Hutchins Mountain (3,714 ft) crowns the northwestern end of the Pilot Range, a chain of wooded summits extending several miles from The Bulge into Coos County's remote Kilkenny backcountry. The highest and most isolated peak on the range, it occupies one of the larger blocks of trailless terrain in the White Mountain National Forest. The summit is heavily wooded and scrubby, with ledge outcrops on the south and east faces. On a clear day from those ledges, Cabot, The Horn, The Bulge, and the unnamed Pilot Range neighbors fill the foreground, with the Presidentials and many western White Mountain peaks visible beyond. In the 1870s the summit reportedly hosted a U.S. Coastal Survey signal station, and an 1885 AMC exploring party found the view from the then-bare top "bewitching."
Reaching the summit requires a full bushwhack, typically starting from the Mill Brook Road off Route 110 in Stark. Lower terrain passes through open hardwood forest and beaver meadows; above roughly 3,200 feet the forest closes in, with dense fir and old blowdowns on the flat shoulder southeast of the summit. The final cone is steep, with a short push through thick scrub to the ledges. Routes vary but typically cover 6 miles or more round trip.
Moose are common throughout the Kilkenny, and paper birch glades lower on the ridge offer pleasant travel before the terrain stiffens near the top.
