The Horn (3,905 ft)

Friday June 8, 2007

Hikers: Pat, Jodie, Lincoln, Luna

Miles: 10.6

Elevation Gain: 2,265 ft

Duration: 6 hrs

Jodie and I took the Friday before Memorial Day weekend off to go do a hike. Since we were going up to camp after the hike, we decided to do one of the hikes way up north – north of Berlin. I remembered doing a nice loop hike up the Unknown Pond Trail, over The Horn, The Bulge, and Mt. Cabot via the Kilkenny Ridge Trail, and back down the Bunnell Notch Trail. The loop is about 15 miles, which is pretty long, but I figured we’d have all day and it would be nice to get out. We got a late start, somewhat on purpose, because we wanted to sleep in, and didn’t start hiking until 11:30am. It was one of the first hot muggy days of the year, which made the hiking more difficult that usual. We made the hot hike up to Unknown Pond and had already drank more than half of our water.

We continued on, and climbed up to the summit of The Horn. The Horn is a nice rocky summit with some great views of the north country. The rockiness of the summit was a little difficult for the dogs; there were a couple big steps and scrambles. They did them without too much difficulty, but it makes me a little nervous when they jump down such big drops.

We paused to enjoy the views and some food. We discussed the hike ahead. We still had to climb up and over The Bulge and then up and over Cabot. The route ahead looked long and fairly difficult. We decided that we had had enough of a hike for the day and retraced our route back to Unknown Pond and the car. The last portion of the Unknown Pond Trail seemed to go no forever. Both Jodie’s legs and my own were tired from the hike, and not particularly used to all the effort – we don’t hike as much as we used to, nor run as much. Once at the car, the dogs enjoyed their dinner and promptly passed out in the back seat of the car. I envy them sometimes – play hard, and when you’re done, you’re done, time for sleep.

Jodie also posted some pictures from this trip in her post "For your viewing pleasure..." on The Weimaraner Chronicles.