We arrived at the trailhead at 10:15 AM, the first car there.  Our expedition consisted of me, Dickens, the hiking dog host of this site, and my human Bruce, along with his friend Fred Bump. 
     At the start of the trail we saw an ominous sign warning that the trail had been damaged by the ice storm of December 2008 and that the trail was hard to follow in places.  A mere bagatelle for hiking veterans such as ourselves!
     It was a beautiful day for hiking.  The weathermen erroneously missed predicting rain the night before, but by Saturday morning the clouds began  to dispel, and it soon became sunny with temperatures up as high as 83 degrees F.
     Soon we came to a large, grassy field where we saw a turkey fly away to our right.  After that we went into the woods, passed some private buildings and crossed a private dirt road, then ascended to an open area with views off into the distance.  We could see Mt Monadnock to our west and the Wapack Range to our south.   Bruce saw an osprey and we also saw a few other birds that we couldn't identify before they zoomed out of signt.
     Going back into the woods there were many blowdowns to try to bypass.  When we came to the stream I had a refreshing bath.  Here, the trail was hard to find.  It crosses the stream and then bears slightly to the left and up a wet area which looks like a streambed but is actually the trail. 
     Our trail was named the Shannon trail and Bruce wondered if it were named after singer Del Shannon.  This part of the trail began ascending steeply.  We passed another nice lookout, a large area with flat rocks and grass.  But we decided to continue to the top and have lunch there.   This proved a wise choice because the view on the top was better, and there was a nice breeze there and some shade. 
     After going up, the trail then went down for a long section, which was confusing.  But Fred said, if it goes down, it will surely go up again later, and so it did.  It kind of winded to the right around the back of some high points. 
     One more step pitch up and we arrived at the top ledges at 12:02 PM.  There was a wonderful view of Mt. Monadnock and the four lakes below it.  To the south we could see North Pack Monadnock and a series of Wapack Range mountains behind it.  To the east we could see a few low mountains.  The north view was blocked by trees. 
     While we were having lunch a couple of crows flew by.  Bruce also saw a merlin and a couple of other birds which went by too fast for us to get a good look at them. 
     After lunch Bruce and I explored a bit.  Following the yellow blazes of the Shannon trail, we went up to a knob above the lookout where there was a  tall cairn.  We took this to be the actually summit of Crotched Mtn (2055 feet).  This was the 375th mountain which Bruce has climbed.  In fact, it was a first ascent for all three of us.
     After that, the three of us went a little ways down a blue blazed side trail nearby.  However, we didn't want to overdo it on an early season hike, and we decided just to return the way we came. 
     When we had decended a little ways, we met a man, about 40, and two young ladies about 17 and 15 with him.  He told us that he had climbed this mountain frequently. 
     Arriving back at the lower lookout, we stopped to drink and munch on some pretzels.  We saw a fuzzy brown caterpillar.  Fred asked Bruce why Texas has a long panhandle but Oklahoma has a very long strip of land stretching out north of it.  Wouldn't it have made more sense, Fred said, to have Oklahoma own all the way across or to have the Texas panhandle go all the way north to get rid of the long narrow strip of Oklahoma land.
     "You are lucky to ask me that question," Bruce said, "because I happen to know the answer.  Many years ago when the boundaries were being delineated, they had a popular game called  'Game of the States' where you had tokens and would buy goods of one kind, and then throw the dice and move on a map from state to state to deliver the goods in other states.  It helped speed up these deliveries wonderfully if you could move from New Mexico by way of the strip of land in Oklahoma all the way to Arkansas without having to stop and go through Texas.  And that's why they made the boundaries the way they did."
     After stopping here we proceeded downhill and arrived back at the bottom at 2:15 PM. Overall this was a beautiful mountain and worth returning to in order to complete the ridge walk on the top.

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