10 (+2) Memorable Hikes

Mount Tom Ledges

One of the views from Roberts, which didn't make the list but deserves a pic!

On July 25 of last year I hiked Mount Roberts officially ending (perhaps prematurely) my post-surgery "rehab" phase.  I thought it was the first of my "52 With a View" (52WAV) mountains, which is a hiking list in New Hampshire that I planned to pick away at. Turns out I was wrong and we have photographic evidence that I climbed South Moat years before.  Oh well....lets not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Now--as we drift to the first "Roberts Anniversary" I thought it would be fun to do a "top ten" list of hikes that I have undertaken since then.  The system I used was extremely unscientific.  Essentially this list reflects the hikes I have thought about the most since.   Perhaps they aren't actually the "best" so much as the most memorable. There is something about each of them that calls me back from time to time when I am doing something else. 

Since that is the primary requirement, they have little in common.  There are 52WAV's and NH 4,000 footers (NH 48).  However there are hikes in Maine and Massachusetts as well.  Some mountains--like Watatic and Wachusett--that I always enjoy are not here.  In the end, though, it is a pretty well curated list.  Some are short and some are easy.  Others are...otherwise.  In any case, here they are in descending order as they rank in my memory:

1) Mount Tom Ledges (MA)
2) Welch & Dickey (NH 52WAV)
3) Mount Liberty (NH 48)
4) Mount Norwottuck (MA)
5) Mount Shaw (NH 52WAV)
6) Firescrew & Cardigan (NH 52WAV)
7) Galehead-Garfield Loop (NH 48)
8) Mount Agamenticus (ME)
9) Mount Whiteface and Rollins Trail (NH 48)
​10) Mount Tecumseh (NH 48)

I also wanted to include two "Honorable Mentions".  The first, North and South Twin, may make it on next year's list.  They aren't on it now because I haven't had a chance to let it settle in and actually "remember" them.  It was just last weekend! Still...that was a pretty good hike.

The second, Morgan/Percival and Kearsarge is really two hikes on the same day, which feels like its own category.  The first was planned and the next was spontaneous.  Barreling up Kearsarge after Morgan and Percival I realized that just maybe I know what I am doing...sometimes.  I remember it during despair-time on other hikes. It, too, is special to me but I couldn't figure out how to separate the two hikes.

Anyway, here it is.  Maybe I should come up with a prize for anyone who hikes them from July 25, 2022-July 25, 2023.  That would be fun...

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Random view from Welch/Dickey