For my 29th Birthday Ivy and I went hiking. I recently decided to hike all the 4000-footers in New Hampshire...there are 48 total. So we decided to hike Mount Hanock in the White Mountains, which has two peaks - north and south. The northern peak is 4420 feet and the southern peak is 4319 feet. Two down, 46 to go! It was a good, long day. We drove up to Lincoln, NH to the Kagamagus Highway to the hairpin turn and began an adventure at 10:29am. The trail was described as "Strenuous: With wooded and easy to follow trails, Mt. Hancock makes for a solid out-and-back day hike." We totally agree with the description! It was nice in the beginning...then it started to go up and get rocky. We paused a few times to breathe and drink some water from our 5 Nalgens! The views were beautiful. This was Ivy's first hike and trip to the White Mountains. We got to the summit of the northern peak and had lunch...the overlook was crowded with other hikers. We sat on some boulders and enjoyed the view. This view actually -->
There was a gray jay there too...many people were feeding it but not me! I don't feed the wildlife! It must have heard me because it was dive-bombing me a couple of times. Then we continued our hike to the southern peak of Mount Hancock. It was a nice hike beneath the stunted hemlock trees and sphagnum moss within the groundcover. The mossy ground looked welcoming for a nap, but there was no time for that! We got to the southern peak and nixed the overlook because it was small and down a little...we had a lot more down to go and we didn't want to waste our knees for an overlook! But the overlook looking back to where we had lunch was pretty sweet!
So we started to hike down. It was quite rocky and steep. We didn't take many breaks, other than Jon walking too fast and Ivy too slow. It was nice, and not too many people. There were some streams which the water was ice cold and refreshing! We made it back to the car in 6.5 hours, which is pretty good. The hiking book said it would take about 6 hours and 25 minutes...and we stopped a lot...especially on the way up. Then we stretched abit, got in the car, and drove home (2 hour drive). When we got home, Ivy insisted on making me dinner - lobster ravoli! MMM, so good! Then we had dessert.
Awesome Birth-day!
