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!

Favorite Outdoor Places - OBN photo prompt

Yesterday, the OBN posted a new photo prompt - post a photo of your favorite outdoor place. I love photography & have zillions of pictures from all my trips, and it was hard to pick just one, so I decided to do a first/second/third place.

Third place: Arizona/Tucson area

My aunt lives in Tucson and I've been out to see her a few times. We went out this past April & spent 5 days there, and it was the perfect trip to play with my new camera on! The landscape out there is just gorgeous - the desert, mountains, saguaros, everything. We did a short hike about half an hour outside the city, and I took this photo on the hike. The "cactus" looking cacti are saguaros, which are unique to a very small area of southern Arizona, and the fuzzy one at the bottom is a teddy bear cholla.

Second place: Green Mountains, Vermont

I have done two amazing overnight trips in the Green Mountains of Vermont - this particular photo is from our 2008 trip to Camel's Hump. We hiked up in drizzle, fog and even hail (it was crazy!), and got to the summit to find it totally boxed in. We were a little disappointed, but the clouds started to clear after a little while and gave us absolutely amazing views of the mountains through the clouds. It was really surreal! I haven't hiked in the Green Mountains with the rest of my group, just my best hiking buddy Meg, but I'd like to do more trips in Vermont this year. Vermont is a really special place!

First place: Franconia Ridge, NH

I have done the majority of my hiking in New Hampshire, and one place I will go again & again is Franconia Ridge. I've done two big loop hikes on the ridge, both with my friend Meg, and I am planning to bring the rest of my group up there this year since they've never been. I should say that the White Mountains in general are my number one favorite outdoor place, but Franconia Ridge is beautiful. The views down into the notch and across at the cliffs of Cannon, north to the Presidentials, and east into the Pemigewasset wilderness are just amazing - it's a very spiritual thing for me being up there. There are usually crowds on the ridge so it isn't very solitary, but that's an acceptable tradeoff for me.

I do have a few runners-up for favorite outdoor places photos that had to be included:

Ferry Beach, Saco, Maine

Ferry Beach is my favorite place in the world. It's a Unitarian Universalist camp on the coast of Maine that I grew up camping at every summer, and it's very special to me. My church does a retreat for a weekend up there every fall, and my family still goes. Ferry Beach refreshes me mentally, spiritually, and in every other sense of the word, and this past fall when we were there, I woke up to be on the beach for sunrise every morning. It was magical, and I got some great pictures.

Arizona

This is one of my favorite photos from our Arizona trip this past spring. We did a sunset horseback ride in the desert - my fiance really wanted to ride a horse in the desert (he's really into the wild west thing... lol), so we found a ranch & did it! It was a wonderful experience, and I got this awesome shot on the ride.

Imperial Sand Dunes, California

This has to be one of the coolest places we've ever been. On our trip out west this past spring, we drove to Tucson to visit my aunt from San Diego, which was an awesome 2-day road trip. One area we went through was the Imperial Sand Dunes, a huge dune sea in the far southern part of California near the border of Mexico and Arizona. We were super excited, pulled off into the recreation area & ran up the dunes to get a view. The dunes extended out from either side of the highway as far as the eye could see. Definitely one of the most amazing things I've ever seen, right up there with the redwoods. I wish the power lines & ATV tracks weren't in the picture, but we took some fantastic shots of the dunes.

These are my favorite outdoor places/photos of said places! I hope to be acquiring more 'favorite outdoor places' as I continue to hike and travel but I hope the photos are enjoyable :)

2010 Recap & 2011 Resolutions

Happy 2011! We were away in New Jersey over the weekend, and I'd really wanted to try and do a walk or hike on New Year's day. We were exhausted & decided it'd be cold, plus there was snow on the ground & we don't have proper footwear for that - but we woke up New Year's day, and it was sunny and a balmy 50 degrees :( so I was a little bummed. Next year!

Although I'm itching for a hike, I probably won't be able to do any trips for at least a few weeks, due to my schedule and the fact that I don't have the right footwear for hiking in snow. I've thought about trying out some traction thingies (very technical, I know) for my boots for snow & ice, so next time I'm at REI or EMS I might check some out. We will also be doing some snowboarding soon hopefully, although none of us are very good so we may just go to a local golf course with good hills before going to an actual mountain.

In 2010, I did 6 more of the New England 4000-footers, one in VT (Killington, 4241') and five in NH: Flume, 4328': Liberty, 4459': Tecumseh, 4003': Pierce, 4310' and Jackson, 4052'; I also did Monadnock (3165') in April as we do every year, Pico in VT (3957'), Great Blue Hill at 635' in Milton, MA with a great view of Boston (the Blue Hills Reservation is a great park with miles of really nice trails), and Mount Wachusett (2006') in central MA. Two trips were overnights - Killington/Pico, and Pierce/Jackson. Mileage-wise this year I did about 53. Altogether not a bad season, I did more this year than I did the previous year so I was happy!

I've thought about what I'd like to do this coming season for hiking. One thing I want to do is more backpacking - I recently got the Sea to Summit Mosquito Pyramid Net Double Shelter on clearance from LLBean and I think for the warm months, it'll be a nice lighter alternative to hiking with a tent. I'll review it when I try it out for the first time! Trip-wise, I'd like to do a hike or two on Franconia Ridge with the boys since they've never done anything there, and I want to do Mount Greylock, Massachusetts' high point at 3491'. I want to do that one as an overnight, and I do want to hike more in MA this year. It's kind of stupid that I hike more 3 hours away in NH than right here in my own backyard. Since I knocked off 6 4000-footers this year, I'd be happy if I could do that many again next year. Some I've looked at are some of the southern 4000ers like Whiteface, Passaconaway, and North & Middle Tripyramid, the Hancocks, maybe Carrigan, and maybe some in the Pemi wilderness, like Bondcliff/Bond/West Bond, Galehead, Zealand, and the Twins. (yeah, ambitious list I know!) We will start our season in April with Monadnock, as we've done for the past 3 years, and go from there. My friend Meg, who I've done Memorial day hikes with in Vermont for the past 3 years, will be in DC this year, so I'm going to go down there and we'll find something to do for Memorial day.

Besides my hiking goals, my other resolutions for this year are to finally lose 10lbs, take rock-climbing lessons, go back to yoga, and canoe more! We have a canoe we got off craigslist 2 years ago, and this summer we went out a fair amount but always to the same place. I'd like to explore some more local canoeing spots next summer.

So, those are my plans in a nutshell for 2011. I'm also getting married this summer, so my hiking time may be cut a little short, but I'm going to do as much as I can. I realized this year how happy it makes me to be out on the trail, and for my own peace of mind and mental & physical well-being, I've come to view hiking as a necessary component of my life. Happy trails in 2011 to all!