Hiking the Carters: A Magical Foray into "Almost Winter"

I am approaching the finish line for hiking the 48 4000-footers of the White Mountains, and this past weekend I hiked the Carters, which put me at number 47.  Just one more to go, and then New Hampshire is MINE.

The Carters were a really fun hike.  A bit on the longer side (about 15 miles), but nothing difficult enough to make me curse the gods.  And there was surprisingly no snow and minimal ice - it was barely winter up there.  Just a pleasant stroll up a mountain, along a ridge line (got some great views), and back down a different trail. 

We've got the Presidential Ridge... somewhere back there

I traveled with Sterling and Mike, who are experienced hikers, so our pace was pretty impressive.  Also, we had some great conversations along the way, including re-hashing our previous idea of creating an Appalachian Trail relay that we had come up with while hiking Owl's Head.

Due to the fact that we started hiking pretty late (10am - Yikes), we didn't get down to the end of the trail until about an hour after sunset, so we had to whip out our headlamps and try to avoid the icy patches.  The other thing was that when we finished hiking, we were still about 2 miles from where we parked the car, but luckily some hitchhiking assuaged that issue.

If I had to sum up the Carters hike: it was a pleasant hike with some good views and my knees were in no way exploding by the end.

Carter Dome Summit.  Or the picture from a 90's boyband.  Your call.