Love Goat Films: Hiking through the mist on Monadnock

Trip Details
Date: June 1^st, 2018
Total Distance: 4.52 mi (via Garmin fenix 5X)
Total Time: 2 hours 6 minutes
Total Elevation: 1841 ft gained
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Well the weather up in the White Mountains looked awful, but down in the southern part of New Hampshire it looked salvageable. We took advantage of it to hike some of the mountains on other lists (52 with a View and the Fire Lookout Tower Quest). It was a dreary day regardless and we would not have any views on these mountains that otherwise have great views, but we made the best of it. So this is part one of a three part hike that BishopX and I partook on this otherwise drizzly first day of June.

Mt. Monadnock located in Monadnock State Park has the distinction of one of the most hiked mountains in the world. On this drizzly day, we found the summit to ourselves! Pros and cons to everything, right? I would argue the popularity of this mountain as there are plenty of other mountains and trail systems in the White Mountains where there is no cost to enter so hikers are not counted. This is in stark contrast to Monadnock State Park that charges $5 per person to enter. The hike was nice and one day I will head back during better weather to get a view.

Trail map is located at the state park website. One of the big things about these trails is they are all heavily eroded from the extensive use. Footing is not great throughout most of it.
No dogs are allowed at this state park. The trail is rather rocky so I do not argue with this rule, but I am sure there are plenty of dogs out there who could handle this and the crowds with no issues. The White Dot Trail, which is the main trail has a lot of exposed ledges and bouldering that definitely would have ruined Boomer's time on the trails. We saw dog poop on the exposed ridge, so people have figured out how to still hike it with dogs.
The Spellman Trail is listed on a few sites as the hardest trail up to the summit. It involves a fair amount of bouldering and climbing on short stretches of nearly vertical ledges. When you are climbing through the clouds you do not get the pleasure of the view, but it also takes some of the fear away as you cannot see how far up you are.
The Pumpelly Trail was the first time in all of hiking that I could finally understand how people get lost above treeline. The mist was so thick that it was hard to see the next cairn. So we just had to slow down and keep looking around until we would eventually find it. The hardest part was actually when we had gotten to the summit as it was not clear that we were supposed to climb up to the highpoint or if what was in front of us was just a false summit.
The White Dot Trail is no walk in the park. Coming down the granite slabs that were not sufficiently wet made the trail borderline dangerous. I lost my footing two or three times and left with small cuts on my hand and knee. On a dry day with an endless view, this is probably a great trail to hike. For us, we just wanted the shortest way off the mountain and the two miles seemed to take forever as we had to carefully choose our footing or even slide down at parts.
If you decide to take advantage of the slightly better footing at the end of the trail and start jogging or even race others (who do not know you are going to race them) it is probably best to try and not trip over your own foot as you pass them. In my defense I just wanted to get back to the car as the humidity was ridiculously thick so running seemed safe, feasible at this point, and an excellent idea. Just sometimes my feet do not lift as well as I would like them to. I recovered and did not completely fall and still "won" the race.

Below are some photos from the hike: