The Best Adventures of 2013
As each year winds down, the media loves doing year end recaps: person of the year, sportsman of the year, best songs, notable celebrity deaths, best movies, top bloopers… In my quest to be a lemming I’d like to follow suit and recap my best moment from each month of the year.
January
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| First time making it to Wcahusett's cider lodge! |
It started right from the beginning The New Year’s holiday was spent in Burlington, Vermont, which is a beautiful, small city on the edge of Lake Champlain. Sara and I skied until we were the last ones on the slopes and skied out in dim light, we had a great dinner at a wonderful Bistro in Burlington’s outdoor mall, and we watched fireworks going off over Lake Champlain. OK, technically this was the ending of 2012, but I went to sleep after midnight so I’m lumping it all together. If that doesn’t count then it was the first ski of the season with my girls. The goal was for the girls to make it to a cider lodge halfway up the mountain by the end of the season, because of the trail difficulty in getting there. They proudly made it by the end of the first day and loved the fresh cider donuts as a reward!
February
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| Closing down the trails at Bolton Valley, VT in fresh powder! |
More skiing; we were slope-side at Bolton Valley, Vermont. The girls loved being slope-side (who doesn’t?) and they got a rush out of disappearing into the glades, hitting a wall with their hands as they skied over a manmade berm, and keeping their local Ben & Jerry’s ice cream cold on the balcony. It snowed several inches almost every day, for awesome conditions. At one point, during a final, snowy run of the day, as ski patrol closed off the trails behind us, I held back. I watched Sara and my two daughters dropping into their runs, fat flakes falling around them, and the mountains laid out before us, curving around like an enormous bowl. All were tired and thrilled, with a pool waiting at the finish line. Seeing everyone so caught up in the moment and each other in such a highlight-reel-of-life moment still chokes me up.
March
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| 2 feet of new snow at Mount Sunapee, NH! |
Snowfall amounts and timing haven’t always worked out really well in New England in the last few years. But one weekend there was an epic dumping. Two feet was perhaps the average, with plenty of places walloped with a thirty-plus accumulation. Sara and I ecstatically thought of the ski potential. But the governor issued an extremely rare ultimatum, banning travel on Massachusetts roadways. Well, there goes the ski day! When it was lifted late on Saturday, we made plans to hit Mount Sunapee, the closest good-sized mountain in New Hampshire, on Sunday. Apparently, so did roughly 187,469 other skiers, judging from lift lines. But conditions were incredible, we gravitated to a less crowded side of the mountain, we ate lunch in lift lines, and everyone was in a euphoric mood. As I caught my breath at the bottom of a set of moguls, watching Sara tackling them in her tele skis, I was smiling so broadly that my lips almost connected in the back of my head.
April
Hiking season started up, as Sara and I hit Mount Tecumseh in Waterville, New Hampshire. I was a secret mess of emotions, with the recent passing of my grandmother. But as I’d noted at the time, the way I embrace life is a way to pay tribute to the lessons she taught me. (http://rockhopperhikes.blogspot.com/2013/07/67-in-67-hike-4-mount-tecumseh-nh.html)
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| Tedy and I are finished with Mt. Tecumseh, 4,000-ft peak #3! |
May
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| Snow, floods, and smiles at Mt. Hale, NH |
This was far and away the craziest hiking of my life. We’d planned to hike up to AMC’s Galehead Hut in the White Mountains of New Hampshire for an overnight before hiking out for a hotel stay and après hike food. We wound up contending with floods, snow, AMC warnings, a hiking pole collapsing while precariously balanced on a thin pine tree over a roaring river (http://rockhopperhikes.blogspot.com/2013/07/67-in-67-hike-4-mt-hale-nh.html), dehydrated food eaten on the couch of the nearest cheap hotel, eleven icy ladders to climb and then descend (http://rockhopperhikes.blogspot.com/2013/07/67-in-67-hike-5-mt-willey-nh.html), blessedly wonderful pub food and warmth, and beautiful weather for a last day hike on the last Monday of May, which lead to feet soaked with snowmelt. Absolutely, thrillingly bizarre! (http://rockhopperhikes.blogspot.com/2013/07/67-in-67-hike-6-cannon-mountain-nh.html)
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| Life hands you lemons, Make dehydrated Tandoori chicken! |
June
I’m sure not picking the 11-mile Tripyramids hike when we had stashed water that got stolen! http://rockhopperhikes.blogspot.com/2013/08/67-in-67-hike-7-tripyramids-nh.html I can only assume that a day hike including 21+ miles, roughly 18,000 feet of elevation gain, and seven Presidential summits over 4,000-feet will be the most epic day hike I ever have. I lost two toenails over the 17-hour hike, but learned about myself and set new boundaries for what I’m capable of accomplishing. And I earned a nickname, felt immeasurably closer to Sara, and witnessed three beautiful sunsets in the same day, as we wound around the mountains in the fading light. When Sara was asked at work which Presidential mountain she climbed, she received a double-take when she answered “all of them.”
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| Sara and several of NH's Presidential peaks laid out in front of me, as we start the last leg of our 21-mi hike |
July
After all the Spring hikes, I spent July digging toes into the sand instead of pounding them on miles of rocks; chucking kids into the waves instead of hoisting a backpack onto my shoulders, and admiring a sun coming up over the ocean instead of going down over the mountains. It provided a chance to rejuvenate, to be purposeless, and there’s nothing cuter than kids on a beach.
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| Spending July moving at a slower pace |
August
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| Lunch with a view, from Mt. Avalon, NH |
There were so many great moments crammed into this month. We camped with another family on the coast of Maine, kayaking, playing along the shore, creating arts and crafts projects, and swapping stories around the campfire; my girls claimed their first summit; we spent a week in the mountains, hiking several and mountain biking. I stood by a waterfall (http://rockhopperhikes.blogspot.com/2013/10/67-in-67-hike-9-mount-jackson-mount.html), ate lunch on a rocky outcropping overlooking Crawford Notch (http://rockhopperhikes.blogspot.com/2013/10/67-in-67-hike-10-mount-field-mount-tom.html ), and downhill mountain biked at Bretton Woods. It’s hard to pick a single highlight. But, if forced to choose, I’d say it was the day Sara and I mountain biked at Vermont’s Kingdom Trails, near the Canadian border. They’re the best trails in the eastern U.S., and were once again exhilarating: the day includes eating lunch along a stream before feeling the g-force flying down between trees on a half-pipe, and showering off the dirt and grime before enjoying fantastic food and drink at the always-fun Moat Mountain pub. If that’s not a highlight day then what is?
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| Kingdom Trails, VT: best MTB in the Northeast! |
September
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| Wildcat's ski trails were a fun ending to our group hike to Carter Notch Hut! |
Easy choice for a highlight: backpacking with friends, hitting a few peaks, and staying at an AMC hut for the first time. The leaves were beginning to turn, with classic New England fall weather, and the enthusiasm of everyone staying at this small, off-the-beaten-path hut was intoxicating. We smiled often, whether sitting on our porch with wine and cheese, or celebrating a friend’s and stranger’s birthdays in the main lodge. This experience wasn’t about claiming any peaks, even though we did, but rather about the peaks as an excuse to share a fantastic experience with friends and strangers.
October
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| A well-earned break at the summit of Mt. Monadnock, NH! |
Despite having to exert themselves for hours and risk smelling a little gamey, my girls not only climbed Mount Monadnock, but they even managed to enjoy it. Oh, they didn’t want to, and were fully prepared to tolerate it only because I’m their dad and can force them to do things. But they still wound up having fun, learning about themselves, and having an accomplishment in which they can take pride (especially after witnessing a dangerous fall). I watched them grow in the course of the day from the experience, it fueled connections and memories, and it set the stage for being able to both push them and bond as a family in 2014. We’ll talk about this hike years from now, and about the future times it now enables. (http://rockhopperhikes.blogspot.com/2013/12/family-hike-2-mount-monadnock-nh.html)
November
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| Rock climbing at lower elevations! |
The biggest hike we took was along a deserted beach in Maine on a cold Thanksgiving vacation, looking for beach glass before warming up in an indoor pool. But when I got a North Face Cat’s Meow sleeping bag for my birthday, it made me think of next year’s adventures and planning on a multi-day hike of over 30-miles in the Pemigewasset wilderness.
December
I don’t know how this will end. Maybe there’s New Year’s Eve night skiing, maybe there’s another storm and some snowshoeing in the untrodden snow. But as of the writing of this, I do know a few things that already happened or are in store: my girls already got their new skis for the season, and are proud owners of seriously nice ski jackets. In picking things out for them, there are also the beginnings of some backpacking gear we set back, and I began secretly sizing them up for their first real backpacks. We’re getting close to knowing where we’ll book our February Vacation ski trip. Sara and I know we’re going to hike the whole Pemigewasset wilderness as I use my kick-ass new sleeping bag. We’ll bag some other peaks, too. The girls will hopefully have their first stay in a hut. We’ll probably camp with friends. We may have a week out West, hiking, playing in the water, and sitting around a campfire with family.
2013 included a lot of mountain peaks along with the ocean; time for Sara and me to explore remote parts of New England and for us to teach the girls how nature can be a fun way to learn about the world and ourselves. There was the bustle of a campsite or a hut with enthusiastic friends and strangers, and the remoteness of being the last ones down a ski trail or hiking a mountain in the falling snow. Whatever next year holds, this month has begun setting up the cycle to repeat again: more adventures, more memories, more bonding, more opportunities for us all to grow individually and as a family. It’s a great pattern that doesn’t get old, and I can’t wait to see how 2014 unfolds.
See you on the trail,
Jay, AKA Rock Hoper
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