After my Flume/Liberty hike this year, I did do a few more hikes. Myself, my brother, and another friend of ours (both members of Team Badassa) hiked Mount Tecumseh in New Hampshire in August. Tecumseh is the lowest (and I think the furthest south) of the 4000-footers in New Hampshire at 4003', and is home to Waterville Valley ski area. The hike roundtrip was 5 miles, so a nice short-ish day, and very enjoyable, although with limited views. The summit isn't totally exposed but there were some views, and popping off the trail onto a ski trail to check out the surrounding scenery was nice, although muddy. Another nice thing about this hike is that it was a little closer than most of our White Mountain hikes are - only about a 2.5 hour drive.
(top: view from a ski trail on Tecumseh - bottom: brother at the summit)
My last group hike of the season was an overnight in the Presidentials. My fiance and one of our friends (again, all members of the larger Team Badassa, who can never all get together at the same time!) hiked mounts Pierce and Jackson. We started out on the Crawford path in Crawford notch and hike to the AMC's Nauman tentsite, where we would spend the night. We dropped our stuff off and headed up to summit Mount Pierce, a 4310' peak about 5 miles south of Mt. Washington. It was close to sunset by the time we got to the summit and the view was absolutely spectacular! Washington was a bit clouded in, but I still got some great pictures.
(top, on the Crawford Path: bottom, view of Mount Washington [clouded in] from Pierce)
The overnight at Nauman was pleasant, and mostly dry, but a little chilly. The tentsite is adjacent to the AMC's Mizpah hut. We broke down and headed back up to Mizpah cut-off, then south on the Webster Cliff trail to Mount Jackson (4052'). The weather was gray and it drizzled on us a little, but we had some decent views from Jackson.
(above: the crew at Mizpah hut)As we hiked down from Jackson, the sky cleared and the sun came out, making for a real nice trip down. We took a short side trail up to an amazing overlook of the notch (photo below). This trip was awesome and really made me want to do more overnight trips, so I'm making it a goal next summer to do more backpacking trips.
I did one more hike this fall, a solo at Wachusett Mountain state reservation. I'd always wanted to hike Mount Wachusett (2006'), and I had Columbus day off and no plans, so I figured I'd hike it myself. I thought I'd have a nice solitary day, but there were TONS of people on the mountain. It was great though - the foliage was in full swing, views from the top were great (Boston and Mount Monadnock are visible from the summit), and I realized I enjoy hiking solo, despite all the other folks on the mountain that day. Risking sounding cliche, it was a very zen experience to hike alone & I hope to do it some more.
(view of Mount Monadnock from the summit of Wachusett)
I took some really nice photos on the trails at Wachusett, here's a sampling of them:
That was my hiking season in a nutshell. I do hope to do a little hiking over the winter, but primarily I'll probably snowboard/snowshoe when I can. I'm hoping to be able to do a hike on New Year's day, but that depends on what New Year's eve brings, lol. I'm already starting to think about Team Badassa's yearly Mount Monadnock hike, which will probably happen in April sometime. Can't wait! We've done Monadnock for the last 3 years as the kick-off to the hiking season.
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and happy holidays to all!
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