Amongst many projects we have going on here at the log cabin……a new firewood shed, a new deck with a hot tub and heat lamp……I HAVE COMPLETED THE NEW HAMPSHIRE 48!!!!!!!

The NH48 are 48 mountains over 4000 feet. They are rocky. They are challenging……like they challenged me to my core! When I first started, I thought they would kill me, but as I got in better shape and overcame a LOT of fears…..extreme weather, hiking alone, heights that sometimes induced vertigo…..I overcame and in the end was tackling each challenge with a much stronger mindset. After all, I discovered that most of the challenging parts of these mountains were a mind game.

I had a friend, K who had hiked many of them with me as well as a friend A that had hiked many with me but wasn’t interested in finishing the list. K and I decided that we should finish together and A told us that she wanted to come along on that last hike. So we set our eyes on Mount Washington as our finishing point and began literally hiking our arses off to finish out the list over the summer.

In order to finish, I had to complete some overnight backpacking trips. The Bonds and Owl’s Head were the longest of those trips. A and I backpacked through this beautiful area for 4 days and I was able to summit all 3 Bonds and Owl’s head via the slide, which I found pretty scary!

Nevertheless, after completing 15 of the 48, climbing a few extras to help K and hiking half of the Vermont AT in addition to a few other hikes, I ended my journey on the summit of Mount Washington on August 25, 2021. In retrospect, this was not as hard as I had thought, and I will be back, doing these again…..perhaps this time in the winter:)

Ciao for now…..Karen