Hiking The Trail
The MSG is blazed with white rectangles. It is regularly maintained, and is considered moderately difficult hiking. Mount Monadnock is regarded as a challenging hike for novice hikers during favorable weather conditions. As the crow flies, the MSGT route is never more than a mile or two from a public road, however, cliffs and steep terrain make access much more difficult in some areas. Trail descriptions are available from a number of commercial and non-commercial sources, and a complete guidebook with topographic maps is published by the Monadnock-Sunapee Greenway Trail Club.
Weather along the MSG is typical of southern New Hampshire. Conditions on exposed hill tops and summits may be harsher during cold or stormy weather. Weather atop the exposed and isolated 3,100-foot (940 m) summit of Mount Monadnock can be much more severe than conditions below; high winds are common year round and winter storms on the summit can be life-threatening. Lightning is a hazard on exposed peaks and ledges during thunderstorms. Snow is common in the winter and may necessitate the use of cross country skis or snowshoes. Ice can form on exposed ledges and summits, making hiking dangerous without special equipment. Snow and ice tend to linger on Mount Monadnock well into the spring.
Biting insects can be bothersome during warm weather. Parasitic deer ticks (which are known to carry Lyme disease) are a potential hazard. The trail passes through black bear habitat, although problems with bears are rare. More likely are problem encounters with domestic dogs. Skunks, raccoons, and porcupines are common and active after dark. Poisonous snakes are considered extinct along the route. Poison ivy is uncommon on the MSGT and it does not thrive on Mount Monadnock at all. Some water sources along the trail flow through inhabited areas or swamps and may be contaminated.
Read more about this topic: Monadnock-Sunapee Greenway
Famous quotes containing the words hiking and/or trail:
“The westerner, normally, walks to get somewhere that he cannot get in an automobile or on horseback. Hiking for its own sake, for the sheer animal pleasure of good condition and brisk exercise, is not an easy thing for him to comprehend.”
—State of Utah, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“These, and such as these, must be our antiquities, for lack of human vestiges. The monuments of heroes and the temples of the gods which may once have stood on the banks of this river are now, at any rate, returned to dust and primitive soil. The murmur of unchronicled nations has died away along these shores, and once more Lowell and Manchester are on the trail of the Indian.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)