Mount Major is a twenty-minute drive from my home. In the 16 years I have lived here, I have driven by the parking lot for the Mt. Major trails many times but I have never climbed up it. I decided that I was finally going to do that this fall as soon as there was a confluence of a crisp, clear day and a clear schedule. Yesterday was that day (ok, so I simply declared my schedule was clear).

I packed my backpack with a windbreaker, bottle of water, camera, binoculars, an apple, cookies, and dog biscuits (for my dog). As hoped, there were only a few cars in the trailhead parking lot--drive by Mt. Major on a summer day and cars are lined up along the roadside for a couple miles on either side of the parking lot.

 Tex and I started up, taking the Boulder Loop Trail as our "best hikes with dogs: New Hampshire & Vermont" book (Lisa Densmore, Montaineers Books, ISBN 0-89886-988-9) suggested. The only person we saw on the way up was a hiker coming down on a side trail a hundred yards or so to our right. My 3yo pup had never hiked a mountain but he runs with me several times a week so he had the stamina and his long legs propelled him up and over boulders like they weren't even there. He was having a blast. I was impressed with how clean the trails (and the summit) were--very very little trash.

We got to the top and had one moment alone before a couple women appeared from the main trail. The three of us did some picture-taking swapping. Mount Major is known for its scenic payoff compared to its modest short climb. The sweeping view of the Lakes Region on a clear day is stunning. Then a couple lone climbers appeared--one older gentleman who apparantly hikes Mt. Major several times each morning. The other was, we discovered, a neighbor of mine I had never met.

After summit pleasantries and my dog doing his best to beg other people's snacks, Tex and I decided to head down. We met one or two couples and one or two dogs along the main trail. I leashed Tex up when he and a young male black Lab decided that roughhousing on the side of a rather steep rocky cliff seemed exciting. We were winding down a peaceful morning when suddenly the real Mount Major appeared in the form of literally hundreds of schoolchildren on a fall field trip.

They just kept coming and coming and coming. And they all were exceedingly polite and loved my dog, which will put even the Devil himself in my favor. Tex was patted around 350 times. "He's so soft!" "Oh, look a dog, he's so cute!" "I have a dog named Rex!" We stopped and stopped and stopped. Tex's tail wagged and wagged and wagged. Then when we got almost to the parking lot, the next to last person was someone I knew--a teacher who was taking her 5th graders on the hike.

Tex and I climbed into the truck and wound our way out of the now-packed parking lot trying to see past the long line of cars now alongside Route 11. Twenty minutes later we were home. Young Tex plopped on the rug in the sun by the open door. And I got back to the work I had decided had to play second fiddle to a beautiful fall morning in New Hampshire.

Cheryl Kimball is a freelance writer/editor. She lives in Middleton, NH.

Photo of Cheryl Kimball and Tex by an anonymous hiker.