Summit #5: Cannon Mountain

This past weekend I reached my half way point of climbing ten 4000-footers this year. My fifth summit of the year was Cannon Mountain, which is 4,100 feet high. We camped at Lafayette Place Campground, at the base of the mountain, with my whole family and my dad's college friend, Jason, and his wife, Jennifer. My dad and I have camped at this campground before, with Jason, last October when we climbed Little Haystack, Mount Lincoln and Mount Lafayette.

The morning we started on the trail it was very sunny and warm. We took off our sweaters before we even got a half mile up the trail. It was interesting to be climbing a mountain with no snow on the trail, since my first four mountains this year all had a lot of snow. About half way up the trail we reached Lonesome Lake, where my brother, Luke, fell in some deep mud and soaked his socks and shoes. But luckily, we brought along extra socks and shoes in case this kind of thing happened.

The trail around Lonesome Lake was muddy and a little bit snowy, but the view of Franconia Ridge was cool. From the AMC Lonesome Lake Hut we kept hiking around the lake and then up the mountain. Parts of the trail were very steep. My brother, Luke, got a little bit nervous on some of the high, steep parts, but I encouraged him to go on, and I helped him by carrying his hiking poles and telling him what a good job he was doing. My dad gave him a "courage plaster," just like someone once did for me on Mount Katahdin.

We got to the summit about 4 hours after we started. On the top of Cannon Mountain there is a large lookout perch and a tram station, so a lot of the people at the top didn't hike there like we did. The view was really cool. It was really neat to do one of my hikes with my whole family: me, my brother, my mom, and my dad.

We took a different trail going down the mountain. It was really steep. It was so steep in some parts that there was a wooden ladder. Though we didn't see many people on our hike up the mountain, we saw a lot of people on our way down. Most of the people coming up came from the Lonesome Lake Hut. This was the first mountain hike I've been on that I didn't see any dogs.

When we got to the bottom, we walked back to our campsite and then went for a late lunch at Woodstock Station, where I like to always go after a hike in Franconia Notch. I had a Rasberry Daiquiri, and it was really good. After eating, my mom and dad's friends took me and Luke to play miniature golf, and we saw a real live bear cub crouching behind a rock near the golf course.

If you'd like to see some pictures of our hike, click here. Thanks for all of the support and contributions you've been giving me.