the starchild
New member
Moonlit Monadnock July 7th and 8th
Last minute crackpot ideas often kick ass. Yeah! Lots of ass.
Walking into work Friday morning last, a co-worker commented hearing a radio DJ proclaiming the night to be weird and crazy because of a full moon. Although the moon wasn't full until Tuesday night.....Although I had to work a Saturday evening shift at the p/t job 4 to 10......I only kept thinking about the rainless weather forecast and the pure joy of walking above treeline by moonlight. I was missing the mountains. I envisioned driving up to Monadnock Friday night and hiking above treeline and hanging out at the summit by bright moon light as my moon shadow followed me around.
A mass email of my vague, half-sort-of-planned alpine assault returned wishes of “good luck, your crazy” and lots of “wish I knew about it sooner.” I thought to my self, “Dang y'all, I didn't even have more notice and I'm planning this trip!” At lunchtime I received a phone call from the J to the B himself, Cigarette Break. For the record, he still enjoys lots of non-smoking cigarette breaks while hiking; especially if it's steep! He was down to go so long as I could figure out the parking logistics for a night hike on Monadnock starting around 10 pm and finishing soon after sunrise.
Hoping the Moon would provide plenty of light, the Pumpelly Trail seemed like a fine choice as half of it is along an open ridge. We found the trailhead pretty easily and decided to just park there and hope it was ok. We hit the trail sometime after 10:30, already knowing the moon was reduced to a reddish orange glowing ball by the hazy night sky.
Hiking a trail for the first time in the dark is always fun. Its extra fun when the beginning of the actual trail doesn't match the description written in the book. It was pretty obvious where to go though, so no worries. After the final steep climb under tree cover the sky opened up and we could see lights on the ground to the horizon. We saw what may have been Boston, but with the humid, summer night haze; it was more of a glow than a tiny, distant cityscape. We had to keep our headlights on, unfortunately, as the Moon just wasn't bright enough to light our way. As the trail became mostly open, light colored bare rock we could almost hike without lights, but not very well. Moonset was 1:41AM; thus the dullish Moon was already getting redder and less bright as it sank lower towards the horizon.
Most of the trail was new to us as I had only hiked the Pumpelly from the Cascade link to the Summit. This kept it exciting and more than made up for not having the bright, moonlit walk full of moon shadows and stellar views we had been expecting. The wind was very, very light and barely chilled us. We both wore shorts and only I had on a shirt. It was a beautiful night to be gallivanting and tramping around above treeline. At one point a large, distant cairn was directly between us and the orange moon. The glowing ball had a cairn shaped chunk blacked out of its side quarter. I took a pretty bad (bad meaning bad, not bad meaning good) photo of it; wishing I had my manual camera, a cable release and a tripod. A fantastic sight, as was the entire hike; none of which was really photogenic with a small compact digi. It was all beyond pictures. But it is still safe in my memories.
The setting Moon didn't light up the sky with dazzling streaks, but rather it simply faded away quietly with little fanfare. Twas another good excuse to take a load off, sit back, relax and enjoying being on a mountain at night. As we sat there next to a cairn, Cigarette Break suggested leaving our and runnin' up to the summit. I wasn't too sure about leaving my pack somewhere in the dark hoping to find it later, but he was going to do it, and dammit, I wasn't gonna carry a pack if he wasn't. Besides, how could we not find two packs next to a big cairn!?!? Famous last words indeed.
We summited a little after 2AM, moonless, packless as well as surprisingly windless. There wasn't a plethora of stars shinning, but the sky certainly wasn't dark and featureless either. We could see lots of lights below us in the towns and farms surrounding the mountain and extending out to the horizons. We had managed to climb Monadnock and not see one other person. Dang, we spent an hour on the summit proper and never saw another person. I didn't think that would even be possible.
We started back down the mountain retracing our steps. A set of three lights far, far off in the distance was very useful to keep us moving in the right direction. After a while though. It seemed like we had gone too far. Then we arrived at the good spot I found on the hike in to throw down our mountain chairs and catch a power nap before sunrise. The problem was that if we were here than we passed our packs! (Insert swear words here) We backtracked again and soon found them and then backtracked yet again, heading down.
It was so late at this point we prolly napped about an hour before the sky started to brighten and fill with warm colors. Also the lack of wind became ceased being a blessing and cursed us with mosquitoes. Lots of skeeters! I rarely wear bug dope, but was thrilled to borrow some DEET. That stuff may melt plastic and cause cancer, but it sure can keep the bugs away.
We chilled for a bit and watched the sun climb higher. We snacked on some breakfast bars, and the skeeters didn't snack on us too much. We made the short whack over to see Thoreau's Bog but went too high on the side cliffs and couldn't the bog itself very well. Being limited on time, we didn't backtrack around and try to get lower and closer, but now I wish we had. There should always be time to see a sweet bog and I wanted to see if the water level had changed much since mid spring.
The hike out seemed like a new trail even though we had hiked it only hours earlier. We soon entered back into the forest and a few hours later we were back at the trailhead. A few hours after that I was back home and power napping again before going to work. I arrived looking half dead and felt about the same, but the sleepy smile on my face was unmistakable.
a few photos here
Last minute crackpot ideas often kick ass. Yeah! Lots of ass.
Walking into work Friday morning last, a co-worker commented hearing a radio DJ proclaiming the night to be weird and crazy because of a full moon. Although the moon wasn't full until Tuesday night.....Although I had to work a Saturday evening shift at the p/t job 4 to 10......I only kept thinking about the rainless weather forecast and the pure joy of walking above treeline by moonlight. I was missing the mountains. I envisioned driving up to Monadnock Friday night and hiking above treeline and hanging out at the summit by bright moon light as my moon shadow followed me around.
A mass email of my vague, half-sort-of-planned alpine assault returned wishes of “good luck, your crazy” and lots of “wish I knew about it sooner.” I thought to my self, “Dang y'all, I didn't even have more notice and I'm planning this trip!” At lunchtime I received a phone call from the J to the B himself, Cigarette Break. For the record, he still enjoys lots of non-smoking cigarette breaks while hiking; especially if it's steep! He was down to go so long as I could figure out the parking logistics for a night hike on Monadnock starting around 10 pm and finishing soon after sunrise.
Hoping the Moon would provide plenty of light, the Pumpelly Trail seemed like a fine choice as half of it is along an open ridge. We found the trailhead pretty easily and decided to just park there and hope it was ok. We hit the trail sometime after 10:30, already knowing the moon was reduced to a reddish orange glowing ball by the hazy night sky.
Hiking a trail for the first time in the dark is always fun. Its extra fun when the beginning of the actual trail doesn't match the description written in the book. It was pretty obvious where to go though, so no worries. After the final steep climb under tree cover the sky opened up and we could see lights on the ground to the horizon. We saw what may have been Boston, but with the humid, summer night haze; it was more of a glow than a tiny, distant cityscape. We had to keep our headlights on, unfortunately, as the Moon just wasn't bright enough to light our way. As the trail became mostly open, light colored bare rock we could almost hike without lights, but not very well. Moonset was 1:41AM; thus the dullish Moon was already getting redder and less bright as it sank lower towards the horizon.
Most of the trail was new to us as I had only hiked the Pumpelly from the Cascade link to the Summit. This kept it exciting and more than made up for not having the bright, moonlit walk full of moon shadows and stellar views we had been expecting. The wind was very, very light and barely chilled us. We both wore shorts and only I had on a shirt. It was a beautiful night to be gallivanting and tramping around above treeline. At one point a large, distant cairn was directly between us and the orange moon. The glowing ball had a cairn shaped chunk blacked out of its side quarter. I took a pretty bad (bad meaning bad, not bad meaning good) photo of it; wishing I had my manual camera, a cable release and a tripod. A fantastic sight, as was the entire hike; none of which was really photogenic with a small compact digi. It was all beyond pictures. But it is still safe in my memories.
The setting Moon didn't light up the sky with dazzling streaks, but rather it simply faded away quietly with little fanfare. Twas another good excuse to take a load off, sit back, relax and enjoying being on a mountain at night. As we sat there next to a cairn, Cigarette Break suggested leaving our and runnin' up to the summit. I wasn't too sure about leaving my pack somewhere in the dark hoping to find it later, but he was going to do it, and dammit, I wasn't gonna carry a pack if he wasn't. Besides, how could we not find two packs next to a big cairn!?!? Famous last words indeed.
We summited a little after 2AM, moonless, packless as well as surprisingly windless. There wasn't a plethora of stars shinning, but the sky certainly wasn't dark and featureless either. We could see lots of lights below us in the towns and farms surrounding the mountain and extending out to the horizons. We had managed to climb Monadnock and not see one other person. Dang, we spent an hour on the summit proper and never saw another person. I didn't think that would even be possible.
We started back down the mountain retracing our steps. A set of three lights far, far off in the distance was very useful to keep us moving in the right direction. After a while though. It seemed like we had gone too far. Then we arrived at the good spot I found on the hike in to throw down our mountain chairs and catch a power nap before sunrise. The problem was that if we were here than we passed our packs! (Insert swear words here) We backtracked again and soon found them and then backtracked yet again, heading down.
It was so late at this point we prolly napped about an hour before the sky started to brighten and fill with warm colors. Also the lack of wind became ceased being a blessing and cursed us with mosquitoes. Lots of skeeters! I rarely wear bug dope, but was thrilled to borrow some DEET. That stuff may melt plastic and cause cancer, but it sure can keep the bugs away.
We chilled for a bit and watched the sun climb higher. We snacked on some breakfast bars, and the skeeters didn't snack on us too much. We made the short whack over to see Thoreau's Bog but went too high on the side cliffs and couldn't the bog itself very well. Being limited on time, we didn't backtrack around and try to get lower and closer, but now I wish we had. There should always be time to see a sweet bog and I wanted to see if the water level had changed much since mid spring.
The hike out seemed like a new trail even though we had hiked it only hours earlier. We soon entered back into the forest and a few hours later we were back at the trailhead. A few hours after that I was back home and power napping again before going to work. I arrived looking half dead and felt about the same, but the sleepy smile on my face was unmistakable.
a few photos here
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