Mount Monadnock

A couple of days ago, Bud and I climbed Mt. Monadnock. My mom and sister were supposed to hike too, but from the very beginning our plans went awry. We left that morning all gung-ho to go for a hike. When we got to the base of the mountain (which is also a national park) we realized it would cost $4 each for us to get in... and we had no cash. We also noticed signs that prohibited dogs on the trails, and we'd brought Emma and Zoe with us. So we drove to a bank to get some cash, then my mom dropped us off while she went to walk the dogs somewhere else.

As we started up the trail, a park ranger stopped us. He was alarmed that we weren't going to bring any water with us on the hike. He informed us that it would take four hours round trip to go up to the summit and back. We assured him that we'd had some water to drink earlier and that we'd be fine. He proceeded to tell us that people had died from heatstroke climbing this mountain, and that if we had to call down the mountain for help, we'd have to pay our own medical expenses.

Well, that made it a challenge to Bud. We were already going to hike the most difficult trail instead of the more direct route that everyone else takes. But now our goal was to hike it in under four hours, without water. Leslie got tired early on and couldn't keep up with our pace, so she decided to turn around and wait for us at the base. Bud and I continued on. The first two trails we took weren't hard. There were some rocks to climb over, and it was uphill, but it wasn't too steep. Then we got to the difficult trail. By this point we were way off the beaten path. Once we turned off the direct route, we didn't see a single soul for the remainder of the hike. I was a little nervous being all alone on this huge mountain, but it was also an incredible feeling. We felt like explorers in the wilderness scaling this mountain for the first time. When we got to Spellman trail, we really were scaling rocks. In certain places, it was more like rock climbing than hiking. I remembered the park ranger's words about possibly needing medical help, but I wasn't worried about dehydration. I was scared that if one of us slipped and broke an ankle, it would be a hell of a time getting back down since there wasn't anyone around for miles.

When we got to the top of that trail, we came across a rocky plateau to the right of the summit, and the view was absolutely incredible! We were basically at the peak now and we had a 360 degree view. There was still no one in sight since we'd taken a different trail to the top. We had to hike an additional mile to the left across the rocky ridge to get to the official summit. As we hiked, the wind whipped our faces and cooled us down- we had worked up a sweat climbing up all the rocks on the previous trail! The wind and the view gave us a glorious feeling, like we were on top of the world. We finally made it over to the summit and finally saw some people again. We took a much-needed rest break at this point, and I checked my watch. We had made the climb in one and a half hours!

We made the return trip down the direct route. It was obviously much easier than Spellman, but there were still a lot of rocks to climb over. The scary part about climbing down rocks is that all your momentum is forward and it's much easier to fall. The going was slow at first because the first half mile was very rocky and very steep, but as we descended the trail got easier. As we got closer to the base, we were getting tired, and I was getting extremely thirsty (but damned if I would admit that to the park ranger!) We were anxious to get back, so we jogged the last bit of trail. We made the downhill trek in just under an hour, which made our total time 2.5 hours. Expectations exceeded, pride restored. What an adventure! (But next time, I think I'll bring a water bottle).