Today was a beautiful spring day and I took advantage of it by hiking on Mt. Wachusett with fellow GayOutdoors members Rick, Carlos, Russ, Dave, Jim and Markus. 

We started near Machias Pool, at the intersection of Westminster and Administration roads.

We were, as ever, excited and rarin' to go as we walked around the gate at the Stage Coach trailhead. 

We soon reached the intersection with the Harrington trail, and as we continued up the mountain the trail got progressively steeper. 

It didn't take us long to get to the top of the mountain, where we stopped and had lunch. Generally, the top of the mountain isn't very attractive; it's covered with radio towers, parking areas and other generally ugly structures. 

Nonetheless, we managed to find a spot near a building that shielded us from the wind.  The ski area was still operating. We observed skiiers getting off the chairlift and skiing down into a mess of slushy snow and puddles of water. 

After finishing lunch we stood around for a while at the top of the mountain, looking at other mountains in the distance. We could easily pick out Mount Monadnock off to the north and the Boston skyline.  

The rest of the afternoon was a slow, leisurely descent back to the car, meandering all over the mountain on the way. The first leg, on Mountain House Trail, started from the paved road and led us to a wide path with yellow and blue blazes entering the woods to the left of the radio towers.  Mountain House Trail then met up with the Jack Frost Trail, which in turn took us to the High Meadow Trail.

The trail is somewhat obscure in places, but blue triangular blazes show occasionally as we dropped quite steeply. 

The "payoff" for the descent was a nice little break at Echo Lake. We stopped and thought about swimming in it this summer. Taking the Echo Lake Trail, we returned back to our cars.