The day dawned sunny but with showers threatening….. so I did what any sane person would do…..jumped into my car for a 3 hour ride to go hiking.  I chose Passaconaway for this misguided adventure since it was the southern most mountain I hadn’t climbed yet.

I arrived at the trail head which just happened to be the same parking lot as my heat stroked hike to Mount Whiteface from a few weeks ago.  I knew I had a better chance of getting hypothermia than heat stroke this trip which did not leave me feeling that encouraged but about a mile into the hike I realized that freezing to death wasn’t very likely either as I stopped to gasp for some breath and cool down.

I was pretty sure I was the only person hiking and this thought was upheld until I starting getting pretty high up and reached a fork in the trail where a large group of hikers had stopped to rest.  I knew seeing some other hikers resting would slowly drive me crazy until I took one myself so I stopped a little further up the trail and a nice look brook and opening in the tree cover.

After this break, I slogged on up the remaining piece of the trail before reaching another nice viewing spot which was especially nice since its the only one on Passaconoway.  I took in the overcast skies before heading on and eventually reaching the most anticlimactic summit this side of the Mississippi.  I broke out the Doritos to celebrate while I took a few quick pictures of the woods.

After summiting, I pulled out my handy White Mountain Hiking Guide(ding ding) and saw there was a nice loop hiking down if I took a different route so I decided to trade a few minutes for a few views.

The loop hike ended up being a mistake as I had completely misread the hiking guide do to me just misreading the hiking guide.  The loop was in fact a 1 way hike to the viewing spot…1 way as in you had to hike down and back up on the same trail.  So after hiking to the mountain summit….I hiked down about a mile and then had to hike right back up.  Not fun with rubbery legs to say the least.

I did eventually make it BACK to the summit and started my true hike back down to the parking lot. 16 down, 32 to go!!