Little Peaked and Big Peaked Mountains

Hiking trail in blue; service road in orange. Both are hikeable.

These two small mountains (914 feet and 1,155 feet) offer an enjoyable conjoined hike or they can be hiked just on their own. Because the views are lovely from both open, ledgy summits, they tend to be popular on nice days.

From the south end of the parking lot, right where the road turns from pavement to gravel, you’ll find the 0.5-mile footpath up Little Peaked (also known as Little Chick Hill) heading off into the forest. I recommend taking this wooded, shady trail, but many people head up the cell tower access road to the summit of Peaked (or Chick Hill), immediately to the left of the footpath.

The footpath climbs steadily and steeply up, and is marked with faded blue blazes which, when we visited, were sometimes hard to see.

When you’re closing in on the summit, the trail opens onto ledge. Head straight up on the exposed rocks, enjoying the views. Keep looking for the blue blazes on the rocks. At the summit, the blazes will bring you into the woods, where you’ll shortly arrive at an intersection (roughly 0.6 miles from the parking area).

From this point, go right onto a small open ledge. Very faintly on the rocks here is painted the instruction, “To Big Chick,” with a blue arrow. Follow this trail steeply down to where it crosses an old overgrown woods road (turning left here will bring you to the service road if you want to do a shorter loop). Continue straight for the last steep half-mile to the summit of Peaked Mountain. There’s a communications tower up there and the views are great. We returned via the 1.5-mile cell tower access road.

The elevation gain for the summit of Little Peaked Mountain is 580 feet; for Peaked Mountain, it’s 821 feet.

From local hiker Travis Chandler:

Hikers are presented with two hikes from the same parking area. They can take the more obvious hiking path to the left of the parking lot, which leads to the more gradual but longer (1.5-mile) access road that services the towers of Peaked Mountain. Or they can take the less obvious hiking trail located across the paved road. It is highly recommended to take the latter! In 0.1 mile, this trail turns to the left and gets noticeably steeper. In 0.5 miles, hikers will reach the summit of Little Peaked Mountain. Continue to the right to reach the overlook and its views.

To reach Peaked Mountain from Little Peaked Mountain, an obscure trail can be found just to the left of the overlook. Here the trail descends over rocks before emerging into the forest, and then descends steeply down into the ravine separating the two mountains. After crossing a stream, the trail starts ascending steeply on the western side of Peaked Mountain. Once at the peak, hikers can retrace their steps or return to the parking lot via the service road.

Directions: From Route 9, turn north onto Chick Hill Road, and follow it 0.75 mile to where the pavement ends at a large parking area.