Great Wall Again – 4/29/2015

It is my fault, not Derek’s.  We did not reach the Mt. Washington summit.  At the last opportunity to take a wrong turn I steered us wrong.  And I had to be home by 4PM (we hit the trail at 9:10 AM, and it is a long drive home on a weekday afternoon) so when we figured out what we should have done it was too late to do it right.

Getting to the summit via Great Wall is for next time.

But what a fun day anyway.  10 miles round trip, nice and steep much of the way and those views!  Every day is different.  No snow yesterday and I was amazed that so much snow can melt in only 2 days.  There were misty clouds floating around that really gave the scene a wonderful touch:

Along the Great Wall
Mysterious sky

Walking along the ‘great wall’ section of the Great Wall trail inspires a little focus, because you wonder if this is the moment when some of those rocks and boulders decide to take the path of least resistance, give up the fight, and roll downhill?

The rocky great wall
Good news: easy trail Bad news: what if those rocks decide to tumble?

But it is all too easy to let your attention drift from the mountain above to the mountains nearby:

Clearcut areas
Naked slashes on a neighboring mountain

Of course, it only LOOKS like we are in the middle of nowwhere.  At some points you can shift perspective entirely:

Truck stop
Looking down – in every sense of the term – on civilization

But Derek has a wonderful way to find great photos and, as Jan said last night, he has a real talent for framing them.  I love this picture of some lonesome trees:

lonesome trees
Lonesome trees

We are planning on the notoriously steep Mailbox Peak hike next Thursday.  We have not finalized our plans for the weekend but it looks like Granny and Grampy are going to get a friendly visitor for the weekend, so no hike until next week.

Looking forward to testing our legs on Mailbox Peak (and yes, someone put an actual mailbox on the summit and we will put the picture right here).