Monadnock, 4-14-12

Realized I'm a bit behind on stuff here so I better get cracking! We took our first "real" hike of the season two weeks ago with a group of our hiking buds. Mount Monadnock has been our hiking-season-opener for the last 5 springs. I've heard before it's the second most-hiked mountain in the world behind Mt. Fuji in Japan, though I don't know how true that is. :) I will say it is an extremely popular mountain. The mountain is in southern NH and is 3165' high - not a behemoth, but a great hike, an above-treeline summit and fabulous views from the top.

Last year we did some different trails, but this year I decided to do our old familiar White Dot trail. It's 2.2 miles up and lots of rock scrambling. I absolutely love it. I hadn't been working out very much leading up to this trip so wasn't sure how I'd do, but we all did great! The trails were in decent shape, not much water to speak of, and we had an absolutely gorgeous day for it. Last year it was cloudy, freezing, and spitting rain when we had lunch at the summit and we boogied out of there, but this year we ate a nice leisurely lunch and relaxed for a little while. One of our friends brought along a friend of hers from Ohio, who had never hiked a "real" mountain before to my knowledge, and even though she struggled a little, she was blown away by the views and was super proud of herself for making it up :) (she's the one above taking the picture - we stopped for breaks on the trail a lot and she had her camera out every time!)

We took our time and didn't rush anyone up or down, so it was a nice leisurely hike. Lots and lots of people were hiking, and we chatted with a few folks along the way. Felt really good to be out on a mountain again and I'm looking forward to our next group hike, which is supposed to be Chocorua (no date planned for it yet though). There was sadly some car drama at the end of the day - we had to have my car towed home from Jaffrey, but luckily it wasn't dead like I'd feared and is now back on the road! Happy to have hiking season rolling again for us :)

Worst blogger ever! ..and least active summer in years :(

I CAN'T BELIEVE I HAVEN'T POSTED SINCE MARCH :( I think I stated a few times in my previous posts that I was going to have a busy summer as I was getting married in July! I knew I wouldn't have much time for hiking/exploring or blogging, but I didn't think I would seriously do so much nothing. Wow. I am not letting this blog go & now that stuff has slowed down, I am hoping to be able to update regularly again (and get out to hike more!).

I'll start with stating I have really missed the mountains this year :( This was the first season in four years I didn't go up to the Whites once, and I pined away for them all summer. On top of the wedding (which went fabulously!) and honeymoon both in July and a trip at the end of August, we basically did no hiking at all. We did hike Monadnock with a small group of folks in April, but besides that, a couple of walks in the last few weeks have been all I've done this year.

We went on a cruise to Bermuda for our honeymoon, which was absolutely amazing (neither of us had been on a cruise or out of the country before!), and I took some gorgeous pictures I can share a few of. I have also started playing around with "through the viewfinder" (or TtV as I will refer to it) photography (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Through_the_Viewfinder_photography) and have taken some really neat pictures.

Here's a brief photo roundup of my season!

A few photos from our April Monadnock hike. It was a great time & we had some new friends with us, even though the weather was a bit iffy. Took different trails up and down than we usually do. I was really happy with my performance on this hike since I'd been going to boot camp and running for a couple months at that point!












Here are a few TtV photos I took, the angel in May and the others a few weeks ago. Having a lot of fun with this! Bench angel was at Lynch Park in Beverly, MA and the last three at the Phillips Estate, also in Beverly.





























At the end of August we went on a whale watch out of Gloucester with a group of friends. I hadn't been on a whale watch in possibly 20 years and my husband had never been! We lucked out & saw lots of whales, really close to the boat too.











And... our big trip of the year - Bermuda! We went on a 7-day cruise out of Boston to Bermuda, and it was absolutely amazing. It is a gorgeous place and I took tons of pictures - here is a small selection of the best ones!











































I shouldn't forget a few wedding photos I guess?! We had a beautiful outdoor wedding at a gorgeous old estate in Ipswich, MA. It was hot and humid and sunny, and we loved every second of it :)






So that is my spring/summer and some of my fall, in a nutshell! Despite the lack of hiking we had a blast over the last 6 months and I hope you enjoy the photos. I am hoping to do a little more local hiking before the weather get cold and wet/icy, but we'll see, I have a lot going on in the next month or two. I will have to live vicariously through the other outdoor bloggers in the New England area and catch up on how their seasons all went :) I am happy to be back & please come back for (hopefully) more posts sooner than 6 months from now!