On Sunday the 17th two friends and I headed out for a trip up Monadnock. We passed the camera around, but I'm the worst photographer of the three, so you'll be seeing mostly pictures of myself. We arrived in the afternoon, later than I had hoped, but the weather was good and the sun would show full force now and then.
This is us still rather close to the head of white dot trail.
There were several opportunities to take an alternate path and do some scrambling over rocks.
Here we are rescuing a bit of potential litter (a water bottle) that a careless but handsome hiker allowed to fall some 20 feet down into a thicket.
The summit was more windy than I had experienced before, like sticking your head out the window on the highway. Here I'm holding my hat sideways as shelter.
Like I said, we got there much later than I had hoped.
Obligatory vista photo:
Golden Hour on the summit:
As the sun was on the verge of setting we stopped to get a couple more photos. Our lead photographer became suddenly obsessed with the idea of capturing an honest to goodness lens-flare after seeing so many needlessly PhotoShop'd examples.
Our trio's group shot, taken close to the top:
We made most of the trip down, including all of white cross trail, while still in usable twilight, but a good part of the lower trail was lit only by what little moonlight came in through the trees, and my flashlight. The others had flashlights but refused to use them as it "ruined the mood". I can see their point, as I was enjoying the night time hike as well, but I was more worried about ruining my feet.
Speaking of ruining my feet, this Sunday I took a trip to Mt.Tom. The same two friends were supposed to come with me but bailed out after holding me up for a couple of hours. Going alone, and short on time, I didn't stop to take many pictures, and what pics I took weren't very good. I decided not to "risk it" again by wearing my (very comfortable) dress shoes on a hike, like I did on Monadnock. So I dug out an old pair of boots I hadn't worn for years, did a test romp around the yard, and wore them on the mountain. This turned out to be a terrible choice. I had some abrasions on both feet - nothing big, but enough to slow me down considerably. A good pair of comfortable hiking shoes will be my first hiking related expense.
When I reached the UMASS wind turbine there were some nice cliffs that I decided would be the best place for a photo, so I stopped and tried a little with the self timer. This is the only one that turned out usable, and only after some color adjustment (nothing too heavy, just filtering out some cyan):
To be honest, I was standing a little too close to the cliff edge when I took that photo.
Winter is coming, and though I've always wanted to go hiking in the winter, I know that I have neither the skill nor the equipment. If things get warm enough this week I may try Mt.Chocoorua to finish up the season, but probably not. I guess I'll start preparing for next year.
