Grin and Bare it

This sparrow greeted me this morning as I ordered my Mc-sandwich.

We're planning to hike up Mt. Monadnock in New Hampshire on Saturday.

In preparation we thought we'd do a quick hike up Bare Mountain at the Notch.

This is a great short hike. You can be at the top of this 1010' hill in less than half an hour.

Of course, to do that, you have to spend that half an hour pretty much in a constant climb. There are very few level areas on this trail. Excellent exercise.

About a third of the way up you start encountering a section of strange shattered rock.

It's everywhere.

There's an old Air Force command bunker from the Cold War era hidden underneath this hill.

I'll bet this is debris from when they were blasting out the interior.

Farther on the rocks start to get big and very un-shattered.

There are a couple nice lookouts on the way up where you can catch your breath, and be amazed at how high up you are already.

Your at the top before you know it, taking in the stunning views to the North, East and South.

The rock near the top is scraped from when Glaciers slowly ground over them eons ago.

Now we humans do our own type of grinding; the flat area in this picture is a huge quarry where they dug out what used to be called Round Hill.

Looking below you can see the parking area of the Notch, and notice you left your lights on... d'oh!

Bare Mountain is the first leg of The Seven Sisters trail. This trail runs right along the crest of the Holyoke Range, all the way to the Summit House on Skinner Mountain. It is also part of a much bigger trail called the Metacomet-Monadnock. This trail goes all the way from the Connecticut border to Mt. Monadnock, the mountain we're planning on hiking tommorrow.

I've done the Seven Sisters hike twice, We parked a car at both ends, and it took us about three hours to do the whole thing. It's a work out for sure. Maybe I'll try it again this fall.

From the summit we walked about a quarter mile down the trail to the next lookout. From there you can see the entrance to the afore-mentioned Air Force bunker.

I think I read somewhere that Amherst College now uses this bunker for storage. I guess the roaches will have something to read when they take over the planet.

Out of daylight, we had to end it there and turn back. Hopefully I'll have some good pics of the Mt. Monadnock hike to post this weekend.