Camping #4

This is probably my last camping post regarding my trip in July. I didn't take any pictures this past weekend and that will probably be the same case come next month's trip.

On Monday morning, I climbed Bald Mountain, also the home to the Rondaxe Fire Tower. It's unbelievable that back in the early 1900s someone thought to climb this mountain, found the top to be mostly rocks with a great view and transported building supplies for housing and the tower and then people lived there for years to watch for forest fires and survey the surrounding land.

The mountain's peak is 2,350 feet up and it's just under a mile from parking lot to peak. It took me 45 minutes to get up and another 45 down, not bad for an out of shape asthmatic climbing over rocks and tree roots and several "hills and valleys" before getting to the actual peak. The path is not really obvious at times and I often wondered if I was going in the right direction - the hills and valleys on the way up only made it seem more confusing. I thought it would be faster coming down but I only shaved off about 5 minutes while dealing with the rocks and roots in reverse.

Yes - these next  photos are the actual hiking path - made of rocks and tree roots!

I was able to get an early start on this hot day so the fog was gorgeous

The view from the top was amazing - and after climbing the restored Fire Tower the view was 360 degrees!



One of these mountains was Blue MT where I went to the museum.

In a local store I had found this great book that pointed out various mountains and such from 16 different points around the compass. Well worth the ten bucks. The book is shown on a topographical map at the top of the tower.

And just to prove it was me on the mountain:

Hmm...maybe I need to climb this again in September to do a little leaf peeping...