Friday July 29th I dropped the kids at camp, my car was loaded with maybe too much stuff and maybe not everything I needed but I was off on an adventure. I didn't even realize it until I was home but I essentially didn't hit any traffic- Like no memory of any. I made a side trip on my way home to have lunch with a friend in Worcester so the exchange from 495 to 290 was a 2 mile crawl but even that was no big deal.
I headed up with my list of National Forest campgrounds. I could not find any available openings at Layfayette Campground so my next best option was to take my chances on a first come first serve site in the National Forest. My goal was Hancock as it was closest to Lincoln and Rt 93. Somewhere along the line I realized I would really like a shower. As I am shuffling through by pages I see only 3-4 campgrounds out of almost 2 dozen have showers.
Damn it!
Recalculating......
Once on the Kangamangus Highway I drive by a few campgrounds and go to one of the farthest campgrounds but it has showers and am greeted with a FULL sign so I turn around and go to the last one I saw about a mile back. At this point I figure securing a campsite is more important so I pull in. A National Forest person pulls up and says site 20 and 30 are open.
Great!
Because it is self-serve he tells me to park a lawn chair on the site to claim it and come back to pay. I actually set up camp pretty quickly and look at my map. My friend made a statement along the lines of Hike the S%^& out of those trails and I figured he was right so I should get right to it. Tomorrow would be an all day hike and Sunday may be a wash depending on how my body felt.
Right across the street is a trail to Mount Hedgehog. Seriously?? Ava loves Hedgehogs so this is no longer a maybe but a requirement. I pack up pack and walk to the gate where I take care of signing in and paying and I walk across the street.
Is anyone else just in awe that I am walking across the street to a 5 mile trail on a mountain?? Well I am. I was at 2800 feet in a little over a hour. It was the kind of hiking I really enjoy. Woods, funky mushrooms and silence. I passed 1 couple early on but not a soul otherwise.
About 2.5 miles in I finally circle around from the back side to the cliff side and I am just filled with views of mountains, green and clouds forever. I have said this before but I just looked at my map trying to acclimate myself to what mountains I was seeing and thinking I have so many more miles I would love to cover.
I was really hoping to include a photo slide show but I can't seemto make that work. I have included a link to my photobucket album which includes all the photos of this part of my trip.
fooseberry's Mt Hedgehog 72916 slideshow on Photobucket
I headed out about 3:30 and was back to my site by 7pm.
Priority=DINNER!
I decided to head into Conway as I always head back to Lincoln and wanted to see what they had to offer. I was happy to find Seadog Brewery had an empty seat at the bar. Just a suggestion, try a Sunfish if you like fruity Summer beer. I did a quick stop and LL Bean too but wasn't impressed so I headed "home".
I was in bed by 9:30. Headlamp and a book and sleeping in no time.
I am glad I stayed busy because I really think I was too tired to be scared.
1 comment:
HA! Awesome.
Great post and finding a campsite was an adventure in and of itself.
So many trails, so little time. But make the most of what we have.
I'm staring at my VT book for later this month wondering WTF to do.
I'm considering Killington, but there are no loops and it's a LONG day. I suppose I could set up camp at the state park, then stay overnight on the trail to break up the hike. Hmmm.
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