Cannon. June 3, 2018

Kinsman Ridge Trail, 4.0 miles, 2,100 feet

Alex has recently written a blog post about her solo hike of Pierce and Eisenhower.  Go here to check it out.

Union of Concerned Scientists is an organization that promotes clean energy and tries to reduce pollution in the atmosphere.  For example, they urge the public to stop deforestation and to reduce emissions of polluting gasses from things like cars and planes.

This hike was a little different than the others.  We were originally going to hike on Monday the 4th.  However, the forecast said that there would be a good amount of rain on that day; therefore, we decided to hike the day before, on Sunday the 3rd.  We decided on this in the early afternoon on Sunday however, so we ended up starting our trek up Cannon at about 4:00 p.m.

Flowers near the trailhead...

We started up feeling good.  It was just a little bit too hot, but it got cooler as the day went on.  Also, we didn't really notice the bugs that often.

Views!

The sun was bright, and as we headed up we felt really content.

We got most of the way up and to the first viewpoint.  It was a beautiful day, with a blue sky and warm temperatures.

Sideways selfie!

We headed toward the summit...

More views!

Mom and Alex heading up...

The sky was so blue that I just had to take a picture of it...

Shadows!

Yay!  We got to the top to a 360 degree view.  It was amazing.  Mom, Alex, and I couldn't stop taking pictures.

The long flights of stairs!  

After a snack and water break, we headed down.

The final stretch to the car...

Yay!  We finished our hike around 6:30 p.m.  It was a great trek on a beautiful day, with little to no bugs.  We all had a wonderful time.

Moriah. May 9, 2018

Alex and I are alternating writing the trip reports. So, to check out our last hike in the White Mountains, go to Alex's blog.

Carter Moriah Trail, 9 miles, 3550 feet

Union of Concerned Scientists is an organization that furthers scientific and public knowledge about climate change and clean energy.  They also give the public many ways to take action, such as offering different kinds of emails one can sign and then send to politicians.  Click here to find out ways you can take action.

We started out in daylight, feeling warmer than we have in months.  Instead of our usual long-sleeves, we had T-shirts under our coats.  The warm weather affected our mood, and we were all pretty chipper.

The trail was relatively flat starting out...

A slight hill, but the sun was so beautiful we didn't really notice!

Silhouette!

 This was amazing to see. I can only imagine the multitude of organisms that live in the dirt and old roots.

The trail started to go up more steeply, but it wasn't too bad yet...

Some views!

We started to see the first signs of snow after we passed the summit of Mount Surprise.  However, we delayed putting on our microspikes for as long as we could.

We finally caved about our microspikes after we slipped a couple of times.  It was easier than we thought to put microspikes over trail runners, though the microspikes were a bit big.

We finally got to the sign by the summit!

An artistic photo... 

The very small sign...

We got to the summit and walked onto a beautiful rock ledge with amazing views and a very blue sky.  It was a wonderful day!

We stopped for longer than we usually do on the summit, as it was such a beautiful warm day!

Heading down...

We noticed a huge amount of feathers strewn about the trail while we were nearing the bottom of the mountain.  This was the largest grouping of them; it was very strange.

The very last stretch of trail before the car...

And we were done!

It was a wonderful hike on a beautiful warm day.  It truly felt like spring!