TRIP REPORTS, SEPTEMBER 1999
Newest first. Leaders, send me a paragraph or two within a week and I'll put it up.

Leader: Phyllis Adomaitis. Sweep: Ted Pirozzi. 12 hikers.

Twelve of us left Worcester at 5:45 in three cars and were on the Falling Waters Trail by 9:15. Falling Waters earns its name: three good falls in the first mile and a half, Cloudland the prettiest, and a lot of wet rock to go with them. Then it's a long, steady climb through the woods to the ridge at Little Haystack.

We came out above the trees at about 12:30 into a stiff northwest wind, maybe 30 miles an hour, gusting more. Everyone put on everything they'd brought. (Thank you all for bringing it.) The ridge itself was glorious: clear enough to see the whole Presidential Range to the east, and color just starting on the lower slopes. We walked north over Lincoln and up to Lafayette, ate a very fast lunch in the lee of the summit rocks, and headed down the Greenleaf Trail to the hut, where the croo sold us hot chocolate, and then down the Old Bridle Path. Back at the cars at 5:10. About nine miles and 3,800 feet of climbing.

Two of our newer members, Dana and Kevin, did their first S hike with us and never once complained, though Kevin did ask on the Old Bridle Path whether the mountain had been built by the same people who build airports. Welcome to the club, both of you.

Lesson of the day: Rich's boots, which he bought on Thursday. We have moleskin for everyone, but it would be nice not to need it.

Leader: Joanne Karalis. 17 hikers. (Sorry, dog owners: no dogs allowed on Monadnock.)

Monadnock is supposedly one of the most climbed mountains in the world, and on a sunny Sunday in September you believe it. We went up the White Dot Trail, which is short and gets steep and rocky in the upper half, and came out on the bare summit to wall-to-wall sunshine and about two hundred of our closest friends. The summit is open rock because of fires back in the 1800s, so the views go on forever. You could see the Boston skyline, and something that three people insisted was Mount Washington.

Down the White Cross Trail, which is a little gentler on the knees. About four miles round trip, and about 1,800 feet up. Ice cream in Jaffrey after. Seventeen people ordering at once. The girl behind the counter deserves a raise.

Leader: Ted Pirozzi. 9 hikers. Report by Ted.

Our home mountain, 2,006 feet, and the reason the club exists (we started in 1986 as a bunch of people who kept running into each other on it). We followed the yellow triangles of the Midstate Trail up through the reservation, detoured to see Balance Rock, which is still balancing, and had lunch on the summit by the fire tower. It was humid and hazy and the view was mostly of other people's lunches. Still a good day. Welcome to our three first-timers, all of whom have signed up for Monadnock.