Hiking

One of my favorite things to do on the weekend is hike. I'm not really sure what spurred my love for hiking, but ever since I was young I enjoyed it. Now, I don't mean the kind of hiking where you are taking a stroll through the woods, but the type where you are going up steep mountains for multiple hours to reach the summit. I love the challenge of it and the views are also amazing. One mountain that I have hiked three times is Mt. Garfield (4,501 feet). The summit has 360 degree views, part of which are shown in the picture above. Most of the time I go hiking with just my Dad because the rest of my family doesn't have enough interest. Recently over memorial day weekend my dad and I hiked Mt. Whiteface (4,019 feet) and Mt. Passaconaway (4,042 feet) in New Hampshire. The photo to the left is of my Dad and me at one of the outlooks near the summit of Mt. Whiteface. My favorite hike that I have ever done was Mount Washington (6,289 feet) via Huntington's Ravine Trail. This is the most difficult trail in New Hampshire and features lots of steep climbing and ledges. Below is a photo of the trail.

A few years ago I started keeping track of the 4000 footers that I have climbed. There are 48 of them in New Hampshire, and I have now done 23 of them. Hopefully I will be able to climb all of the 4000 footers by the time I graduate.

This summer I am going on a week-long hiking trip in the white Mountains of New Hampshire. I am going to hike over 80 miles in 6 days, while climbing at least 2 mountains every day. Overall, I am going to summit 23 4000 foot mountains, 14 that are new for me. After this I will have only 11 more to go!