Morning on Monadnock

  With our failed attempt of a sunrise from Mt.Monadnock last week, due to cloudy skies, we were off for a chance of better skies this weekend. We questioned if we should return to the same mountain for sunrise or if we should venture somewhere else. After looking into other hikes, we chose to return, as we felt the mountain was worthy of being one of our destinations for our quest.

This was our quick glimpse of the sunrise the week prior before the clouds took over the skies.

  With Mt.Monadnock being the second most traveled mountain in the world, even in the dead of winter at just before five in the morning, the parking lot had a few cars in it with other hikers seeking out an early morning hike.

 Our hike started out following a tunnel of light cast from our headlamps focused on the ground ahead, which was clear of  snow and ice that covered the trail only a week ago. The skies looked perfectly clear of any condensed water vapor floating above us to obstruct any views. The stars were clearly visible and the early morning air was bitterly cold with a slight wind.

  Evan had planned for us to tramp along the most traveled route up, which is a short more direct route of just under 2 miles to the summit. White Dot trail starts as a wide, root and rock garden that progresses up a steady incline until open faced granite slabs expose you to the elements at higher elevations where, in these conditions, the challenge starts.

   Although most of the snow and ice melted since our visit a week ago, the few patches that were left happened to be on these steep exposed slabs of granite. The winds started picking up at these elevations, so once we made it just below the summit where the giant cairn lies we hunkered down out of the winds to await the sunrise.

The brightening skyline.

The first glimpse of the sun on February 10th, 2019.

Evan capturing the show. Read Evan's Blog here: Evan Hikes

First rays of sunshine illuminating the rocky ledges.

   We watched from these lower ledges for a few minutes as the sun slowly crept above the horizon, then we trekked the last few hundred feet, passing the hikers that were heading down, until we arrived on the empty summit.

Evan enjoying the sunrise from the summit.

   After a few more photos from the summit, we found our way to the Dublin Trail in order to connect it to White Arrow Trail. Before heading down, we enjoyed a vast view of southern New Hampshire and Vermont, with peaks like Mt.Kearsarge, Stratton Mountain, and Mt.Ascutney visible. With the winds reminding us of the chilling time of year, it was time to descend.

White arrows mark the route down (lower right).

The White Arrow Trail made for a fun rock scramble!

Can you follow the arrows up? 

Follow the arrow...

As soon as we left the exposed rocky higher elevations the trail became more icy until the ice engulfed the trail like a mad river that instantly froze as it gushed down the steep slopes. It made for a treacherous descent, but a fun one.

 
The ice appeared to be a few feet thick, covering every inch of the trail and surrounding area, at this point spikes were necessary and without them we would of had no choice but to head back to where we came from... Luckily we came prepared and with the proper equipment this trail and it's conditions were spectacular!

Looking down the frozen trail.

Looking up one section of the frozen trail.

   The frozen river that was marked as a trail seemed to go on forever. When the slopes leveled off we found the bog bridges were engulfed in the frozen waters they were supposed to bridge across. What irony!

Bog bridges frozen solid.

   The White Arrow trail lead us to a junction after approximately a mile where the Halfway House once stood. From here we located Hello Rock trail which we followed for approximately half a mile winding through rock outcroppings, pines and hardwood forests until we connected to Cliff Walk and Parker trails with a combined trek of 1.2 miles to end, where we had begun at the Monadnock Park Headquarters.

Frozen waters flowing over Poole Reservoir Dam.

Looking across Poole Reservoir

 The GPS route we took: https://www.strava.com/activities/2137096115