Yesterday I had the pleasure of hiking up Mt. Passaconaway in New Hampshire with my hiking friend, New York Minute. The drive from where we met up to the mountain was about one and a half hours. We had a nice lively discussion on the way and were totally enjoying ourselves and then it dawned on me: we had not once mentioned the weather or even commented on it. Mt. Passaconaway was a four-thousand foot peak that neither of us had yet done.
Understand now that the weather outside was terrible. It was foggy, cold and raining, and we were going hiking! I mentioned this to New York Minute and we both burst out in laughter! The conclusion was that we were either two very experienced hikers and could brave anything, or, more likely: we were idiots.
In spite of this situation, we arrived at the trail head, parked, suited up, put on our packs and headed off into the wilderness. In all, it was a fabulous day. We did climb to the rather auspicious peak of the mountain, if it were not for a sign marking the summit, I don’t think we would have known we were at the top. We stopped long enough to wolf down a quick lunch in the rain, but didn’t stay long because we started shivering from being so wet and so cold. We had climbed up on the Dicey Mills Trail and took a much longer, steeper route down via several different trails. I haven’t worked out the distance, but I would guess about nine or ten miles.
On the return trip we stopped at a pizza place, Pizza Barn, in Ossipee, NH and had pizza. While there, noting the rustic setting, I noticed old photos and documents on the wall that were about a William Blanchard. Since that is my last name, I asked the waitress about him and she noted that he was her grandfather and he had started the restaurant many years before. I gave her a business card about the book, THREE HUNDRED ZEROES and she told me she had several uncles that had hiked the trail and she would pass it on to them.
In all, it was a great day, although I do admit being totally chilled to the bone, an unusual event for me.
Dennis “K1” Blanchard