This weekend was a big day for us. It was Ashley's first hike with the family and Emily's first mountain she has completely climbed by herself. It was also the first time Jen has been able to hike in about 4 months but the Doctor finally gave the OK to resume normal activities, and this, for us at least, is normal. Jen has actually set herself a goal of climbing Mt. Washington before the snow flies, which is going to require a lot of training hikes to step up to it in not a lot of time. Seems very ambitious to be shooting for that but it won't break my heart if we have to spend more time hiking than usual to build up to it! :-) This was the first step in her training. Sophia also joined us for the hike up Black Cap mountain, which is the highest summit in the Green Hills Preserve. Most of the mountains that form the backdrop of North Conway to the east are also in the preserve if you were wondering where it might be. It's 2369 feet high, but the trail starts from the height of land on Hurricane Mountain Road, which winds it's way steeply up the hills before reaching the parking lot. The trail itself is very gentle and climbs 550 feet in about 1.3 miles so it's great for kids or even non hikers if you ever get the urge to go for a little walk up that way. The summit is mostly open ledge with a few trees scattered about and has great views out over North Conway and of most of the White Mountains from various viewpoints. The hike took us about 3 hours round trip but that was with plenty of time at the top to hang out, take pictures and eat whoopee pies that Grammy had made. After the hike we headed down and got dinner on the deck at the Muddy Moose and then paid a visit to Zeb's for some rock candy. I think it's great that with all the gooey corn syrupy candy out there these days our girls favorite seems to be good old fashions rock candy. Not as easy to find as you'd think so it's always a treat when they do get some. Finally after that everyone, except me of course, fell asleep for most of the ride home. All in all it was a fun and successful day and was great to have the family back out on the trails. For more pictures from the hike you can click right here.
I also went on an overnight trip up to climb a few more of the Adirondacks 4000 footers the weekend before that with Ryan, Stephen, Greg and Dave. We left Saturday morning, drove the 5 hours to town, got lunch and headed out into the High Peaks Wilderness. We camped at the Marcy Dam interior outpost and the next day started early on the 16 mile hike of Boundary, Iroquois, Algonquin and Wright Peaks as well as hiking through the spectacular scenery of Avalanche Pass. It was a long tiring hike, bagging 3 of their 46 4000 footers up the steepest trail in the Adirondacks, or so they say. Seemed pretty steep to me that's for sure, but the scenery and views were awesome, even if the weather didn't actually clear up until we were back at the camp site two miles from the car and packing everything up to leave. We then got a quick bite to eat and headed home. Another late night return from the area and I have a feeling that's how they're mostly going to end up. Long way away and long hikes but beautiful scenery and if we're going to chip away at the Northeast 111 as our next hiking goal we don't have much choice. It was however a great trip with great company and for a bunch of pictures from that trip you can click right here.
The other big news is that Brooke is starting kindergarten. She's had orientation, met the teacher, and now tomorrow is the big day. She wants to ride the bus and is very excited about it so we're going to let her, even though that makes it seem like our little girl is growing up way too fast. She just doesn't seem old enough to be turned out into the world without us watching over her like that. She loved pre-school however and hopefully will like this next step just as much. Looking at the homework they have she might be a bit bored with that (practice writing your letter A's and number 1's. Really?? She's been able to do that for a couple years!) but hopefully has fun in school none the less. We'll also be headed up to Acadia for Labor Day weekend, this time with the Haas's. The girls are really looking forward to it, we always look forward to going there, and since we missed out on our annual Memorial Day trip to start summer this year we are finishing off summer with a long weekend up there. So there should be a lot to report back here on in the near future. For now we hope you enjoy what we've got and check back with us soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment