Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Ascent of Mt. Morgan and Mt. Percival

Oh Oh! We went hiking with our new friends Mark and Lindsey the on Saturday! We made a 5.5 mile loop to one summit, across a ridge, and down from the other summit. The trail was rated double diamond. Apparently that means steep path and multiple stream crossings and does not exclude 5.6 rock climbing! Yes, at about 2,000 ft, we came to a yellow arrow/sign.
“Summit by trail Right”
“Summit by cliffs Left”
OF COURSE WE CHOSE CLIFFS! By cliff they mean climb this ladder up a 30ft rock face, then squeeze through this cave and pull yourself up onto a granite slab and take in the VIEW: the white mntns all around us and Squam Lake and Lake Winnipesaukee (huge!) to the south. And then we looked to the north and saw more cliffs. haha. Our tummies told us it was time for lunch so we ate up our PBJs, fruit mix, and cheese snacks and watched a 2ft snake slither across our path-to-be (boulders). From there, we, wary of the snake, made our way to the summit. WOW! That’s all I got. Mt. Morgan was grand. Time for Mr. Percival. Have you ever walked across a mountain ridge? It is really neat. In a lot of places, the soil had eroded away and left nothing but granite. The other peek was of equal awesomeness. We perched there for a while and rested before our descent. There are some tight-squeeze- damp-n-cool-echoee-caves just below the summit. We climbed around in those for a little while and then continued down more steep boulders. I vote that it is easier to go up such routes than it is to go down, but that is arguable. You know, I thought I was a hoss, but I have to admit that the bottom of the mountain was a little further away than my body wanted it to be; it was very happy to sit down in the pizzeria booth for a slice of greasiness and bottle of soda (any calories we burned we put right back on). We ate in Meredith, NH. Meredith=adorable. After hanging out there for a little while, we watched the stars on our drive home.

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