rime on summit tower

As I climbed to the top of the summit tower, I could hear ice crashing down. It turned out there was rime on the antennas that were attached to the tower. The sun was hot enough that there was a pretty constant sprinkling of ice coming down. I managed to avoid getting hit.


Here's the trip summary:

The elevation gain from the hikers' parking lot to the summit of Cannon is approximately 2100 feet with about 2 miles of hiking. I made it in about 2 hours for a pace of 1 mph. I was faster on the way out - it only took about 1.5 hours to get down, with a pace of 1.3 mph. This was despite the fact that the trail had accumulated more ice above 1000 feet (I think ice had been melting off trees, hitting rocks on the trail, and re-freezing).

Not bad for a late season hike! Normally I would have preferred something longer. But given that this is my first hike of the season, it was probably good that it was so short. My feet hung in there pretty well - no blisters for a change!

Soon after leaving the parking lot, there was a minor traffic jam where the highway is still only one lane. I saw a bus and a truck and a number of cars pulled over at the side of the road, and thought it was a multi-car pile-up. But in fact, it turned out that there were a couple of moose at the side of the road - a very large one and a smaller one (mother and child perhaps). People were slowing down to pull over and take pictures. I just kept driving!