Day 9, Maine and New Hampshire

Alli: Everyone thinks hell is a place down under, but let me tell you, we found it 4,000 feet up a mountain in New Hampshire, and after hiking for 7 hours we realized that we needed a vacation from our vacation.

Jessie: In a 9.5 mile hike, you would expect to drink a lot of water. Dad and Alli drank about a gallon a piece, and sweated off at least five pounds, while I only drank 8 ounces and never broke a sweat. Before the hike both Dad and Alli planned to break me because it was going to be the highest mountains we had ever climbed, but unfortunately they broke themselves down while I remained in fairly good shape.

Alli: The trail was no doubt the hardest hike we've ever done, but the view at the top was spectacular. We hiked along the ridge (Appalachian Trail) of 3 mountains, taking lots of pictures of the valley below. Everything below us was covered in a blanket of trees, with the shadow of passing clouds rolling over them. We were exhausted and running low on water by the time we reached the summit of the third mountain and decided to rest for awhile before heading down the path. Thankfully though, there was a rest stop/shelter called the Greenleaf Hut that provided us with lemonade, shade, and an opportunity to refill our water bottles. We ate what remained of our lunch here before continuing our decent down the mountain. It took about an hour and forty five minutes to finish the trail, and were so happy when the parking lot came into view. Everyone was so sore so we decided to take a few Advil and make our dinner fast and super-sized so we could relax and wash off in our hotel room. We also decided to cancel the hiking trip we had planned for tomorrow (we had done enough hiking to last us the whole week), leaving Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Factory and Cabot Creamery as the only things left on our to-do-list.

Mark: While I wouldn't want to hike these trails again I'm glad we did because the view at the top was amazing. The girls were real troopers with only a bit of complaining. Tomorrow we get to sleep-in and have an easy travel day.

p.s. We started the day in Maine at Grafton Notch State Park. The only thing we did here was to see Screw Auger Falls and Gorge. Very pretty, short hike, and well worth the 20 mile detour.