Well, my first adventure for the new year is in the books. I hope to get back on track this year and hit some peaks as well as some out of the way places. My good friend Jon joined me on this trip. We went on a weekday so we had the trail all to ourselves. The trail was in great shape but the weather could've been better. It was snowing and/or freezing rain most of the trip and the warmer air made for a foggy environment.  Our tentative plan was to climb Noonmark Mt again, I've never been there in the winter. When we reached the junction and realized that we weren't going to have any views we decided to head toward the Boquet River lean-to instead. We had packed a lunch that required cooking and didn't want to do that in the rain and to be honest we weren't really ready to attack that short but steep climb up Noonmark on our first hike in quite a while. The hike into the lean-to would be a bit longer but much less steep.

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At the trailhead, plenty of parking spaces

From the early ascent, we can see the cliffs across route 73

At Round Pond, were thinking about a shortcut

"Come on, I think it's safe!"

Jon made the executive decision here after seeing the distance to elevation stats

After a short water break at the junction, we headed on the trail that follows the Boquet River towards the base of Dix Mountain. It was a beautiful walk through mixed conifers. We crossed a few tributaries along the way and could occasionally see the base of Dix Mountain through the trees daring us to come closer. As we did get closer we could hear the wind howling at higher elevations and could imagine (based on experience) what it was like up there in the clouds.

This shot came out great, you can see the slides of Dix Mt in the background

One of the tributaries we crossed along the way looking very peaceful

On the way back, it cleared slightly and we could see our original destination, Noonmark Mt.