Hiking Mt Monadnock

Second weekend of June 2024. I joined some friends for a hike to Mount Monadnock, a popular mountain in southern New Hampshire.

The day was June 8. One of my friends in the Boston area just got himself a new ride and was looking for some experience on the expressway. Thus I proposed we could head into New Hampshire for some hiking. Weather forecast indicated chances of rain further north in the White Mountains, so we decided on Monadnock, a popular mountain in southern New Hampshire.

Due to its popularity, Monadnock State Park only offered 225 parking slots each day. While leaving Boston in the morning of June 8, I found there were only ~20 left and hence booked it on the go. I believed by the time we reached Monadnock, they were all taken.

As we approached Monadnock it started to drizzle, then the rain got more intense as we were parked. Hence, we spent about 15 minutes at the "Monadnock Ecocenter" by the trailhead, waiting out the rain. By the time we set off onto the trail at 11:25am, the rain had stopped.

Here's GPS tracking:

About 1km (0.6mi) into the hike, the trail forked into "White Cross Trail" and "White Dot Trail". They were so named because one was marked with white crosses on trees and rocks, and the other with white circles. They would converge shortly before the summit. They were both steep and rocky, with "White Cross Trail" being the easier of the two.
When it's our turn to choose, my friends randomly picked "White Cross Trail", not knowing it's the easier one. That's a fact well appreciated later in the day.

Once onto White Cross Trail, it first got rocky, and quickly steep too. In my opinion it's not technical, with patience and caution most people should have no issue with that trail.

With breaks here and there, it took us just under 2 hours to reach the summit of Monadnock, which offered 360-degree views.

However, wind was actually very strong that day, blowing from the west. We climbed Monadnock from its leeward eastern side, so we had been sheltered from the wind for most of the hike. That's not the case as I tried to take the following video marking our summitting of Monadnock, where just standing on the summit was somewhat of a struggle.

So I quickly retreated back east, joined the crowd seeking shelter from the wind. Despite its popularity, the summit block of Monadnock was large enough that people could spread out easily.

In the end, we spent about 30 minutes at the summit of Monadnock, before heading back down (along the easier "White Cross Trail"). An hour and 10 minutes later, we were back at the parking lot, concluding the hike.

END