Mount Major

Date: September 6, 2009
Trail: Mount Major trail --> Mount Major

With the new hiking season in full swing and several hikes completed/planned, it's time I catch up on my backlog of hikes. I'll start with a hike from last September, which I did with Karen and an old friend from high school, Bill.

This hike was a pretty spur of the moment trip. Bill and I had been chatting one day about his hike of Mount Monadnock and I mentioned that we should do a hike together sometime. One weekend at the beginning of the fall, Karen and I had nothing planned and decided to call up Bill and hike Mount Major.

This hike, while not a 4000 footer, is an extremely popular one and the thing I remember about pulling up to the trailhead was the amount of cars - the entire lot was full, with cars lined up along the highway. We ended up parking about a quarter of a mile down the road. We met up with Bill at the trailhead and started our ascent.

Mount Major is located basically right next to Lake Winnipesaukee, and is a fairly easy hike - one that a lot of families and inexperienced hikers do. We started up the trail at a moderatepace before coming to a group of rock slabs. These were fairly easy to climb and as we got higher, the lake came into sight. After about an hour of hiking we arrived at a nice lookout to get our first view of the lake. This was a good time for us to stop, have a quick water and snack break, and snap a few pictures.

We continued on up a steep set of rock slabs and more and more of the lake came into view. The terrain was wide open and offered a lot of good places to sit and take a break. We took it slow so as to enjoy the views and after long, made it up to the summit of Major. This was probably the most crowded peak that we have done to date - families, school trips, dogs, etc. It was around lunch time so we decided to eat our sandwiches at the top and take in the view.

We headed back down via adifferent trail to get some different scenery and enjoyed the second trail a lot more than the first. Eventually the trail met back up with the main trail and we madeit back to our car. The hike was perfect for being a spontaneous trip - short and close enough to work as an up and back in a day trip. Definitely a recommended hike for anyone of all experience levels.