Sparkling Autumn Afternoon on Treadway Mountain

We arrived at the trailhead at 11am. As usual, the attendant at Putnam Pond wanted to see Sunny's official physical immunization records, even for the day use pass. They don't just accept their tags; you need a letter from the vet. It's kind of wild. We were burned by this pretty bad several years ago, so I'm always prepared now.

The parking lot was busy, but there were still several spots left. We suited up pretty quickly. I swapped out for the lighter 1.5L bladder this time and also managed to remember my trekking poles which was a big help today.

The early Autumn woods were very pretty today, even on the lower elevations. The fecund smell of damp earth and freshly-discarded leaves permeated the cool air. The early section of the hike is well-worn and rocky. Some of the inclines have been fitted with stone stairs. After the Grizzle Ocean junction, the ground gets more earthy. The trail is a joy to hike on.

Early Autumn really exposes the diversity of each section of the forest. Here we transitioned from the largely birch section to this magical stand of Red Maple.

We traveled the two flattish miles to the Treadway junction in less than 45 minutes. Here, I popped a squat on a log and ate half my sandwich. It was nearly noon and I wanted to make sure I had enough fuel for the climb.

Views across water are uniquely beautiful and require a fraction of the effort as opposed to climbing a mountain. The view across Mud Pond to Big Clear Pond Mountain was gorgeous. We didn't see any moose in the wetlands today.

The climb up Treadway starts shortly after crossing a little bridge past the pond. As usual, the climb is gradual at first featuring short climbs followed by flattish runs. There are even a small number of switchbacks on the trail.

There are a number of ups and downs along the way, including two relatively substantial ones, though they are far from soul-crushing. It's quite a lovely climb, honestly, especially on this day with the golden sun streaming through the pines.

There was one longish flat section between the easy half and the steep half of the climb and here I was stung by a wasp or hornet for the first time in my hiking career. It hurt like the dickens and (despite knowing better) felt like the thing stung me right to the bone. I had Sunny run ahead with me for about a minute just in case I'd disturbed a nest and there were a lot more. Fortunately, I was only stung the once.

As the trail ascends up the Southern shoulder of the mountain, short sections of clear terrain start to open up. The soil is very thin up here and erosion has revealed the feldspar and quartz. This rock is very easy to walk on; it's extremely hard and porous.

The open sections use cairns for navigation. I'm not sure if they've decided to forego trail markers to save the stunted trees up here from injury or if they're just so short-lived it's not feasible.

This shelf was the most technical part of the hike, but it was not really anything to write home about. However, I do sometimes see folks wondering on social media how dogs can manage to attack these formations. I took some rapid-fire shots of Sunny scaling the cliff. In the photo above, you can see all 1d6 of Sunny's brain cells working out the problem.

I genuinely believe that he has a plan in his mind for he pulls the trigger. This updog made it look easy. By contrast, I had to struggle my short, chubby ass up these ledges.

More open sections greeted us as we crossed along the shoulder. It was such a beautiful day and I was glad to feel the sun from time to time as we climbed.

There was a lot of really pretty Quartz up there, some of it a whimsical shade of pink. Some of the Quartz has broken up to pebbles, forming a lovely gravel path in some areas.

We soon crested the false summit. Here, we gazed across a bit of a half-bowl to the true summit. Sunny and I visited with a few people here before moving on.

After the false summit, although the trail does continue to follow the ridge, we were still greeted by another dip in the terrain through a stand of evergreens. It wasn't disheartening or terribly inconvenient; we were soon climbing again.

We arrived at the summit shortly after 1pm, two hours after we'd started from the trailhead. It was a truly glorious day and I was instantly glad I'd made the time to come out and hike this mountain. There were several people on the summit today, some of them talkative and others who didn't really want to chat.

I set up my chair near (but not on) the true summit of the mountain. I thought the view here was the pick of the litter. Still, all the other hikers decided to go to the West side of the mountain to take in the obscured view of the High Peaks behind Pharaoh Mountain. I relaxed, ate the rest of my sandwich, and sipped my summit beer. After an hour of dozing and gorgeous views, I headed back down.

The hike back was decent. The knees have seen better days, but I was grateful for my trekking poles. Sunny got lots of pets from people heading up the mountain, so he was very satisfied with the trip. The final 170' climb back over the foot of the mountain starting a mile from the trailhead was nowhere near as painful as it had been last time when I'd been carrying full backpacking gear.

We were back at the trailhead around 3:30. This hike, though well under four hours of moving time, was well worth the drive. I made it to camp early and enjoyed a bit of dinner and fire time with family. All in all it had been a great day and I'm hoping for many more great Autumn days to come.