keene is about 30 minutes from the monadnock state park where mount monadnock is located, its the mountains that surround keene (keene is in a valley from a melted glacier bed or something).
monadnocks are isolated mounds of bedrock as the leftover from erosion b/c they are usually made of quartzite or volcanic rocks. they weren't lying about the granite stones, felt like the entire way up was scaling rocks!
mount monadnock (or grand monadnock) is 3,165 ft tall and is one of the most climbed mountains in the world and b/c the mountain is all stone there really are amazing views in all directions.
i took the white cross trail up and down (i hadn't realized it was the less steep one or i would have taken the white dot trail up and white cross down). regardless, i was doing my fun share of slipping and sliding in my worn out sneakers but it was absolutely beautiful.
the shot to the right is about 20 minutes until the summit. phew. you could actually see the hikers who were perched on top of the mountain from here, which was sort of gratifying (b/c at least you knew you were close) but also daunting (they looked uber high up). it was really nice and windy up there so it felt great after sweating my way up. and it was all rock climbing up to the summit. should have been a mountain goat!
i like the mountain selfie!
ReplyDeletecute pic twin!
ReplyDeletethanks!
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