A belated entry in the hiking diaries.
Since I am writing this much after-the-fact, this hike will be mostly pictorial. Because I don’t remember much of what I was thinking, although it did spawn this blog post. But that was just my thinking on the last part of the hike.
So, the last few hikes I’ve mapped out how I’m going to hit all the trails, and for awhile I knew I was going to do this one. Here it is:
Bicentennial Trail from the mountain’s administration building, past Pine Hill Trail and on to Loop Trail, then Mountain House (hit that already, same with Bicentennial) up to the top, then Pine Hill down. How I usually do Pine Hill is up and back down. Or, sometimes up Pine Hill and walking back down the Summit Road. So it was fun – and rare – to just walk down it!
I took the goober with me.
And what a goober he is. Just look at that face!
Here’s the Administration building, in a sun-blown out photo.
And the trail head.
The markers are…wait for it….blue!
This time we went up Loop.
Which has this incredible view. (There is a farm house out there. Tough picture to take with the sun in that direction.)
And where we saw this funky tree. Or it was somewhere along the hike. But I remember it being near the beginning.
And I took a few pictures of oak leaves. I’ll just post one.
It kind of amazes me that even baby oak trees have grownup-sized leaves.
Loop Trail hooking up to Mountain House Trail is actually at the juncture of a few trails.
Which way, Columbus?
This is where we met up with the road. You can see the sign across the street.
And up at the top? Columbus’ reward. Only they don’t want dogs swimming in the pond. I tried to just have him drink. But the goober – did I say he was a goober? – jumped in before I could stop him. At least he didn’t pull me in with him.
Then there is the real top. Where the sign they put up in place of the brass compass that was on top of the summit marker that someone stole is gone now, too. Say that three times fast.
Monadnock!
Every picture looking toward the east had the same problem. I was trying to get a picture of the sign for Pine Hill Trail. There are some picnic benches on the other side.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Pine Hill Trail is an outdoor stair master. Literally.
This is where we cross the road. The stair master started being built on the lower part of the trail. The stairs on the top part of the trail, which is me looking back at where we just came down, is fairly new.
And this is us looking at the trail sign on the other side of the road. Where we are headed.
Some parts of the trail they can’t make into rock stairs, because they are solid rock. Massive rocks.
And so, we made our way down the rest of the trail and headed back home. Columbus did okay!
The goober.