Random night hike of Mt. Monadnock

T-minus 49 days. Yes, I've decided to go with the T-minus system for counting down until I embark in the AT. I'm planning on switching to AT-# for tracking the days when on the trail. We'll see if I come up with something better or not.

So, yesterday I was in a MOOD. The day started with me making a trip to the post office and I had a bizarre encounter with another driver. When I was in the shared turn lane to the shopping plaza this dude popped into the turn lane immediately in front of me. This annoyed me to no end, but hey it's Massachusetts I'm kinda used to asshat drivers. The thing that set me off was this: as he popped into the turn lane he proceeds to make eye contact with me, takes both hands off the wheel to do jazz hands or something, and pursed his lips up and stuck out his tongue. In that instant I had the urge to gun the gas and have a head-on collision with him – all in hopes of having him bite his tongue off.

Anywho, that bizarreness left me really annoyed until after noon, and in that time I decided that I would do a night hike to stomp some of the aggression out of my body. It worked!

Went with the old standby of hiking up Pumpelly trail on Mt. Monadnock. It's about a 9 mile round-trip hike that I've done numerous times in a variety of weather conditions – including at night. 

 
​All that said, this was my first winter night hike, so I decided to just go with the flow and turn around if things got too spicy. The trail conditions weren't as treacherous as anticipated, so I was able to nearly summit. I made it to the second most prominent point of this trail – about 3/4 mile from the actual summit – before calling the hike because of a dense fog at the top of the mountain. (As an aside, should it be called fog if I think it was actually the clouds that were blowing in?)

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I'm pleased to report that the hike went very smoothly! It was easy to get in the hiking rhythm and just let the stress and anxiety wash away. The only problem I really had was with a particular section of the trail, which for all intents and purposes is a staircase that gets incredibly icy during the winter. No problems making it up, but I went ass over teakettle twice on the way down – once at the beginning of that section, and once just before the end. No harm done beyond a bruised elbow though, so no worries.

 The "trail" at the staircase section.

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I made it home safely a bit after 2 AM and am dragging a bit this morning, but it was definitely worth the trip! I'm feeling much better this AM.

I'm hoping that continues today, but I'm meeting a guy today from Craigslist to sell some furniture. I'm anxious about meeting some rando from the internet, and really hope there's no dumbass-ery in the transaction!