A far harder hike than the reports calling it "moderate" on other sites led me to believe. The final half of it was some of the hardest hiking I have ever done. Temperature started at 72 F. The lower sections are a bit buggy; I recommend insect repellent. There are three basic sections to the trail: the initial part (fairly easy, though with a lot of tree roots; shady); the part that runs alongside the powerline (pretty easy as well; much more exposed to sun; there is an osprey nest on top of one of the power poles and I saw an osprey in flight near it), and the third part, which was brutally steep and difficult. It had many scrambles, very slippery rocks in spite of it being a sunny warm day (I fell multiple times on them and one sliced up my arm pretty thoroughly) . I got lost twice on the way down as well. There are some very pretty views at some points of the trail, but the summit's views are limited by trees. I thought I had reached the summit when I got to a high place marked by a large cairn of a human figure, but figured out that was not the top; the top is another five minutes or so along (moderate difficulty) and is marked with a huge pile of stones. It took me longer than others have reported; about 50 minutes to the top and about 55 minutes going down.
Some notes:
1. This is part of the Caughey-Taylor Nature Preserve. It's right off NB-127, roughly 8 miles north of Saint Andrews and four miles south of NB-1. There is a big blue oval sign marking the preserve and the area across the road, the Sam Orr Pond Nature Trail, which is apparently a lot better known than the mountain trail. There is an ample gravel parking lot with room for at least a dozen cars, probably more. On that day, I was the only one there. There is no kiosk, facilities or fee.
2. The sign does not note that the trail goes to Chickahominy Mountain, but rather that it is the Taggard Brook Trail. The first part of the trail, before the powerline section, does follow the brook.
3. Trail blazing here is...kinda weird. On the first section, the trail is blazed with what look to be soup can lids nailed to trees. There are also some places blazed with orange trail tape, and later with yellow tape. Some parts are marked with yellow diamonds. There are some large brown trail signs at important turns. Then in the upper section, the main blazing is with pink trail tape. They have a lot of it, but the rockiness of the upper trail still makes it hard to follow in places, particularly going down.
4. One thing that helps mark the trail, and helps going down in particular, are about a dozen places in the upper section of the trail with light blue nylon ropes tied to trees. These are useful to hang on to and sometimes are easier to see than the pink trail tape.
5. In the upper section, there is a lot of loose dirt on the trail, which makes for tough footing in places on the way down.
6. The stream crossing in the lower section is not difficult and there are lots of rocks to step on. However, the boardwalk in the early section is not in good condition.
overall: a very challenging but ultimately satisfying climb.