For this leg of my journey I decided I would leave my bicycle at the end of the trail, mostly as a function of procrastination. I left my house in Langdon rather later than anticipated, as I had once again stayed up too late—a bad habit that, at the age of thirty-six, I have finally come to accept as part of my constitution. My plan was to spend the weekend hiking the Monadnock-Sunapee Greenway Trail in its entirety. The footpath runs forty-eight miles, from the summit of Mount Monadnock—where I had left off the Saturday before—to that of Mount Sunapee, and is accessed by two-mile walk-ins at either end, bringing the real total two fifty-two miles.
The drive from my house to Mount Sunapee is not long, so after my customary big breakfast I tossed my bicycle and loaded backpack into the car and drove off along the Cold River toward Route 10. When I got to the place where I planned to end my hike, in the town of Goshen, I took my bike out and made into the woods with it, not stopping until I was out of sight of trail and road. I laid it on the ground and scattered some leaves, birch bark, and logs over top and returned to my car. It was about ten o’clock.
The drive to Monadnock took about an hour and half. I parked my car with a note on the dash saying I would be gone several days and then headed for the White Cross Trail, one of the quickest routes to the summit.
As I wove among the state park buildings and disoriented first-time hikers on my way to the trailhead, I found myself behind two young men in their early twenties with Boston accents. They talked loudly to one another, in keeping with the stereotypes we in New Hampshire have about folks from Massachusetts. Although I showed no signs of annoyance, and was in fact not in the least annoyed, one of the pair shouted peremptorily at the other, “Hey, keep it down! You’re ruining this guy’s serenity.” I gave them a friendly nod and cruised by. As I passed, the louder young man, who wore a green hooded sweatshirt and had soft and pasty skin, as well as a bad case of bedhead, said, “We’ll let you go ahead. But I’m sure you’ll see us again soon. We’re wicked fast.” But I ducked into the little interpretive center at the trailhead to look at the raised relief map of the mountain and watched them go by. (If there’s ever a raised relief map to be looked at, you can bet that I will be somewhere nearby.)
When I came back out after a quick gander I soon found myself behind the boisterous youngsters again. The one in the green sweatshirt was particularly talkative, apparently feeling compelled to put into words whatever crossed his mind. Soon he was singing television theme songs. After three or four minutes of this I could stand it no longer and quietly slipped by them again. Needless to say, that was the last I saw of them.
The hike up Monadnock’s south side is quick, requiring less than an hour. Because of this and the mountain’s relative closeness to Boston, it is said to be the second most-climbed in the world, after Mount Fuji. But it was a Friday, so the crowds were not what I knew they would be twenty-four hours later.
On top, where I had been just six days before, I stopped to take a drink near two fellows from Keene named Brandon and Brady, who were about the same age as the pair I’d seen at the base. Self-described Transcendentalists who, on their way up, had made a pilgrimage to Thoreau’s seat, a rock with a prospect named in the great walking writer’s honor, they were eager to chat about where I was going with my load that was a little bigger than the usual daypack. They asked me a few questions about the distant hills and mountains that I was able to answer, and then Brandon burst out, “Hey! It’s Larry Davis!”
Larry Davis is a local legend, and I had passed him on my way up. In his mid-fifties, Davis is easy to spot by his long grey hair and his quick and sure step. His mythical status lies in the fact that he summits Mount Monadnock nearly every day.
“Larry!” shouted Brandon, who had met him a couple of months before and had a selfie on his iPhone to prove it. Larry came over, all smiles, as friendly as if he actually remembered Brandon, although he estimates that since the early eighties he has met about 1.5 million people on the mountain. “Have you hit seven thousand yet?” Brandon asked excitedly.
“I think it should be this week or the next.”
“This guy’s unbelievable,” said Brandon in an aside to his friend, who was clearly familiar with the story of Brandon’s previous meeting with Larry.
With Brandon’s enthused prompting, Larry began telling Monadnock stories. “Tomorrow at this time,” he said, “if you were standing in this very spot you would be surrounded by four or five hundred people. With this weather it’s going to be the first big day of the year.” He broke the morning down into its constituent parts: “Of course, you’ll have the trail runners out here before sunrise. Then around eight or nine you’ll start seeing the locals. At ten the Boston crowd will start showing up, peaking at about eleven, when they’ll have to open the upper lot.”
Larry has a positive and generous outlook and does not seem to lament the crowds, as I doubtless would had I adopted the mountain as my own. “It’s amazing,” he says. “Last year I was up here for fifty sunrises, and on only two of those days was I alone. On some days there’ll be twenty or thirty people up here. And they’re mostly young women, which I don’t mind at all.”
“Hey Brady,” said Brandon at this last comment. “Sunrise hike tomorrow?” We all laughed
The drive from my house to Mount Sunapee is not long, so after my customary big breakfast I tossed my bicycle and loaded backpack into the car and drove off along the Cold River toward Route 10. When I got to the place where I planned to end my hike, in the town of Goshen, I took my bike out and made into the woods with it, not stopping until I was out of sight of trail and road. I laid it on the ground and scattered some leaves, birch bark, and logs over top and returned to my car. It was about ten o’clock.
The drive to Monadnock took about an hour and half. I parked my car with a note on the dash saying I would be gone several days and then headed for the White Cross Trail, one of the quickest routes to the summit.
As I wove among the state park buildings and disoriented first-time hikers on my way to the trailhead, I found myself behind two young men in their early twenties with Boston accents. They talked loudly to one another, in keeping with the stereotypes we in New Hampshire have about folks from Massachusetts. Although I showed no signs of annoyance, and was in fact not in the least annoyed, one of the pair shouted peremptorily at the other, “Hey, keep it down! You’re ruining this guy’s serenity.” I gave them a friendly nod and cruised by. As I passed, the louder young man, who wore a green hooded sweatshirt and had soft and pasty skin, as well as a bad case of bedhead, said, “We’ll let you go ahead. But I’m sure you’ll see us again soon. We’re wicked fast.” But I ducked into the little interpretive center at the trailhead to look at the raised relief map of the mountain and watched them go by. (If there’s ever a raised relief map to be looked at, you can bet that I will be somewhere nearby.)
When I came back out after a quick gander I soon found myself behind the boisterous youngsters again. The one in the green sweatshirt was particularly talkative, apparently feeling compelled to put into words whatever crossed his mind. Soon he was singing television theme songs. After three or four minutes of this I could stand it no longer and quietly slipped by them again. Needless to say, that was the last I saw of them.
The hike up Monadnock’s south side is quick, requiring less than an hour. Because of this and the mountain’s relative closeness to Boston, it is said to be the second most-climbed in the world, after Mount Fuji. But it was a Friday, so the crowds were not what I knew they would be twenty-four hours later.
On top, where I had been just six days before, I stopped to take a drink near two fellows from Keene named Brandon and Brady, who were about the same age as the pair I’d seen at the base. Self-described Transcendentalists who, on their way up, had made a pilgrimage to Thoreau’s seat, a rock with a prospect named in the great walking writer’s honor, they were eager to chat about where I was going with my load that was a little bigger than the usual daypack. They asked me a few questions about the distant hills and mountains that I was able to answer, and then Brandon burst out, “Hey! It’s Larry Davis!”
Larry Davis is a local legend, and I had passed him on my way up. In his mid-fifties, Davis is easy to spot by his long grey hair and his quick and sure step. His mythical status lies in the fact that he summits Mount Monadnock nearly every day.
“Larry!” shouted Brandon, who had met him a couple of months before and had a selfie on his iPhone to prove it. Larry came over, all smiles, as friendly as if he actually remembered Brandon, although he estimates that since the early eighties he has met about 1.5 million people on the mountain. “Have you hit seven thousand yet?” Brandon asked excitedly.
“I think it should be this week or the next.”
“This guy’s unbelievable,” said Brandon in an aside to his friend, who was clearly familiar with the story of Brandon’s previous meeting with Larry.
With Brandon’s enthused prompting, Larry began telling Monadnock stories. “Tomorrow at this time,” he said, “if you were standing in this very spot you would be surrounded by four or five hundred people. With this weather it’s going to be the first big day of the year.” He broke the morning down into its constituent parts: “Of course, you’ll have the trail runners out here before sunrise. Then around eight or nine you’ll start seeing the locals. At ten the Boston crowd will start showing up, peaking at about eleven, when they’ll have to open the upper lot.”
Larry has a positive and generous outlook and does not seem to lament the crowds, as I doubtless would had I adopted the mountain as my own. “It’s amazing,” he says. “Last year I was up here for fifty sunrises, and on only two of those days was I alone. On some days there’ll be twenty or thirty people up here. And they’re mostly young women, which I don’t mind at all.”
“Hey Brady,” said Brandon at this last comment. “Sunrise hike tomorrow?” We all laughed
After a little more chit-chat I took my leave and began following the white letter-D blazes that lead one off the scoured summit northward down the Dublin Trail. It surprises even me that after a lifetime of hiking on Monadnock I had never been up or down the mountain’s long and gentle northern slope. It didn’t seem any longer underfoot, and soon I was back among the maple woods that wrap around Grand Monadnock’s lower flanks. The trail I would be following continued north through the flatlands between here and state highway 101, New Hampshire’s main east-west road.
Crossing the highway, with blind rises in either direction, was a bit like playing chicken. But I survived and in a couple of miles found myself standing on the shore of a lake called Howe Reservoir. This was the first of many lakes I would come to in this section, for this stretch of southwestern New Hampshire is blessed with an abundance of water.
Continuing northward, I came to the Chesham section of the town of Harrisville, where I rounded a corner to see a lunar landscape. Barren rocky ground sank from the edge of the woods into a basin. As I got closer, I could see that there was a pool of black water at the center of the depression, and, along the side of the dirt road I was on, a sign explaining that the reservoir I was apparently looking at was being drained so that repairs could be made to the dam that retained it. While I read the sign, a truck pulled up and out got a father and his young son. They took metal detectors from the back of the truck and made toward the dry lakebed.
“Hunting for treasures?” I asked.
“Yup,” said the father. “People are always swimming off this dock. And you know they’ve dropped a lot of stuff in the water over the years! Hopefully something valuable.”
“Hunting for treasures?” I asked.
“Yup,” said the father. “People are always swimming off this dock. And you know they’ve dropped a lot of stuff in the water over the years! Hopefully something valuable.”
I wished them luck and kept walking up the hill for a few more miles toward Nelson. For a town with a population of just over seven hundred souls, Nelson packs a big punch. It is arguably the contradance capital of the world, as well as home to the late and locally famous scribbler and folk musicologist Newton Tolman. The Belgian-born American poet May Sarton also once made her home here, and chose this as her final resting place. The village of Nelson, which leaps out at you as you round a corner and come over a rise, is a veritable New England locus amoenus—almost too perfect an arrangement of ancient maple trees, town green, modestly elegant old houses, and gracefully spare wooden public buildings, not to mention a unique and charming two-tiered row of variously colored mailboxes that lines the main road along the green. The knowing eye suspects a non-native influence, a little à la Vermont. But the magic of the effect absolves the peccadillo.
I was parched and out of water when I walked up the hill and on to the town common. I knew that Nelson had no store and hoped some nice person might be out in his or her front yard so that I could ask to fill my water bottles. Instead I noticed that there was a group of people in the town hall, so I walked in and asked if I could help myself to some water from the bathroom sink. “I think we could let you do that,” said the woman in charge with measured cordiality.
It was getting on toward dusk as I walked north out of Nelson through the woods and past an abandoned farmstead with an antique circular saw rusting in the yard. Soon I was on a narrow trace making my way uphill to the high country of Stoddard. I climbed up and up on old woods roads, passing a man on a four-wheeler doing his best to get home before dark, until I finally reached a local height of land at about nightfall and began a rough descent over washed-out terrain to the Crider Forest Shelter, where I would spend the night.
Like all the shelters along the Monadnock-Sunapee Trail, this one is an Adirondack lean-to. The ceiling was just high enough for me to be able to do some stretching before I sat down to my dinner of carrots, salame, cheese, and bread. I had decided to carry as little weight as possible, and this meant no cooking gear, as time was limited and I had many miles to cover. I took my time eating, reading a few pages from Newt Tolman’s North of Monadnock by headlamp as I chewed, and could hear some faint music from a party near Center Pond. This soon died and gave way to the hooting of owls, which persisted through the rest of the night, punctuating my sleep so that I was periodically made conscious of its pleasantness.
It was getting on toward dusk as I walked north out of Nelson through the woods and past an abandoned farmstead with an antique circular saw rusting in the yard. Soon I was on a narrow trace making my way uphill to the high country of Stoddard. I climbed up and up on old woods roads, passing a man on a four-wheeler doing his best to get home before dark, until I finally reached a local height of land at about nightfall and began a rough descent over washed-out terrain to the Crider Forest Shelter, where I would spend the night.
Like all the shelters along the Monadnock-Sunapee Trail, this one is an Adirondack lean-to. The ceiling was just high enough for me to be able to do some stretching before I sat down to my dinner of carrots, salame, cheese, and bread. I had decided to carry as little weight as possible, and this meant no cooking gear, as time was limited and I had many miles to cover. I took my time eating, reading a few pages from Newt Tolman’s North of Monadnock by headlamp as I chewed, and could hear some faint music from a party near Center Pond. This soon died and gave way to the hooting of owls, which persisted through the rest of the night, punctuating my sleep so that I was periodically made conscious of its pleasantness.
Morning, as it almost always does when you sleep out-of-doors, came early. I awoke thrilled to be on the trail and in no time at all was walking briskly along, munching on granola bars for breakfast. My route took me along the eastern shore of Center Pond, where the sun delicately thawed the frost on the marsh grasses. I had imagined the day before that I might be tempted from here to walk the few short miles into Stoddard for a cup of coffee, but now I felt unswayed by any such thought. The brilliance of the morning was all the coffee I needed. Soon I was in the woods again, walking alongside Robinson Brook. When I came to a cascade I decided to fill my water bottles, aware that there were no farms or human settlement upstream from here (and having been blessed with an iron stomach). The water was cold on my hands and cold to drink so early in the morning, but I knew that in a few minutes I would be warmed by my ascent of Pitcher Mountain.
At 2,153 feet above sea level, Pitcher is hardly a mountain at all, but its south slope is home to one of the highest road passes in southern New Hampshire, often choked with drifts when I drive over it to visit with my parents in my hometown. On the summit is a firetower and a popular blueberry-picking spot. Its proximity to the road makes Pitcher a favorite night hike and stargazing spot of mine.
On my approach to the summit I startled a man and woman who were out for a Saturday morning walk with their dog. They were coming down when I met them at a bend. “We never see anyone here this early,” they said, although it could not have been before seven by my estimate. Across a pasture on the southeastern hillside, a few feet past where I met the couple and their dog, I could see Mondanock looking impressively far-off. I wondered at what crowds might be up there already at this hour and thought with a smile of Larry’s prognostication of the day before. I was glad I had this “mountain” to myself.
On top I climbed as high as I could up the as yet unmanned firetower and lingered for a few minutes to take in the 360-degree view of southwestern New Hampshire, southeastern Vermont, and north-central Massachusetts. I tried to pinpoint the spot in the sky that hung directly above my little house, about fifteen miles northwest of here.
At 2,153 feet above sea level, Pitcher is hardly a mountain at all, but its south slope is home to one of the highest road passes in southern New Hampshire, often choked with drifts when I drive over it to visit with my parents in my hometown. On the summit is a firetower and a popular blueberry-picking spot. Its proximity to the road makes Pitcher a favorite night hike and stargazing spot of mine.
On my approach to the summit I startled a man and woman who were out for a Saturday morning walk with their dog. They were coming down when I met them at a bend. “We never see anyone here this early,” they said, although it could not have been before seven by my estimate. Across a pasture on the southeastern hillside, a few feet past where I met the couple and their dog, I could see Mondanock looking impressively far-off. I wondered at what crowds might be up there already at this hour and thought with a smile of Larry’s prognostication of the day before. I was glad I had this “mountain” to myself.
On top I climbed as high as I could up the as yet unmanned firetower and lingered for a few minutes to take in the 360-degree view of southwestern New Hampshire, southeastern Vermont, and north-central Massachusetts. I tried to pinpoint the spot in the sky that hung directly above my little house, about fifteen miles northwest of here.
After roughly two miles of easy walking from Pitcher, I came to Hubbard Heath, one of the pleasantest spots I know of in this part of the world, and one that somehow reminds me of faraway northern places—parts of Scotland or Norway that I have seen. In the winter I sometimes ski out here to savor the open, cold aloneness of the place. Today I wandered among the labyrinth of side trails made by blueberry pickers over the years, taking time to look at and delight in old apple trees and fragments of stonewalls.
A short dip into a valley of streams and then a quick climb over Jackson Hill, where there is a postcard view down on to the village of Marlow, took me from Stoddard into Washington. This town is rich in water, boasting twenty-six lakes and ponds, and thus also rich in hunting and fishing camps, many of which I passed now as I made my way along the summer road that at times seems to float over beaver ponds and bogs, coming eventually to a prim white building standing all alone in a clearing in the woods.
Simple and symmetrical, and flanked by a small cemetery with headstones bearing a mere handful of old-fashioned family names, this is the Washington Seventh-day Adventist Church, site of the first Sabbath-keeping gathering of Millerite Adventists (who believed in the imminence of Christ’s return, whence “adventism”) in 1844, and thus of historical interest to practitioners of the modern faith. The building was not open, but the immaculate windows afforded me a good look inside, where I saw the clean rows of wooden pews, plain walls, two woodstoves at the back of the building, and heavy afghans folded neatly over the seatbacks to keep worshipers warm; the church appeared to be off the grid.
Nearby I discovered the Sabbath Trail, a one-mile interpretive walk through the woods behind the church. I had plenty of other walking to do, so I didn’t follow it, but on inspecting the guest log, which I found in a waterproof box at the trailhead, I learned that Washington is a major pilgrimage site for Seventh-day Adventists. Page after crowded page was filled with the entries of visitors from what seemed every country on earth. It was hard to imagine all those people having stood here in this lonely spot in the woods.
Nearby I discovered the Sabbath Trail, a one-mile interpretive walk through the woods behind the church. I had plenty of other walking to do, so I didn’t follow it, but on inspecting the guest log, which I found in a waterproof box at the trailhead, I learned that Washington is a major pilgrimage site for Seventh-day Adventists. Page after crowded page was filled with the entries of visitors from what seemed every country on earth. It was hard to imagine all those people having stood here in this lonely spot in the woods.
About three miles now stood between me and Washington Center. It would have been easy to follow the familiar road into town, but I wanted to hike every inch of this trail, since its completion has long been a goal of mine. The roundabout route wound over Oak Hill, which juts up sharply and has the steepest stretch in all the trail’s fifty miles. Thankfully it wasn’t very long, and soon I was descending the other side through a plantation of young spruce trees.
The tree farm I was walking through belonged to Phil Barker, who, I knew from my guidebook, was a friend of the trail association and allowed hikers to fill up their water bottles at his house below town. I caught up with Phil just as he was about to pull out of his driveway, and asked him, a little sheepishly on account of the obvious inconvenience, if I might use his tap. He was happy to oblige and directed me toward the faucet on the outside of his house.
Nestled 1,507 feet above sea level, Washington Common is the highest-elevated town center in New Hampshire. Even the drive up Route 31 from Hillsborough can seem tiring. But the short walk uphill from the Barkers’ place was pleasant on this morning so rich with the promise of summer. For all of Nelson’s undeniable charm, this was a village more to my liking—I suppose because of the pure authenticity it exuded; this place was not trying to look like a page out of Yankee, but if you were knocked over the head and blindfolded and then dropped off here at random, as soon as the blindfold was pulled from your eyes you would know with certainty that you could be in no place but New Hampshire.
An old man cultivating his garden said hello and looked at the sky, something in his gesture inviting me to do the same. People sat on their porches and watched the cars go past or waited for lunch and talked to their neighbors, while others stood in the yards tending to their grills, from which the pleasant smell of cook-smoke wafted to my susceptible nostrils.
I knew already that I was headed for the Washington General Store, perhaps my favorite in the state because of its lunch counter. It was a temptation it made no sense to try resisting. Inside, a little ahead of the lunch crowd, I claimed a stool and ordered a burger and fries, then poured myself a cup of coffee and thumbed through the fishing digest while I waited. When the burger came it was delicious, as most any food will be when you are walking hard. And at the end of the meal I was amazed at how inexpensive it all was. It was as if prices had not changed since the mid-1990s.
The tree farm I was walking through belonged to Phil Barker, who, I knew from my guidebook, was a friend of the trail association and allowed hikers to fill up their water bottles at his house below town. I caught up with Phil just as he was about to pull out of his driveway, and asked him, a little sheepishly on account of the obvious inconvenience, if I might use his tap. He was happy to oblige and directed me toward the faucet on the outside of his house.
Nestled 1,507 feet above sea level, Washington Common is the highest-elevated town center in New Hampshire. Even the drive up Route 31 from Hillsborough can seem tiring. But the short walk uphill from the Barkers’ place was pleasant on this morning so rich with the promise of summer. For all of Nelson’s undeniable charm, this was a village more to my liking—I suppose because of the pure authenticity it exuded; this place was not trying to look like a page out of Yankee, but if you were knocked over the head and blindfolded and then dropped off here at random, as soon as the blindfold was pulled from your eyes you would know with certainty that you could be in no place but New Hampshire.
An old man cultivating his garden said hello and looked at the sky, something in his gesture inviting me to do the same. People sat on their porches and watched the cars go past or waited for lunch and talked to their neighbors, while others stood in the yards tending to their grills, from which the pleasant smell of cook-smoke wafted to my susceptible nostrils.
I knew already that I was headed for the Washington General Store, perhaps my favorite in the state because of its lunch counter. It was a temptation it made no sense to try resisting. Inside, a little ahead of the lunch crowd, I claimed a stool and ordered a burger and fries, then poured myself a cup of coffee and thumbed through the fishing digest while I waited. When the burger came it was delicious, as most any food will be when you are walking hard. And at the end of the meal I was amazed at how inexpensive it all was. It was as if prices had not changed since the mid-1990s.
Loaded with a fresh gallon of water, I walked across the green and on to a quiet dirt road that ran out of town toward Halfmoon Pond. I had about eighteen miles to go and was unsure whether I would find cold and fast streams ahead, so I reckoned the extra weight was a worthwhile inconvenience. Halfmoon Pond, a mile and half north of Washington, is the most picturesque nook I know of in the southern third of the state. As soon as I saw a place where I could easily access the water, I dropped my pack, shed my clothes down to my boxers (alas, the road was nearby, although in the event no cars passed), and dove in for a brisk swim in the chilly lake. Then I sprawled out on a flat rock a few feet offshore to take in the sun and the scenery.
I was mesmerized for a time by the tadpoles floating just below the surface in the clear water. They gently prodded the rock I rested on with their heads, as if testing the feeling of solid ground, perhaps sensing where their future lay. Out in the middle of the lake two loons splashed raucously as they caught fish after fish. They were too focused for laughter even. It was good to be in the company of these creatures. Their utter lack of interest in my presence made me feel like I belonged.
I was mesmerized for a time by the tadpoles floating just below the surface in the clear water. They gently prodded the rock I rested on with their heads, as if testing the feeling of solid ground, perhaps sensing where their future lay. Out in the middle of the lake two loons splashed raucously as they caught fish after fish. They were too focused for laughter even. It was good to be in the company of these creatures. Their utter lack of interest in my presence made me feel like I belonged.
The trail here made a wide loop over the summit of Lovewell Mountain, the highest point between its two ends. At the base I encountered a south Asian couple in their twenties wearing matching nylon tights. They were looking bewilderedly at their smartphones, which apparently had no service, as they tried to find the way to the top. I pointed them in the right direction and blasted past, newly invigorated by my swim.
I was making good time here, despite the climb. On the summit ridge I sailed past a party of three hikers with a courteous but quick salutation, and then it registered that they had camping gear on their backs. “Hey!” I cried after them. “Are you guys hiking end to end?” They explained that they were and that they had started at Mount Sunapee the night before and hiked the six miles to the shelter in the dark over a trail fraught with patches of deep snow and blowdowns. They had my admiration and I wished them the best of luck. They returned best wishes and continued their march toward Washington, where they planned to fulfill the fantasy they had been nurturing all morning of a juicy cheeseburger.
My walk took me through well-ordered working forests full of tall, straight spruce trees, through which the sunlight fell from the west on to the clean carpet-like ground in stark and brilliant rays. The trail made an S down the north side of Lovewell Mountain and then climbed up through Pillsbury State Park land to the long ridge that culminates in the summit of Mount Sunapee. The lookouts to the east and west here offered new views. In the near west stood Vermont’s Mount Ascutney, one of the most famous local monadnocks (in the generic geological sense of a hill or mountain whose prominence is notably greater than any surrounding it), and in the northeast Kearsarge, another monadnock, was plainly visible for the first time.
I was making good time here, despite the climb. On the summit ridge I sailed past a party of three hikers with a courteous but quick salutation, and then it registered that they had camping gear on their backs. “Hey!” I cried after them. “Are you guys hiking end to end?” They explained that they were and that they had started at Mount Sunapee the night before and hiked the six miles to the shelter in the dark over a trail fraught with patches of deep snow and blowdowns. They had my admiration and I wished them the best of luck. They returned best wishes and continued their march toward Washington, where they planned to fulfill the fantasy they had been nurturing all morning of a juicy cheeseburger.
My walk took me through well-ordered working forests full of tall, straight spruce trees, through which the sunlight fell from the west on to the clean carpet-like ground in stark and brilliant rays. The trail made an S down the north side of Lovewell Mountain and then climbed up through Pillsbury State Park land to the long ridge that culminates in the summit of Mount Sunapee. The lookouts to the east and west here offered new views. In the near west stood Vermont’s Mount Ascutney, one of the most famous local monadnocks (in the generic geological sense of a hill or mountain whose prominence is notably greater than any surrounding it), and in the northeast Kearsarge, another monadnock, was plainly visible for the first time.
I came to the Steve Galpin Shelter before dark and went about my preparations. After dinner, sleep came quickly, and no sooner had I drifted off, it seemed, than the sun was lighting up the eastern horizon, telling me to get up because, although I had only eight miles of walking to do, I had a fifty-mile bicycle ride back to my car.
The final miles along Sunapee Ridge were pleasant in the morning. Just shy of Mount Sunapee I came to Solitude Lake, still partially frozen, and then made the final push up to the summit following a ski trail. Arriving at the top of Sunapee is anticlimactic, littered as it is with ski lifts and a giant lodge. But I found a greening patch of grass and sat down for a minute. I closed my eyes and, as if on cue, across the breeze came the soothing song of a white-throated sparrow, which to my ears is a quintessentially northern sound: Oh sweet Ca-a-nada, Ca-a-nada, Ca-a-nada, the birders hear him say. North is a direction I have always loved.
The final miles along Sunapee Ridge were pleasant in the morning. Just shy of Mount Sunapee I came to Solitude Lake, still partially frozen, and then made the final push up to the summit following a ski trail. Arriving at the top of Sunapee is anticlimactic, littered as it is with ski lifts and a giant lodge. But I found a greening patch of grass and sat down for a minute. I closed my eyes and, as if on cue, across the breeze came the soothing song of a white-throated sparrow, which to my ears is a quintessentially northern sound: Oh sweet Ca-a-nada, Ca-a-nada, Ca-a-nada, the birders hear him say. North is a direction I have always loved.