 |
| Gilson "Leech" Pond |
Yesterday we drove up to Gilson Pond Campground in Monadnock State Park to do some hiking and (naturally) camp. They just completed this campground last year and it shows as the roads are still dirt and the bathrooms and showers are really nice. The main campground is also quite nice and is a favorite of ours for camping. The website and map says there is a camp store at the new place but don't let that fool you because there is not. Still, it is a nice campground though and in a few years (when the grass grows) it should be a great place. We actually hiked through this when they were still working on it in 2007 (and their is a post about it on here somewhere).
When we got there the weather called for severe thunderstorms and we were warned by the park ranger people that we should probably not hike. I told the group of them there that we had just got off the AT and they were amazed. Ok, maybe not amazed but they seemed to think that hiking 1000 miles of the trail was pretty cool.
We setup our tent and sat at our picnic table listening to the rumbling of thunder. It was cloudy out but still sunny. I wanted very much to hike today, the point of the trip being to get two days of hiking in a row, but I knew very well that much of the trail is above treeline (not a true alpine zone though) and being caught out in a storm is not fun. If it was the AT we would just hike on, but our car was 10 feet away, and for once we had the option NOT to hike in the rain. So when the first rain drops started to fall we jumped in the car and went to Walmart. Ah, the joys of car camping! We milled around Walmart for a couple of hours before eating an early dinner at KFC.
 |
| Top of Monadnock |
If we were on the trail we may have gotten up a tad earlier but alas we are not, so we did not start our climb until 10. The weather at the ranger station called for a 50% chance of rain and thunderstorms but we were climbing up that mountain one way or another. Our plan was to hike from the campground 3.4 miles to the the top, taking the birchtoft trail to the red spot trail to the pumpelly trail to the summit. It was under 1900 feet of elevation gain and I didn't think it would take us more than 2 hours up and 2 hours down, even with full packs. There were signs all over the campground saying that this was the quickest way to the top but to allow 6 hours to complete it. The sign was written in BOLD letters. We just laughed at it.
 |
| Storm coming? |
We made it to the top in 1 hour and 50 minutes, hiking nonstop, no rest breaks. (Well we did stop for a minute to put bug spray on. As soon we started sweating the mosquitoes started mauling us) I thought we did a great job although it took us 50 minutes to hike 2 miles and an hour to hike the last 1.4. The last 1.4 was really rocky though and had us climbing on our hands a lot. There was a bunch of people on the top, the norm for Monadnock.
As we were eating lunch we saw several large, ominous clouds coming our way. Well, I think we will start hiking down now. No need to get wet or stay above treeline in a thunderstorm. But I did think that if we were to get wet, why not now when we have a car and clean clothes to go back to? The clouds skirted the mountain though so no excitement today. I guess it takes some backpacking to get the hail and thunder storms going. The hike down was uneventful and we got to the bottom in an hour and 40 minutes. So, 3.5 hours and they were saying 6 hours. Not bad, not bad at all! We even got to take a shower before heading home. We did not get to hike both days in a row and only did 6.8 miles, but all in all it was a fun little camping trip. I think we are ready for backpacking this weekend.
 |
| View of Leech Pond from Mountain |
No comments:
Post a Comment