[Journal entry for August 17, 2018; Mount Monadock, Jaffrey New Hampshire] On the way from New York to Maine, Dallas and I stopped by Mt Monadnock in Jaffrey New Hampshire.  We parked at the end of Poole Road, by the Park Store, and took the White Dot Trail (blazed with a white dot) up onto the mountain. Initially, the trail ascends steeply through hardwoods with sparse undergrowth.  We spent an hour or more scrambling up ledges of schist with a prominent pattern of finger-long crystals, crisscrossing each other at angles. I read later that they are pseudomorphs of sillimanite after andalusite, locally called “turkey tracks”.  Many of these ledges have scratches, grooves and flutes carved by Ice Age glaciers. The trail flattens when it reaches the plateau, and winds through sparse, low conifer woods and over rock ledges.  This part of the trail is marked by high cairns, not by blazes. Surprisingly, we passed several small wetlands, full of sedge. We could see the rock knob of the summit ahead of us, but hearing thunder we turned back, taking the White Cross Trail (blazed with a white cross) back down.  We passed many spots with good views out across the plains surrounding the mountain. We searched briefly for the Falcon Spring when we reached the intersection with the White Dot Trail, for it was marked on our hiking map, but though we found several damp spots, we found nothing remarkable.  Rain started to fall just as we reached out car.

About four hours.