Hiking, Baking and Racing: August 2012

A few weeks ago a friend of mine from church and I went hiking in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.We drove up Hwy 16, passed the entrance to the Mt Washington Auto Road and parked just off the road at the trail head. Our plan was to hike Carter Dome, maybe up to Mt Hight if we were feeling good, then back down. It turn out to be about 9-10mi round trip. We were on the trail around 9am and the first 2mi were pretty easy relatively flat slightly rocky and followed a river most of the way. The trail split and we hung a left because we read that hiking the loop anti-clockwise was a bit nicer and got some of the more rigorous part out of the way first. As we made our way up and up and up we ran across some folks coming down the other way and they told us to be sure and hike Mt. Hight (there is a way to hike around without going to the peak). So we went about another .2mi and found the trail up to the peak of Hight. Pictures don't do the incline justice because it was pretty darn steep and by this time I was feeling it as we trekked up the very steep and rocky trail. The view from the top was well worth the sore legs, 360 degree views with a view of Mt. Washington and you could see the auto road going up one side and down the other. From there we walked across a short ridge to Carter Dome then steeply down to the bottom. At the bottom we walked around the base of Wildcat Mt and came back to the fork we took earlier then it was 2mi back to the car. It was a great day for a hike with temps in the low to mid 80's and good conversation the whole way.

Matt