation gain. You will continue past the summit of Whiteface onto the Rollins Trail for the next 3-ish miles.

After about 2 miles after leaving Whiteface, you will come upon an intersection, where you want to stay left towards Dicey’s Mill Trail and Camp Rich Tent site. At the tent/camp site, again, you will want to stay left onto Dicey’s Mill Trail. You will follow this for about half a mile and gain about 500ft of elevation. There is nothing scary going up this trail, it’s very straight forward.

Again, Passaconaway doesn’t have an official summit and or marker. However, my friend and I found a nice rock/boulder to eat the rest of our lunch on. There was also a really nice view here. We were surprised that this wasn’t the official summit. In addition, just before the summit, there is a sign with the word, “View,” on it, with an arrow pointing in the direction of where to hike to. According to the pictures I’ve seen, there are really good views from this viewpoint, however, my friend and I didn’t want to hike the extra .3 of a mile (I know, not a lot but we were tried from hiking all week). So, we stayed put on our boulder.

Completing the Rest of the Loop

Now, from the summit of Passaconaway, my friend and I hiked back down the half mile we camp up, to the tent/camp site. Then, we hit the Dicey’s Mill Trail back up at that intersection with the tent/camp site. However, you can walk past the summit of Passaconaway, onto the Walden Trail and it will bring you back down to the tent/camp site intersection.

At the tent/camp site intersection, you will continue straight, quickly, to the next intersection, where you want to stay straight/slightly left onto the Dicey’s Mill Trail. You will stay on Dicey’s Mill for about 3 miles and will walk back onto the gravel road you started on and then onto Ferncroft Road. You will walk past some houses along the way and come across a gate. This gate has a Private sign, but under it, reads, “Hikers Welcome.” I thought this was a cute sign.

Overall Thoughts of Blueberry Ledge Trail

I HIGHLY recommend hiking Whiteface and Passaconaway via Blueberry Ledge Trail and doing a loop hike with the Dicey’s Mill Trail. This is the way I hiked it and I really enjoyed my time on these trails. The hike up was beautiful with all the different topography changes, the views just before Whiteface were really cool, the hike down was easy on the legs, and about half a mile from the parking lot, the gravel road, feels like you are in quintessential New England. It is so beautiful and peaceful.

Some people hike it the reverse way from what I mentioned above. However, I would NOT do that. The Dicey’s Mill Trail is VERY nice on the feet going down. Because, the trail has built in rock stairs instead of navigating huge rock boulders and roots/branches. Also, going up the Dicey’s Mill would be very boring. At least with Blueberry Ledges the topography was beautiful, so it made going up, not as horrible. Thus, I HIGHLY recommend hiking Blueberry Ledges up and the Dicey’s Mill Trail going down.

On the other hand, some people hike Whiteface and Passaconaway with the Tripyramids, which is what I will talk about in the next section.

Mount Whiteface, Passaconaway, and the Tripyramids

Okay, for you time savers and peak baggers, there is a way to hike all four of these peaks together. To do so, I would make this a traverse. I would park one car at the Oliverian Brook Trail, then drive about 7 minutes to the Pine Bend Brook Trailhead and park your other car here. I would start your hike at Pine Bend because it’s the most straight forward. You will follow the Pine Bend Brook Trail straight up to North Tripyramid for about 3.5 miles then continue onto Middle for another half a mile or so.

Then, after Middle Tripyramid, you will continue to South Tripyramid (not apart of the 48 list). After, South, you will continue past the summit onto Mount Tripyramid Trail then go onto the Kate Sleeper Trail. You will follow this trail for about 4 miles until you reach the summit of Whiteface. Then, you will have to hike another 3 miles on the Rollins Trail to the top of Passaconaway.

After Passaconaway, you will walk past the summit to the Walden Trail. In about half a mile, you will come to an intersection where you want to take a left onto the Square Ledge Trail. In about another half mile, you will stay left onto the Passaconaway Cut-Off Trail and stay here for about another half a mile. At this intersection, you will stay straight onto the Oliverian Brook Trail. You will stay on the Oliverian Brook Trail for the rest of the hike, which is about 2 miles. In total, this hike is about 16 miles with about 5,000ft of elevation gain.

Overall Thoughts

I really don’t recommend hiking all four of these peaks and the entire Sandwich Range this way because of how much elevation gain you will have to gain then lose then gain again. That sounds like a huge headache and pain in the ass quite frankly to me. However, if you don’t have a lot of time and want to hike all the 48 peaks to complete this hiking challenge, then the traverse stated above might be for you.

What I recommend doing is, hiking the Tripyramids on their own via the slide route. Then on a separate day, hike Mount Whiteface and Passaconaway via Blueberry Ledge Trail. You will have a fun time on both. However, if heights freak you out, then I don’t recommend hiking the Tripyramids via the slides. You can hike it via the Pine Bend Brook instead. I hope this article was helpful and one of these routes works for you. Thank you so much for reading and take care!