Cabot, The Bulge, The Horn 5/29/2015

Today's the day. I finally put plans together to hike Mt. Cabot. This peak is the northern most 4,000 footer in New Hampshire which puts it at about a 3 hour drive from my house in Southern Maine. I have a general rule that the hike should last longer than the drive. This hike is borderline for sure as book time is exactly 6 hours and I generally beat the book by an hour or more. Perhaps a loop is in order?

I woke up a little earlier than normal. 4:45am. I figured I would attempt to hit the trail by 8 as soon as the fish hatchery gate opened up. I hit the roads before 5AM and after a quick stop at Dunkin Donuts for my morning pick-me-up I arrived at the trailhead and hit the trail at 8:15. 

I made good time on the York Pond Trail and hit the Bunell Notch Trail in no time. The only issue I had was that the trail was very wet and the trail was fairly grown in so I got pretty wet pretty quickly.  I made good time though to the Kilkenny Ridge Trail. 

I continued on to Cabot Cabin.

This is my type of cabin. 

I continues on to the summit of Mt. Cabot. #42 in the books. 

At this point I had made pretty good time so I opted to make a loop out of today. 

I made the summit of The Bulge and then  took the side trail to The Horn where I took the panoramic photo below. 

I kept on going to Unknown Pond. 

Today I saw a lot of flowers. Trillium were everywhere and I even saw some White Lady Slippers. 

Today was a great day in the mountains. I bagged 3 peaks on the 100 highest list over 11.5 miles. 

Until next time.