Moats from Mall Parking Lot

We had no real goals, other than to enjoy. It was nice not to feel pushed for time and be able to hang out. You could see the long strip of North Conway, Cranmore Mt. (looking very small from up there), Kearsarge No., Washington, (barely peeking out of the haze), Chocorua, and loads of mountains I couldn’t name.

We took the same trail back. When we got to So Moat again, there were 4 people there. One of the guys offered to take a picture of us, with my camera. People are usually pretty good about offering that. We hung out on So. Moat for a while, taking in the views, and letting that group get ahead of us on the trail.

At some point I began to realize I was fried--total crispy critter. I had put some sun tan lotion on, earlier, but not a lot. Had been having such a good time hadn’t thought much about it. Most hiking is in the woods, and protected from sun. We carry lotion, but rarely use it. Sure needed it on the Moats, though. Even Joe was red, and he doesn’t burn much. Slathered on the lotion, but it was too late. Had no idea at the time how burned we were.

Stopped on some ledges for a snack, and to refill the water bottles from the spare Joe carries in his pack. After I ran out of water between Passaconaway and Whiteface two years ago, and became over heated, Joe carries a spare bottle of water buried in his pack. We almost never need it,  so he carries it for nothing, most times. But on this day I drank all my water, and he drank most of his. Before we were down, we drank most of the spare bottle too. Don’t think we have ever drank so much water on a hike.

Not only us who were affected that way, either. One couple we met on the trail, with two beautiful chocolate labs, turned back because both they and the dogs needed more water than they had. And on the way down we met a woman with 2 boys, about 8 and 10, going up (kinda late in the day we thought), and I didn’t realize it, but later Joe said the boys were collecting water in their water bottles from pockets of water on the ledges and drinking it. I thought they were just playing in the water, I didn’t realize they were drinking it. Expect they may end up rather sorry they did that.

The woman asked how far to the top, and trail conditions, etc. I warned her that while the trail was blazed in yellow paint on the way up, it was NOT well marked on the way down, and it was easy to strike off over ledges in the wrong direction. (I had.) You had to keep turning around to look back behind you to see the yellow blazes. People ‘adopt’ trails to take care of, and I’m betting the two trail maintenance people we saw always go south to north, over North Moat and out by Diana’s Baths. Leave one car up there in the morning, drive back to Passaconaway, and hike north. What this means is the trial itself is cleared of brush just fine, and the blazes for that direction are good, but the trail crew isn’t going south, so they don’t notice the blazes need to be marked for that direction.

Back at the car we had cold sodas, stored in an ice chest, that went down mighty fast. At home we got a good look at the sun burns. Joe had about the worst burn he has ever had. Face, neck, arms and legs. He was burned worse than I. Maybe because I had put on a little lotion earlier in the hike. I had a bad burn on arms and backs of legs. Looked like purple leather--yikes.

Even with the bad burns, this hike ranks up in the top ten for beautiful hikes, so far. Hope our pictures give some idea of how nice it was.