6-26-2015
to 6-28-2015 Monadnock-Sunapee Greenway
Gear:
·
ULA Ohm 2.0 pack
·
Mountain Laurel
Designs Spirit 48 Quilt
·
Thermalrest x-lite
sleep pad
·
Hiking Poles
·
Down Jacket Mont-Bel
Ex-light
·
Tarp and Bivy - did
not use
·
Rain Gear
The Monadnock-Sunapee Greenway is a 48 mile long trail
going from the summit of Mt. Monadnock in Jaffrey, NH to the summit of Mt.
Sunapee in Newbury, NH. The trail travels along hills, mountains, old
backcountry roads, and beautiful wooded trails along southern New Hampshire.
The trail has primitive three sided shelters and one tent platform
approximately every 6 miles. Due to most of the land being privately owned, it
is ask that hikers stay at the shelters.
Day 1
My
first day on the trail started at the ever popular Monadnock State Park Headquarters.
After I was finally able to get the attendant to understand what I was doing
(hiking the trail and keeping car at parking lot) I started on my journey around 5:00pm. My
plan was to leisurely stroll into the first shelter sometime before dark. This
is exactly what I did. I have previously hiked this portion of the trail numerous
times before so it was more of a workout rather than a trail experience. The
summit was fantastic as usual thanks to the sunny weather and I enjoyed my two
slices of spinach and feta pizza. J
Thanks Babe!
Arriving
at the shelter is one of the best experiences on the trail at the end of the
day (8:00 after getting water at reservoir). After a long and hard day of stomping the ground you can finally plop
everything down and relax. And what else!??! You get to eat food!! Everyone
should eat well and hearty on the trail. You will be working at a caloric
deficit every day. This means you’re body will need and appreciate every
calorie you can give it.
For
my first nights meal I w anted to sample a new brand of lightweight dehydrated
meals. Good-To-Go brand Classic Marinara with Penne. I must say, this tasted
pretty darned good! Just like if made at home. Make sure you boil the water and
let sit for long enough though. After eating my food and studying the maps and
guide book for a while, I went off to sleep. Anxious for a long day ahead.
Spiltoir Shelter |
Day 2
I
woke up several times during the night just as I always do. It was finally 4:45
am. The sun was about to rise. Time to start getting my ish together. I fired
up my titanium Caldera Cone with Gramcracker esbit stove while I stay snuggled
up in all my insulation and wrapped up in my quilt. Once I had the coffee good
to go, I was quick to pack up and start on the trail.
There
are always struggles to get past when it comes to backpacking. I will tell you
about two of those. The first, is the struggle to finally get out of bed on
those cold mornings. The toughest part is needing to remove your sleeping
bag/quilt as that is what needs to (usually) be first packed down into the bottom
of the cave you call a backpack. It takes a lot of will power to do this but
once you do, the rest of the process is pie. The second struggle is for those
of us who prefer dreamy air mattress called inflatable sleeping pads. I love my
Thermalrest x-lite but I absolutely hate having to deal with it. Blowing it up
at the end of a long day is tiresome and not something I look forward to doing
and in the morning, the deflate and roll up process is even more tedious.
Inflatable sleeping pads are a pain in my ass and I hate jumping right out of
bed but those are just things one has to handle when out in the backcountry.
My
day was off to an awesome and early, bright, sunny start around 5:30am. I passed by several
bodies of water that had the early morning sun glaring down with the mist
rising up.
Very picturesque small town where Emmett greeted me with howling constant barks which reminded me of Dexter. I had no idea who this dog belonged to as I was the only one around. The dog was just wondering around barking at everything. He kept looking back at me to see what I was doing. Anyways, I had a lot of miles to cover. As I continued down the road and back onto wooded trail, Emmett continued to follow me. Actually, Emmett was LEADING me to the trail and stayed ahead 10-50 yards. He would look back every minute or so to make sure I was still following him.
After
a couple miles of hiking I started thinking about how we were going to find the
owners. I called Emmett over to me by kneeling down and enthusiastically
calling for Emmett to “come over here.” There had his name along with a phone
number sewn into his collar. I took my phone out, turned it off of airplane
mode and into normal mode to kill some battery. Luckily I had a bar or two or
service. I phoned the number several times but got no answer so I left a brief
message explaining that I was hiking north and had Emmett with me. From there,
I left my phone on normal mode and continued on. After a good period of time I
checked my phone to make sure the volume was on and up. Not 2 minutes later, I
got a call from Sandy the owner and we arranged a pick up at a road crossing
not far up the trail.
I met
up with Kip (or Kit) and we briefly chatted. He thanked me a lot as did Sandy
and they offered a home to stay if I pass by at another time. It turns out they
lived right in Nelson Center, where Emmett originally found me. In fact,
several years ago Emmett tagged along with some other hikers and traveled all
the way to the General Washington Shelter, some 14+ miles out (my intended
destination for the day). Before we parted ways, I kindly asked for a picture
of myself with Emmett <insert picture>.
EDIT: http://www.easternslopes.com/2010/07/16/monadnock-sunapee-greenway-the-long-march-part-2/
As found in the comments section of this trip report, it looks like these were
the people who Emmett hiked with before. Haha what a coincidence!
If you do not care about talking about roads,
please skip over the next paragraph.
After
that, I had a lot of miles to cover through some beautiful terrain. These next
many miles went through more road walking. I think I did learn something about roads
on this trip. I walked on many different types of roads in old southern New Hampshire.
First there are paved roads. These are obvious. Next, we have dirt roads and
this is where is can get tricky. There are old town roads which could consist
of old dirt roads varying in overall structure and levelness. There are also
old woods roads. From what I understand, these are sometimes old roads from
many years ago that were eventually abandoned and are now grown in. These were
typically found in the woods in forest sections. Aside from the paved and dirt varieties
of roads, there are also forest service and logging roads. These roads are in
the middle of the woods and are often no longer marked or not marked at all on
maps. Logging roads are sometimes active with logging operations (clearing
trees) or more often than not, dormant or abandoned.
Continue here.
Aside
from the many road walks, the miles covered on Saturday trekked through
absolutely stunning open hill and mountain tops, countless viewpoints, cascade
waterfalls, acres and acres of blueberry patches, ponds, beaver dams, and many
more features to see that make hiking such an incredible experience. One of my
favorite sections to hike here is the Andorra Forest. I’ll let the pictures
take over:
I ended my day around 3:30pm at the General Washington Shelter in Washington, NH. Apparently, this town was one of the first town to be incorporated in honor of the late General George Washington in the year 1776. This shelter was special. The caretakers of the shelter and part of the trail lived about 300 yards from the shelter in their own home. They allowed guests of the shelter to fill up with water at the spigot on the side of their house. Thank you so much Mr. Barker and family for all your support of the trail and it’s hikers at the General Washington Shelter! I had a wonderful Saturday night away from the torrential rain and wind. <insert picture>
I
also made a scrumptious Steak Mac and Cheese meal for dinner. Yummy!
Day 3
Sunday
morning was a tough one. I had to endure another one of those unavoidable
struggles when backpacking. The weather. I had hoped the weather would stay
clear throughout the weekend. Fortunately, I had been blessed with ideal and nearly
perfect hiking weather the previous two days. Today I woke up to pouring rain
and high winds. The weather sucked. I was cold and knew I would be cold and wet
all day. I felt bad for my feet which, up to this point, had not had a single
blister or sore.
Throughout
the night when I woke up to rain and wind I had contemplated calling out to be
picked up (by the best gf in the world) in the morning and I would return
another day to complete the trail in better weather. Earlier in the day I had
also thought about calling to have her come and maybe spend the night with me
at the shelter since it was so close to a road. All of this was moot as I had
zero cell reception at the shelter. Oh well!
My
day started out dry around 6:45am for a few miles of road walking in the cold windy rain. I
eventually got to some off road trail and between the overgrown bushes and
grass and puddles/ponds in the trail, my rain pants and jacket were practically
soaked through. They could both use a recoating of DWR as they are several
years old. That’s fine. “As long as I continue walking at a brisk pace, I will
maintain high enough body temperatures to be comfortable.” And that is what I
did for the rest of the day. I stopped once to make a trail mix and peanut
butter wrap and dry out for a good 20 minutes. This is also when I coordinated
the logistics of my pick up and return home. For the remainder of the day I
cranked out miles while skipping through the forest trying to avoid the streams
running through the trail. That was all I could do. The trails were flooded.
There were literally streams on the trail flowing just as much water as the
actual stream ten feet to the left. The worst part was that because of the
terrible weather there were no views at all. I actually stumbled upon Lake
Solitude. I didn’t realize it was there until it was only 5 feet in front of me
because I couldn’t see it. Once I realized it was there it was like a creepy
horror movie with fog rising over the water eliminating any visibility from 20
feet on…
I
made it to the top of Mount Sunapee around 1:15pm to experience some of the strongest winds
in my life. The noise was frightening. The summit lodge was locked closed so I hurried on before my body temperature came back down. The summit of Sunapee is the end of the Greenway. I took one of the ski
trails down the mountain and was at the bottom a number of hours before I had
planned on being picked up. I looked around each building to see if any of them
were open to get some shelter from the elements. Once again, I was blessed.
Someone had been at the main lodge picking up some supplies. They had propped
one of the doors open so I nudged my way in and sat between each set of doors.
I eventually spoke with them and confirmed it was alright to stay there. I had a
carpet floor, heat, and four sides to protect me until my ride arrived. I was
safe, I had no blisters, and I was done. Another trail completed. Another adventure experienced.
Another one to come.
I highly Recommend the Greenway. I had a blast!
Thanks for reading!
Nice report. I hope to get out on the MSGT soon. Not sure if I can complete it in 3 days though. :)
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