Pawtuckaway State Park: North Mountain

I needed to get away. I needed to walk off some stress and calories. I did NOT need to be dodging cars or saying "Hi" to a hundred people walking their dogs. I needed to be alone with my thoughts and work on being a healthier me. I needed a Hike Time was short, so I went local. I went to Pawtuckaway State park.

The walk in, or "approach" was a nice, fast, nearly level walk in the park, literally. Then the "up" started. Not a gentle sort of "up" at all but the kind of "up" that one usually associates with stairs or a ladder. In fact many of the natural features of the ascent resembled stairs. Big stairs. I have been up some "bigger" mountains lately that war not as harden the joints as North Pawtuckaway was! Now, the difference between the "top of the climb" and the "summit of the mountain" is about a hundred feet of elevation that you gain by hiking along a half mile ridge line. The views are at the "top" and not the "summit". I urge you to poke around at the top of the climb as the views are pretty darn stunning for a scant 800 foot investment. Of course, you might not have a choice but to poke around!

I have a motorcycle. It's a dirt bike. It's a KTM. I don't ride it much. You see, when you have a KTM there is a certain expectation that you have to live up to as far as having a certain amount of skill and ability to deserve a KTM. The guy painting the white rectangular blazes on the North Mountain Trail "deserves" his paintbrush LESS that I deserve my KTM. Seriously, if you are going to emulate the Big Dogs, at least try to do it well. The blazes of this trail are old, worn, widely spaced and in-distinct. It is super easy to wander off on the ascent as there are often several ways that the trail "could go" and no clear indication which way that it should go! A minor annoyance once you realize that there are no side trails or any thing and that you can't really get lost up there. On a positive note, the coming down was even less clearly blazed than the going up, but it was daily clear where the trail went on the descent.

The walk back to the Jeep was a little more rushed that I would have liked, as I was late getting home. It wasn't until then that I saw my first Human either, so I knew that my time alone was truly over for the time being. Tomorrow is a day of places that I don't want to be and then bad to work the next day. Then event after event after event. It might be some time before I have any time to go rambling by myself again. I look forward to that opportunity though. It can't come soon enough!