Trek to Lake Constance and Lake Katherine (near Piermont, NH)

As compared to many other bodies of water in the White Mountain National Forest, Lake Constance and Lake Katherine have less notoriety.  In part, this might be due to neither lake being accessible by an official hiking trail.  Regardless, not wanting these lakes to feel neglected, I paid them a visit in early April 2016.

At the upper left side of the map shown below, purple arrows point to the location of these two lakes.

LAKE CONSTANCE:

To access Lake Constance, I parked on Rt. 25C at the widened shoulder of the road that is just west of the bridge over Eastman Brook.  But before visiting the lake, I opted to head into the woods on the north side of the road to bushwhack to ledges on a 1,600 ft knob that is located a few tenths of a mile south of Lake Constance.

The next photo shows the approach to one of the ledges mentioned above.

There are no "knock your socks off" views from the ledges, but you can see land features such Peaked Mountain (center of next photo) in Piermont, NH, and Vermont's Killington Peak seen in the background on horizon.

Dominating the vista from the ledges is Piermont Mountain which rises nearby to the south.

After visiting the ledges, I continued bushwhacking northward to pick up an unofficial path that leads to the west shore of Lake Constance.

The next photo is looking northward up Lake Constance.

This photo shown below was taken at the north end of Lake Constance looking southward.

For the return portion of my trek, an unofficial path was followed from Lake Constance all the way back to where I was parked.  Presented below is a Google Earth image which shows my GPS track for the unofficial path that I followed, plus there are arrows pointing to the ledges that were visited on the outbound portion of my trek.

Here are a few more details about the unofficial path that is depicted on the Google Earth image shown above.  There is a dirt road that is directly opposite a widened road shoulder just west of the bridge over Eastman Brook (43°59'30.52"N, 71°59'15.51"W).  To access Lake Constance, walk east along that dirt road for about 0.3 mile and then make a sharp left (43°59'36.89"N, 71°58'53.95"W) onto another corridor that heads off in a northerly direction.  In about 0.5 mile, you arrive at the south end of Lake Constance along its western shoreline.  Trekking northward for about another 0.5 mile will lead you to the northern end of the lake.  

According to my GPS track, it's about 1.4 mile (one-way) from Rt. 25C to the northern end of Lake Constance.  There is no blazing or other markings along the route, but it's fairly easy to follow.

LAKE KATHERINE:

Following the trek to Lake Constance, I drove 0.4 mile southward along Rt. 25C to the parking area at the north end of Lake Katherine.  I began my trek by crossing  the lake's outflow on a nearby wooden bridge (see next photo), and I then bushwhacked along the western shoreline of Lake Katherine.

While bushwhacking along the open woods along Lake Katherine's western shore, I came upon the vista shown in the next photo.  The view includes (at left) huge Mt. Moosilauke and little Webster Slide Mountain (at right) with its sharp drop off.

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