"$6 is a great deal!"

 
, exclaimed the 9 year old hiking with his father. This raises two important points, 1) Apparently children only pay $2 to enter, while adults pay $4. 2) Mount Monadnock is cheaper than a movie, a sandwich from panera, and a root canal--making it an ideal weekend activity.

Mount Monadnock is a 3,165-ft mountain in Jaffrey, New Hampshire at Monadnock State Park, which containins 40 miles of hiking trails. There are several trails from this area that lead to the bare rock summit of Mount Monadnock. At the summit, you can see "100-mile views to points in all six New England states" (nhstateparks.org).

The most direct route, and therefore steepest trail, is the White Dot trail which is 1.9 miles from parking lot to summit. It contains a lot of rock slabs amongst the forest vegetation. There are several spots on the way up that make me think that I should be supervised by an adult before continuing on. This includes rock faces on which you could easily lose your footing or cracks and hand holds that just aren't big enough to have a firm grip. As you may have noticed, while I love to hike, my opportunities to do so are typically limited to flat surfaces in the suburbs. Whereas, Mount Monadnock is not the most dangerous mountain ever, but I could have easily managed to break a limb.

My friend and I went on a 50 degree day and I was fearing for my life a little bit because it definitely is cold and windy up at the top. However, the hike is pretty challenging and a great work out meaning you are sweating your cahones off by the time you get there. While we thought it was pretty daring of us to go on that blustery day, there were about a million people  because apparently a sunny autumn day is actually ideal. 

 

As you can see, there was quite the gathering at the top. The top is all rock and there is plenty of room to spread out so there wasn't a time where it felt like it was a big crowded nature party. One can still experience the serenity one wants when at the top of this mountain.

 

 

 

The way down was less challenging for me, though a different task altogether. At the rock faces you must choose whether to slide down and hope your extended foot hits that crack that you are aiming for to stop yourself. Or, you tend to be propelled down the hill faster than you'd like. Overall, however, it is less physically demanding to the point that you forget the physical challenge that you faced just an hour ago on your way up. Like with childbirth.

It took us about 2 hours up, 1 hour back and 30 minutes in there somewhere for resting, chatting and eating some PB and J's. Totally worth the EIGHT dollars (Amy failed to pass as 9 year old).