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Mount Roberts 6/24/08

skier90

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Aug 23, 2006
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The day is moving along pretty slow so I figured id sit down and write this report. Sure I’ve procrastinated for two weeks but it’s better late than never. Please bear with me and my bad humor its way to hot out and I am going to have way to much fun writing this.
We arrived at the base of the mountain around 10:00 am. Upon stepping out of the car I could not help but feeling as if I had somehow managed to drive to Switzerland, it is beautiful up there. If you ever get a chance to visit castle in the clouds or just to drive by go for it. Finally tearing myself away from the memorizing rolling pastors and gently sloping hills....mountains.....glacially carved mounds of earth? I pulled my small amount of gear together and we headed off to find the trail. Not paying attention to my surroundings a trolley almost took off my legs but luckily that did not occur, or you would not have the pleasure of reading this lovely report.
My two friends and I walked near what appeared to be an equestrian barn to what appeared to be the trail. It turned out the trail was the correct trail and we proceeded down it. I still don’t know about the barn. The trail begins as a old road and than runs into the woods, I did not take the liberty of getting a map, I should have but the trail was well marked and they had nice little signs up telling you which way to go and how many miles you had left. The trail itself cuts back and fourth across the mountain and is a nice soft bed of grass the whole way up. It cut back and fourth across the mountain so much my two knucklehead friends decided they were going straight up the mountain.
Into the woods they went as I stayed on the trail. Their logic, if you follow the slope up it eventually gets you to the top, my logic if you get lost in the woods and a bear eats you don’t blame me. I walked along the trail and spotted much wildlife flourishing. Three copperheads scared the bajeebers out of me one was at least four feet long. The lovely birds were flying from tree to tree singing, I swear one was stalking me the whole way up, and at one point on the trail (when my friends rejoined me from their adventure) a billion butterflies were fluttering above a thick bed of ferns with just the right amount of sunlight to make me feel as if I was in wonderland, that lovely feeling ended when my friend decided it would be funny to skip merrily down the trail startling all the butterflies around him, it killed my moment of fairytales. Im getting off topic a bit, back to the trail, finally after walking for what seemed like hours in a strait path across the mountain I came to a trail junction.
The sign told me I had 3.8 more miles to Mount Roberts; I had already traveled 2.2 or so. I had figured this would have been a quick 2 miles in 2 miles out hike, I was wrong, that’s what happens when you don’t have a map. So I began to walk again and I soon spotted my friends in the woods at a curve in the trail. They rejoined me for the rest of the hike, apparently their had been a lot of moose droppings and they found the only batch of quick sand in New Hampshire. We walked back and forth and back and forth until after walking diagonally across the mountain for sometime we spotted the trail just five feet above us. We crossed up and walked the other way. At this point we were getting to be quit tired of walking, we were not tired per say just getting a bit lazy. We came to another junction and learned we were another 1.1 miles away form Mount Roberts!
We were close to our destination but that’s when the low rumbling was heard. At first undistinguishable and than it roared into the sound of a motor. We stepped onto the side of the trail and were surprised to find a lawn mower approaching us. This was the first person I had seen on the trail all day. Greetings were exchanged with the lawn mowing man, maintaining the trail I suppose? That would be a sick job driveling up and down mountains in a lawn mower!, we learned their was a outlook only a few yards ahead and upon arriving my breath was lost in the unfolding scene. The views pretty good, very different than that of the Belknaps. From the Belknaps winnipesaukee looks like tada! From here it is more quit and calm of a view. Only .8 or so miles from the summit we stopped, .8 short of victory! So close yet so far, I tried with all my might to get my two friends to budge but they would not!
We ate our lunch at the outlook and than proceeded down, we reached the summit at 12:25 p.m we left around 12:50 p.m. We were determined to cut as much time off the return journey as we humanly could. Whenever we spotted the trail below us we would cut through the woods and cut time off. After four times of doing this we pushed our luck to far. What had looked like the trail ended up being a small clearing. Almost turning around to trek back up I spotted a blue blaze. We discussed and decided to follow it, if we got lost wed just have to head south and wed eventually hit a road, if we pulled a Houdini and somehow managed to go past all the roads wed eventually hit the lake and their is no way you could sneak around the winnipesaukee by accident.
We followed the blue blazes down the trail and out of the woods popped a barbed wire fence and a strange looking cobblestone building. We cautiously walked along the fence hopeing we had not stumbled over some top-secret government base or a crack farm of some sorts. Unfortunately life isn’t as exiting as Without a Paddle is and it turned out to be neither. We emerged out of the woods and onto a old beaten road. After walking down the road for some time we reached the spot were the trail first headed into the woods. Ten more minuets and we were off the trial and back at the car at 1:30 pm on the dot. We ended up cutting 1 hour 35 minutes off somehow. This is an easy hike but not a short one, nothing challenging just a walk in the woods really but it was pretty peaceful. Rest assure I will return and get all the way to the true summit sometime in the late future.

View from the outlook
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View from the outlook
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Halfway up through the trees
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Field at base
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Barn at base
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Trail
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