Hike #1 - Granite-17-2-3-4-18-19-Granite

Admittedly, that is a crazy identification of this hike.  But just check out the map at right and it will make perfect sense.

I did this hike on January 1st, 2013 - what a great way to start the new year!

I also got a new camera for Christmas since my old one died.  I hope the pictures are just as good.

I did this hike solo.  It was a loop hike, a little over 2.0 miles done in 1:03.  Although cold, when you're snowshoeing, you get warm really fast.  The toughest part of this hike was getting my car up the end of the dirt road on Granite Street.  Fortunately, despite having 227K miles on it, the Outback is still going strong.

This map can be found at http://www.leominstertrailstewards.org/images/pdf/lh_monoosnoc_north.pdf.

At the beginning, there is a nice kiosk.

I was surprised to find water on the trail, as cold as it was.

This trail is very well marked, with these numbered markers so you can make sure you're going the right direction.

This is looking uphill at the K-Mark lookout (#2).  There've been others on the trail since the snow, but not too many.

The view from the top of North Monoosnoc Hill (985ft) is actually better in the winter than the summer.  In the distance, you can make out Mount Monadnock in Jaffrey, NH.

At 1:14pm, it's amazing how long the shadows are.  This part of the trail is typically very soggy at most times of the year.  Still some water, but not too bad.

Surprisingly, the traffic on the main trail appeared to less than the side trails.

I hope some of you can join me in this new adventure!

New Trail - Monoosnoc in Leominster

A good friend and blog follower was asked of me, "What's next?"

So, on was a brilliant winter day a couple weeks ago, I decided it was a perfect day to strap on the snowshoes and do a hike.  Fortunately, I have plenty of accessible hiking, right here in my home town of Leominster.  The Monoosnoc Trail runs from the Doyle Reservation up near Rt 2 south through Leominster State Forest and Sholan Farms, finishing up at Samoset Middle School on the south side.  I have previously done this entire trail, mostly with the Scouts, but never in the winter end-to-end, so that sounds like a great new goal.

Since everyone is already familiar with my blog name (midstate12), I will just opt to add my additional adventures here.  Like my previous hike, I want to invite any and all friends and family along to join me.  Because of its proximity to home, shuttling cars or getting rides should be much easier than it was on the Mid-State.  I do not anticipate this being as structured in this hike - it will just be a fun winter thing to do.

There are excellent maps for this hike to be found at the Leominster Trail Stewards web site.