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Where did the last two months go? Oh yeah, a trip to Florida, a trip to North Carolina, various Susan business trips, and a baby who turned one! Without further adieu, here’s peaks 13-24 of my 48.

Peak #13 Passaconaway Mar 28, 2006
This doesn’t technically count as a winter hike but easily could. I hiked this one solo. The trail was packed snow and ice so I did a lot of postholing and careful scrambling. This was before I learned about the wonders of yaktrax, crampons, and online trail reports.

Peaks #14 Mt. Field and #15 Mt. Tom May 3, 2006
A three day hiking trip with hiking buddies Steve and Rich. Day 1 Steve and I drove up together and warmed up by hiking part of the Mount Jackson trail. Steve had brought an extra pair of crampons for me to use and boy did they make a difference. Lots of postholing.

Day 2 all three of us hiked the Avalon, Field, Tom loop. Steve and Rich did not want to go up Mt. Tom as it had been a long tiring day in the snow and ice already so Steve made me a bet. If I could get up Mt. Tom, back down, and catch them on the trail before they got to the car, he would buy wine at dinner. They set out going straight back and I had wine on my brain and charged up Mt. Tom. I caught them just below snowline as they were taking off their crampons and greatly enjoyed my free wine that night. This was also the first time I’d ever seen a moose in the wild. At dinner, a large moose wandered into the field outside the Highland Lodge to graze.

Peak #16 Whiteface May 7, 2006
Hiked with Susan who thinks this may have been one of her very first hikes back in college with a friend from WILG. A little snow still at the top but mostly clear.

Peak #17 Tecumseh August 5, 2006
Hiked with Susan. It’s a short fast mountain. Here are my trail notes from that day:
1:45 up, 1:10 down. Su and I. Gorgeous 80 degrees and not very humid. Hike was like a giant stairmaster.

Peak #18 Hale October 21, 2006
Did this hike with the Susan and all 3 (at the time) Sheldons. It was early season snow and while the trail was easy the Sheldons had to turn around early after Max took off his mitten and threw it out of the backpack which wasn’t noticed until later when Max started crying and they had to turn back. It was still a fun time and a beautiful day.

Peak #19 Jackson May 26, 2007
Hiked with Susan. A short hike on a lovely spring day. Nice views of the notch and north to Washington.

Peak #20 Carter Dome June 14, 2007
I solo hiked this on a long, long day. I hiked in 19 mile brook trail to Carter Notch hut, climbed Carter Dome, and came down the Carter Dome Trail. The hike from the hut to Carter Dome was incredibly steep. The picture is from the trail down to the hut I had just stopped at. This was also my first hike on Carter Ridge and I was amazed how great the views were of Mt. Washington to the west and of Maine to the east.

Peaks #21 North Kinsman and #22 South Kinsman June 21, 2007
Hiked with my buddy Brian. One of my most memorable hikes. I had never hiked with Brian before but knew that he did a lot of outdoors type stuff. He worked with Susan so I knew him socially but we were not yet really friends. We decided to hike the Kinsmans going up Fishin’ Jimmy trail. We had a great, long hike up and turned around to come back down. I had been leading so I let Brian lead on the way back down. Big mistake. I did not realize he was navigationally challenged although he would have freely admitted it if I had asked him. We ended up taking a wrong turn and when I realized it and checked our map we were already hiking on a fun trail with a short series of peaks called “The Cannonballs.” We finished our hike, extra miles and hills and all, had a good laugh, a good burger at a place Brian showed me, and a friendship was forged. However, whenever we are outdoors together, I navigate!

Peaks #23 Hancock and #24 South Hancock July 12, 2007
I did this as a solo hike mostly to knock it off my list. Not a lot of great views, just some pretty wooded trail. The memorable thing about that day was finding a huge “sign” on the ground made out of sticks pointing someone named Ann in a particular direction near the trail split.