If you’re lucky you may see thousands of beautiful sunsets in your lifetime; if you’re real lucky, you’ll be totally present with some of them. This one was especially fine, perhaps because the Winter Solstice was a few days ago, and this is Christmas Eve.
Revisited this series – one was posted in October of last year – just can’t get enough of Island Pond and the Northeast Kingdom, granted, from a warm, wood heated living room far to the south.
Looking west from the top of MT Monadnock, the most climbed mountain in North America and second only to Mount Fuji in the world.
On a weekday afternoon in the first week of Sept. though, there were only a few hikers at the top. We went up via the Dublin Trail, one I had never used. My preferred route is still the Old Halfway House Trail, accessible from Rt. 124; it’s the shortest and steepest path, but that dirt road for the first half of the journey is a wonderful way to start as well as close the hike.