More mountains

For the simple reason that it always shows up in photographs and postcards and because it is the most popular of Mount Washington sights, I have long wanted to see Lake in the Clouds. Today, though not with 120-mile views, was warm and still enough to go up to the hut via the Ammonoosuk Trail and then hike up Mount Monroe (5384 feet).
Originally we had planned only to go as far as the Lake in the Clouds hut but since we were so close to Monroe and could count it in our over 5000 footers, why not?

It doesn't really show up well in the photo (low resolution) but the hut is to the left and the lake to the right. Mount Washington is the large hump; you can barely make out the antennae up top. The twin plumes of smoke come from the cog railway. We were surprised that they were running trains all the way up to the top but the weather was mild enough for them to do so. The amount of particulate pollution that comes from the railway is dismal. If it weren't for the fact that they have been running these trains up Mount Washington since 1886, I might be less amused. As is, they move as slowly/fast as we manage to go up the gorge on foot. The shot looking toward Mount Washington I took from the top of Mount Monroe

Up top, one always finds cairns. At this time of year, the flowers and grass are dying back but the colours are still beautiful in their subdued state. This shot also is from on top of Mount Monroe.

The Ammonoosuk Trail is lots of fun to do. It has lots of variety and is not a killer trail. The first 1,3 mile is a gentle inclination, moving alongside a good mountain stream. Once one gets five minutes up the trail, one loses all the noise and smell from the cog railways (one can start out from the cog railway parking lot). The reward for the first part of the trail is Gem Pool (which my father and uncle saw in 1946, after spending the night at the hotel which used to be at the top of Mount Washington), a lovely setting with a small flume that comes down all the way from the Lake in the Clouds.

After the pool, then one heads up a long series of stone stairs and slabs. About fifteen minutes up from Gem Pool, is a great gorge. Way up, as one comes out of the gorge, one gets a look down from whence one has come. It is impressive pour en dire le moins.

Usually I only spend about five minutes up on top of a mountain but today we poked around the top for an hour. We wanted to get up Monroe to be able to look down into the Dry River Gulf and also look down Crawford Path to Mount Eisenhower (where we went in August) and just absorb the heights.

Now back in my valley at 800 feet above sea level, it is hard to believe that I was 4500 feet higher only ten hours ago. I am so glad that I discovered hiking in the mountains, even if it came along in my late 40s. And though I am passionate about the Vermont Greens because that is where I live, I find the New Hampshire Whites, and those around the Presidential Range, so spectacular for their roughness, jaggedness and sense of age and history (though the Vermont Greens are much older).

And, having puttered around in the mountains, I can behave and do the work I am called to do back down in the valley,