We headed to the Ossipee Range to take on Big Ball mountain, Black Snout and Mt Shaw. Mt Shaw was #52 for us on the NH fire tower list, it is also on the 52WAV list. These 3 mountains also got us up to 5 on the Ossipee 10 list, funny we weren’t even going to do that list. LOL
We parked at the Mt Shaw trailhead which starts out as a carriage road. We walked over to a couple of the waterfalls off to the left of the trail that were flowing nicely. We took a right at Mt Tate/Italian Trail it is blazed in red and green. You have to pay attention on this trail as there are a lot of side trails that cut off from it.
The trail itself is not a hard trail, it is not full of boulders and roots, so the footing was easy and parts of it were a steady up. The trail leads up to the Banana Trail which goes left and right. We took the trail to the right first for a Geocache, and got a bonus with the views. We got a great view of the lake and the Belknaps. Looking at Mt Rowe from a distance, it seems amazing that we were able to do 6 miles of exploring on that mountain last week. LOL
After leaving the views we followed the Banana Trail to the summit of Big Ball mountain. We didn’t stay too long as we had seen better views from the outlook. As we were leaving the summit we got a great view of our next mountain…Black Snout.
The hike over to Black Snout started out as a nice walk in the woods right until the UP. It was the first time we hiked over boulders the whole day. The area had a lot of blowdowns and the blazing was limited. The trail leads right up to what we believe was a carriage road. It looked like it had been just mowed too. A lot of moose poop though, it was all over the place. We took a left and went to the summit.
On the summit we took in the views and located the geocache. We took a small break and then headed down the nice grass covered road with a view of Mt Shaw in front of us. Did you know there was a sacrificial stone on Mt Shaw?
The views on the summit were fantastic even though there was a haze. We located the geocache, these things are everywhere, then sat down for lunch and just enjoyed the views. After lunch we searched for and found the remains of the fire tower that once stood there. It started as an observatory tower when the area was call Ossipee Mountain Park. The state got permission to use it as a fire tower from 1916-1922.
The last thing we did before leaving the summit was look for the sacrificial stone, yes there is one on the mountain somewhere. After the fire of 1953, its location was lost and with the regrowth it’s been covered. We found what some believe is a portion of it uncovered, but we don’t agree, not that our opinion matters on the subject. The interesting thing we found through research on it is that Mr Aleister Crowley,’ the wickedest man in the world’ used the stone during his NH Magical Retreat. Yes Mr. Crowley the one that Ozzy Osborne sings about in the song with the same name.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/_3O0ac5GHd8" frameborder="0"></iframe>

Hi Chuck. I'm heading to bed, but I'll be up by 4am as usual.
I really want to see your video. I'll check it out when I get up.

I really like the Ossipee's, but agree that views to the S from Roberts, Faraway [lookout], Bald Knob, Big Ball, Black Snout, and to a lesser degree even Flagg and Sentinel create an awfully similar effect. It's a great range and a good list, but is probably best spread out over a couple years. Maybe this could be said for most lists or ranges, of course.

Glad that you're not experts on sacrificial stones, by the way. That might be creepy.

(And probably now there will be somebody who finds this site/thread in about 4 years and comes on to tell me/us all about how sacrificial stones aren't weird at all, as long as the public doesn't see people using them. . . .)

Oops, thought he linked our video. Here's ours, the table is near the end: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=turX7cxRFMw&t=1379s