After hounding my experienced mountain dude boyfriend all winter with the question "When are we going hiking?", today we went hiking on Mt. Major. We relaxed most of the morning at home and then drove up to Alton for the hike. I haven't done a lot of hiking in NH, but today wasn't my first time up Mt Major. I remember going with my family when I was 10 or 11 years old. Nothing has changed much, thankfully. (Well, except for the young woman sitting on a ledge smoking a cigarette and looking at her cell phone.)
The lower part of the trail has lots of loose rock and is full of dried leaves. About halfway up there starts to be a lot of rock faces to scramble up and near the top there was even a snow/muddy section to deal with. I remember feeling like I was going to die somewhere after the halfway point when I was a kid and today wasn't much different. I had to take breaks on the way up, but it was beautiful at the summit. The weather today has been clear and in the 60s. There was still a lot of ice on Lake Winnepasaukee and the snow capped summit of Mt Washington was also visible in the distance. It was definitely worth the huffing and puffing it took to get up there. I definitely want to do more hiking. I expect there will be less huffing and puffing the more I do it.
2 comments:
I've always enjoyed the climb up Mount Major. I worked with a guy that used to do the climb in a continuous loop, like three times in one day or something like that.
I say, climb once and then get you hence to a place that sells good ice-cream!
going down the backside is a bugger too, but a lot less traveled.
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