Saturday my wonderful wife cooked me my favorite Dunkin Donuts breakfast minus the dunkin donuts. She made me a bacon, egg, and chz on a cinnamon raisin bagel on the stove!
Hiking wise, we decided that we would not head UP so much, but instead head AROUND the mountain. According to the Map it would only be a 1000' elevation climb up, then 1000' down and then the same back. I estimated that it would be around 2.2 miles one way and was thinking it would only take us under 3 hours total. So we took the white dot trail, to the Cascade trail, to the Birchtoft trail (full of lots of birch trees naturally) which ended up at Gibson Pond.
The hike was a lot different from all the rocks you encounter going up the mountain. Instead, you walk on fallen leaves and pine needles, and over fallen trees and such. It reminded me of the woods in back of my parents house where I grew up-a very beautiful forest scene indeed.
Remember how I thought the whole trip (one way) would only be 2.2 miles? Well it turns out that the birchtoft trail itself was 2.2 miles, making the whole trip one way over 3 miles. Now, you might think, what is another mile? 2 or 3 miles is not big deal. Well it IS a big deal when you hiked a mountain the previous day and you are a little sore and you are hiking with a pack. Nonetheless we make it to the end of the birchtoft trail after about 2.5 hours. Looking at the map, we see that you can walk a short distance from the end of the trail and be on the main road, which would lead us back to our campsite. We decide, we might as well just walk the road back, it will be nice and easy and not so much up and down, and save us some time.
But of course there was some exploring to do first. We walked up from the trail to what turned out to be a construction site. There was a dirt road that lead down the site a little bit and we decided to follow that to see where it led, and thinking it would probably lead to the main rd eventually. After a few minutes we came to a path in the woods, with no sign or markings. By this point we were off my map, but what is camping without doing a little exploring, right? Of course Joy doesn't want to see where the path leads, she wants to start heading back to camp. I somehow convince her that we will just follow the path for 20 mins then head back.
I am glad we decided to take the path because we saw some interesting stuff. The path was single file and didn't look like anybody had walked on it in quite some time. There were lots of fern bushes and we crossed over 3 little bridges over little brooks. 3 different bridges-one was perfect, the second one had one broken plank, and the third was completely rotted but there was a pile of new wood right by it. There are plenty of forks in the path, but we always take the right fork, so that on the way back we can just take the left fork. No point in getting lost when these trails are not on my map! We did see a few signs saying XC-39 (or another number), which we think are for Cross Country Skiers, but are not sure. After almost 20 mins the path doesn't really lead us anywhere, so we head back.
On the way back I spot what looks like a small stone building on top of a hill that I hadn't noticed before. That is interesting. I climb up and find a stone chimney/fireplace structure, surrounded by evergreen-type trees, and in front of the fireplace, a wooden structure. You can see it in the picture at the top of the post. It is like a little lean-to, and the wood is held together by rope. I remember reading about that in the army manual. Very interesting, considering we are in the middle of the wilderness in NH and this little hideaway is on top of a small hill, surrounded by trees, barely visible from the path...
Well we finally make it back to the main road and walk the hour back to the campsite. 1 hour beats 2 hours hiking back mind you. Somebody did actually stop and ask us if we were lost and wanted a ride back, but I declined of course. So the total hike turned out to be 4 hours long and interesting enough. As soon as we got back to the campsite, we hopped into the Cruiser and had a wonderful camping dinner at Taco Bell back in town. Yummy taco bell. Mmmmmmmmmmm. Nice and easy cleanup!
Back at the site, round 2 for trying to get a fire going. Joy wins this round as she read in the army survival manual that Birch bark is really good for starting fires, so we get a bunch of that and have the fire going in no time at all!
To repay Joy for her resourcefulness, I beat her in Scrabble, even though she uses up all her letters and I'm stuck at the end of the game with a Q. A few turns before that I had a J and an X.
Nonetheless we go to bed sore from a good hike (my shoulders especially) on a night much warmer than the last...
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