Kearsarge is a
monadnock, and although of only moderate elevation, its isolation gives it of relative height above the low ground separating it from the higher mountains farther north. That makes Kearsarge one of twelve mountains in New Hampshire with a
prominence over . Mount Kearsarge stands within the
watershed of the
Merrimack River, which drains into the
Gulf of Maine. The western slopes of the mountain drain into Cascade Brook, which flows north to the
Blackwater River, a stream which flows around the northern and eastern base of Kearsarge, eventually draining into the
Contoocook River, a tributary of the Merrimack. The northern and eastern slopes of the mountain drain more directly into the Blackwater River. The southern face of Mount Kearsarge drains into Meadow Brook, a tributary of the
Warner River, which flows southeast to the Contoocook River. Kearsarge is a popular hiking destination. The summit is the high point along the
Sunapee-
Ragged-Kearsarge Greenway hiking trail which links 10 towns and encircles the Kearsarge-
Lake Sunapee region of western
New Hampshire. The quickest route to the top is from the Rollins State Park picnic area on the mountain's south ridge, accessible via Kearsarge Mountain Road from the town of
Warner. Access on the mountain's western side is from the picnic area of Winslow State Park via the Winslow Trail () or the Barlow Trail (), built in 1997 by Trailwrights, a volunteer trail group, for the SRK Greenway. The full Greenway section hike on Mt. Kearsarge covers from Winslow picnic area via the Barlow Trail to the summit and via the Rollins and Lincoln trails southwesterly to Kearsarge Valley Road in
North Sutton. The Winslow Trail and the state park on the Wilmot side are named after Admiral
John Winslow, the commander of the
USS Kearsarge, which in June 1864 sank the
CSS Alabama in the
English Channel in a famous
Civil War sea battle. More directly, the park is named after a hotel that stood on the grounds, the Winslow House, site of the current picnic grounds. Mt. Kearsarge is a notable landmark to
Colby-Sawyer College as the location of an annual hiking event held by the college called "Mountain Day," a school tradition reported to originate in the mid-1800s. It is known definitively however that the college community has summited the mountain every year since the 1930s with the only exception being in 2020 due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. == See also ==