This post will mostly be about Beth’s dog, Lilja, with a little hiking thrown in. 🙂

Beth had the day off, so I decided to take the day off, too. The star of the show, Lilja, would also be joining us. I selected Middle Sister. It was the right distance and elevation gain for me, it was a 52 With a View that I hadn’t done yet, and bonus, other hikers indicated it was a good hike for dogs. I had also already hiked about 80% of the trail, since it shares the same approach as Mt. Chocorua most of the way up.

On the way to the trailhead, I stopped at my favorite stop before hiking Chocorua (which is right next to Middle Sister).

View of Mt. Chocorua (and probably the three sisters to the right? I don’t think there is anything in front of them that would be blocking the view, but I didn’t check) from Chocorua Lake.

We got to the trailhead around 9:30. Plenty of parking, as it was a Friday. That wouldn’t be the case on the weekend. Just before 10, we started.

One of us is apparently a bit camera shy and also ready to go after a long car ride.

Taking Champney Brook Trail, you almost immediately come to a water crossing. Actually a few of them. We all did great as the water was quite low.

At 1.4 miles, there is a junction to optionally head to Pitcher Falls and Champney Falls. We didn’t take the short diversion to Pitcher Falls, but did climb the stone steps to ascend to the top of Champney Falls.

Lilja taking it all in. I warned you this would be more about her than about the hike.

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Quite a few people were enjoying the falls, sitting on rocks, or playing in the water. But it wasn’t too crowded. Low water meant that the falls weren’t at full capacity, but still nice.

The falls trail rejoins the main trail, and we continued up.

Loads of lovely moss, some mushrooms, blueberries, lichen, a toad, and some ghost pipe!

Between these two junctions were several switchbacks and the trail was definitely less “nice” as far as footing is concerned, than it was previously. As you can see where Beth is standing, it was a lot more rocky from the top of the falls on. At this junction, we headed to Middle Sister rather than Mt. Chocorua. As I said, I’d already done Chocorua, and Lilja probably wouldn’t love the scrambles at the top. She and I have a lot in common.

Next we came to a little ledgy stretch, with some nice previews of the views to come.

As the trail wound toward the summit of Middle Sister, we got a nice view of Chocorua, and could see people at that summit.

Beth snapped this pic of me. I’m probably yelling at her not to take pics of me.

Then the summit of Middle Sister!

Middle Sister has the remains of a fire tower. A couple of fun facts about that. 1) During WWII, women staffed the fire tower, recruited by the USFS, they were known as WOOFs, Women Observers Of the Forest. Which was perfect for Lilja, doing her best WOOF impression. 2) The fire tower was originally meant to be built on Chocorua, but the community was against it, so it was built on Middle Sister instead.

View of Chocorua from Middle Sister. If you follow the green ridge to the left coming off of Chocorua in the photo, you see the small lake with the blip on top. That’s the bridge we stood on to take the photo at the lake we stopped at on the way to the hike.

We all enjoyed a snack, some water, and a break at the summit.

I’m not exactly a dog person. Clearly, I’m not anti-dog, I’m just not you know, a DOG PERSON. As several of my friends can attest, I don’t allow kisses. Well. Lilja apparently doesn’t accept that.

After this brutal dog attack, it was time to descend

Just before the junction back onto the main trail, I went off into the woods looking for some place to pee. Beth and Lilja sat on a rock at the junction to wait. As I was coming back, I hear hikers and a dog approach Beth and Lilja. Now, Lilja is a VERY GOOD GIRL, who sometimes doesn’t love it when other dogs get up in her face (like I said, we have a lot on common). Beth keeps her leashed, and lets oncoming dog owners know that she may not be friendly. Lilja already had two dogs come running (unleashed) right up to her earlier in the day, and Lilja was a VERY GOOD GIRL. The approaching dog was an off leash chihuahua with no regard for personal space. He ran right up to Lilja and his owner did little to help, despite Beth’s warning. I’m witnessing all of this from the trees. Poor Lilja ended up barking at the chihuahua and the owner finally scooped him up and they began to hike away as I “burst out of the trees” (Beth’s words). So here I am, not a dog person, ready to fight some random hiker because his dog got too close to Lilja. Hey, once you’ve licked me, you’re part of my family, I guess.

As I said, it was time for us to descend. But poor Lilja wanted to go UP the way the chihuahua had gone. I’m certain she wanted to go kick his ass. We had to practically DRAG her down the trail. She kept stopping and trying to turn around. Or just laying down.

I said, “let’s go”. This was the reaction I got.

She finally decided it was okay to descend, and stopped trying to go up the trail. I think it was around the point that we were going down the main trail, just after the falls trail splits off. I really did wonder if the chihuahua had gone up the falls trail, so she couldn’t smell him anymore and that’s what changed her mind about descending.

The water crossing were a welcome rest. At one point, Beth and I changed our socks, which always feels great. Lilja greatly enjoyed soaking her feet. And at one point, just sitting right in the brook.

Beth saw these two trees and said they looked like they were hugging, and noted that they were two different species, in love. We may have been a bit tired at that point.

And we did it!

• Total distance: 7 miles
• Elevation gain: 2,100 feet
• Total time: 7 hours, 24 minutes
• Moving time: 5 hours, 44 minutes