Hiking Confession

I have a confession to make. Two weeks I posted on Facebook that I had bagged Mount Frissell, Connecticut's highest point. When my husband and daughter got up to where we thought was the summit, we ate snacks, snapped photos and headed home.

That night, when Chris was reading more about the mountain, he discovered we made a mistake that many do -- stopping on the top of Round Mountain, instead of continuing on to the south slope of Mount Frissell. Oops.

We had unfinished high pointing business in Connecticut.

So when we had to cancel our Mount Hunger Mountain hike due to snow up there, we decided to head back to Salsbury, CT to reach the true high point -- and then some.

Chris found an 11-mile trail that would take us to Bear Mountain, the highest peak in the state, back up to Round Mountain and on to the south slope of Mount Frissell. Because really, why do one mountain when you can do three.

We left our house at 6:30 a.m. to meet Chris's cousin Stacey (and fellow Kili hiker http://www.climbing4health.com/) and her friend Shannon at the Under Mountain trail head.

The first trek up Bear Mountain felt easy. We reached the top within two hours... the harder part was heading down the steep sections of the mountain. We had to be patient and scoot down a number of the more treacherous rocks.

Then on to Round Mountain (again!) where we had lunch to celebrate being five miles into the journey. I didn't bother to snap photos there...

From there, Chris thought it would take another hour and a half to the high point at Mount Frissell and then back down again. Tired legs and leaf-covered slope made this part of the journey even more difficult but I soldiered on -- because I really ddin't want to have to come back yet another time!

I was glad I did because I found the marker on the southern slope next to a large cairn. It was a bit anticlimatic as far as markers go -- but I was so grateful to see it because that meant I could head back.

We did soon as Chris signed the log book: "We came, we saw, we conquered three mountains and a high point."

We didn't make it down until 3:30 p.m. The sun was sinking so we had to hurry through our last three miles of the hike back to our vehicles. Thankfully, after heading up and down three mountains, the last part was pretty flat. That allowed us to zoom through the last bit. We actually had to switch on our headlamps for the last little bit.

It was a long day on the trail, but it really was a high point in my hiking history.

Fat Woman on the Mountain is available on www.fatwomanonthemountain.com and Amazon.com.