The Scariest Hike I've Ever Done
Every year my family makes the 16-hour trek up north to New England to see family, revel in nature, and create a few memories along the way. This year was no exception. We spent the first week and a half of July in Carroll, Twin Mountain, New Hampshire for the 4th of July/family reunion/celebrate grandma’s 80th birthday. But that’s not the story I want to share with you. What I want to tell you is how I survived the most terrifying hike of my life. No exaggeration.
At the end of our trip, after hiking to the top of Mt. Willard on a foggy 4th of July morning, tubing down the Ammonoosuck River, cliff jumping, sandcastle building contests, intense games of spoons and so much more we drove a few hours south to the small town of Keene, New Hampshire. If you’re not familiar with the town, it’s home to Keene State College or you may have seen downtown Keene in the movie Jumanji. Keene is also a short distance from Mt. Monadnock, located in Jaffrey, NH, which is claimed to be the second most hiked mountain in the world after Mt. Fuji. Sitting at 3,265 feet in elevation, the daunting hike beckons hikers of all ages and experiences to test their luck in making it to the summit. We were no exception.
In the beginning, I was a little leery to be going on this hike. I knew close to nothing about the hike and was not excited about a 3 hour (or longer) trek to the top. With 25lbs backpacks stuffed to the brim with water and snacks, we began our journey up the white dot trail. I was expecting for this hike to be like one of the many we had already done — you walk up a similar looking trail to a similar looking summit and hike back down said similar looking trail. I was very wrong and quickly was made well aware of that.
The best way to describe hiking Mt. Monadnock is to tell you this — for the first hour you will be hiking a relatively flat trail that is easy to follow, but after that is where the fun begins. On the white dot trail, the easiest trail of them all, about 0.5 miles in hikers stumble upon their first major obstacle where you must hikes up a steep rock face to continue on the trail. It was a bit challenging to say the least, and this is coming from a rock climber. The rest of the hike up consisted mainly of these steep rock faces you must scale in order to keep going. Most of the time you need to use both your hands and feet to keep your balance.
This was unlike any hike I had ever done. It was exhilarating, terrifying, anxiety inducing, and exhausting.
Finally at the summit, we caught our breaths, which was hard to do when all we could do was marvel at the view. We couldn’t see much through the blanket of clouds, but it was breathtaking nonetheless. Behind some rocks, we took a break, ate some snacks, and rehydrated. And then things got interesting as if they weren’t interesting enough. A notification came through my mom’s phone: rain expected in 15 minutes. We packed up the bags, threw on our rain coats and started the descent back down the mountain on the white cross trail. The rain came before our allotted time was up and within five minutes we were drenched. We found ourselves stuck on a completely bald mountain top in the middle of a thunderstorm, with lightning.
The thing about hiking down a mountain that’s all rock, with no trees, means that the trail is hard to see and the rock is completely slick from years of abrasion. With every foggy wisp that rolled in and the more rain poured out of the sky, it became increasingly harder and harder to see the crosses painted on the trail. After about an hour of hiking we finally hit tree cover, but we’re presented with a new problem: the entire trail had turned into a waterfall. Where there once was dry rocks that made a steep path to the top, the rain water was now rushing down. It turned dirt into muddy puddles, taller rocks into stepping stones over small creeks and handholds into slippery nobs.
The challenge we were faced with was no longer not sliding off the mountain, it was how to hike downwards without slipping and hurting ourselves on the jagged rocks we had to navigate. Tree branches turned into helping hands. A fellow hiker family became comfort in the scary situation, making us both feel less alone. The longer we hiked, the longer it felt like we were never going to get to the end. Each crevice was a new obstacle, each boulder was a new road block. Each puddle became a guessing game of “how much of my foot will get wet this time?”
After many slips and falls, we finally made it back to flat ground with a little under a mile to go. We saw rangers heading up the trail to do a rescue, thankful it wasn’t us, but worried it was the family that had fallen behind. Later, when we finished, we caught back up with the family to make sure they were okay and made small talk about where we all were from. To say I was grateful to make it to the base is an understatement. Back at the hotel, we took off our drenched clothes and showered, grateful to get all the mud off our skin. I think it was the best I’ve had in a long time.
In total, we hiked 4.9 miles over a 1,791 elevation gain and did it all in just over 5 hours.
So what did hiking Mt. Monadnock teach me? Honestly? Sometimes scary things are simply just scary. They give you anxiety and in the moment you may not want to be where you are, but they do (almost) always make a really good story. Also, I probably won’t do this hike again.
