It was Columbus Day Weekend so we knew we wanted to make an attempt to avoid the crowds but still do some hiking. What we decided to do was to climb Mount Hale but to get an early enough start to be up, down, and home again before the traffic got crazy on the trails or the roads. We managed to get to the trail head and actually hiking by 7:30ish. Not too bad considering it takes us a couple of hours to drive there.

      The forecast wasn't the best once again but the trail is lovely and the fall foliage glistening from the rain/fog made it beautiful out! A little over half way up we crossed Hale Brook for the second time at a nice little cascade and in no time we could see the foggy summit up ahead. We're the type that don't really mind hiking in inclement weather but this is the fourth week in a row that we were in the clouds and we admit it was getting old.

      Once we got there it wasn't quite as socked in as it had looked and I got a great picture of Louise standing by the summit cairn. There was no view to see but I could tell by how much the trees had grown that it would not be nearly as impressive as it was on my first trip up here in July of 1987. I guess trees do grow in 15 years!

      We played around on the summit a bit and Louise got a shot of me standing by the summit cairn. Oh yeah, there was one rather unusual sighting on the summit. It was something that I have never seen on a summit before and I would love to know the story of how and why it was there. If you want to know what "it" was go ahead and take a look.

      We found a spot out of the wind, had a quick snack in the fog and drizzle and actually layered up pretty good. It was 39 degrees and I'm putting the wind at around 25 - 30 mph. Plenty cool enough for hats and mittens when you're not moving! We had originally entertained the idea of looping down the Lend A Hand Trail, but opted out to get home nice and early.