The Two Bagger and Dust on My Nose

On Labor Day, Chuck, Mom, Ryan, Tyler and I went hiking. We had planned on doing a big day, but Ty had a headache in the morning. We were going to stay home, but he took a nap and woke up feeling better. And wanting to go. The weather was wonderful, so we went. We headed out to to Singepole in Buckfield.

The trail was in pretty good shape and we mostly made good time. Chuck was tired and lagging; doing his typical huffin' and puffin'. He always sounds so uncomfortable, I wonder why he likes hiking so much. As we hiked, Chuck and Tyler started picking up rocks and showing them to each other. This area is so rich with rocks, minerals and gems. Pretty soon, Tyler started putting rocks into Chuck's pack. Chuck wondered why Tyler was going to make him carry the rocks UP the trail, but Tyler kept doing it.

After about 40 minutes we were in the summit. As we soaked in the sun and family time, I sneezed. Unfortunately, when I sneezed, my nose was pointing at the dust on the rocks. This caused a big cloud of dust to go up into the air and all over my nose. Everyone thought it was hilarious. I'm not sure I saw the humor, but I'm always willing to be entertaining!

Mom didn't think the view was enough, so we decided to go climb Streaked Mountain, right next door. One peaked "bagged" and on to the next. We hiked down quickly, jumped in the car and off we went with Ryan looking for another dirt road so he could drive. (That won't happen, too soon.)

The road near the entrance to the trail at Streaked was packed. It looked like there were a hundred people up on the mountain.

We started up. This trail is pretty steep. Again, Chuck was lagging. Just before we got to the exposed rock, Tyler said he wasn't feeling well. Chuck offered (jumped at the chance) to go back down with him and let Mom, Ryan and me continue up. Which we did.

As we continued, we saw many people coming back down. There were lots of dogs, too, but I kept to myself and kept on climbing. When we reached the summit, we took some time to just hang out and explore a little. Mom took some pictures, too. This summit was the second we bagged for the day- my second two bagger!

We started back down. Ryan and Mom were chatting away, having some great mother son moments... they lost the trail. We ended up doing the same thing that Chuck and I did the last time we came up here; going way over to the right side of the rock face. We had to climb back up to find the trail again, so we could go down. That was okay, though.

I had a really fun time hiking with the whole family.

Black Diamond Trail Shock Trekking Poles - 2011 

Goose Eye From the Other Side

Saturday, September 5, 2009; Chuck, Ryan and I go hiking. Once again, Chuck leaves without a plan and not as early as he should...

We headed west out Route 26. This would give us greatest number of choices, I guess. First stop was at Chuck's new favorite store True North Adventurewear to pick up some trail food. Chuck is a big fan of Power Bar Gel Blasts, which are sold here. Chuck must have spoken with the guy that owns the place, because when he came out, he had decided to go the the Success Pond Road side of the Mahoosucs and do Goose Eye.

Chuck did something fun- and possibly illegal; as soon as we turned onto Success Pond Road he pulled over and let Ryan drive. My boy did great!

The trail head was quite a ways in, we entered New Hampshire with the Mahoosucs on our left. We past trail heads for the Speck Pond trail and the trail to Mahoosuc Notch (the toughest mile of the entire Appalachian Trail). And, then, we were at the trailhead.

The beginning of the trail was a very pleasant walk in the woods. The weather was perfect! The grasses alongside the trail were pretty long and made kind of a tunnel for me. It was really neat. Chuck and Ryan laughed about the fact that they couldn't see me as I hiked along the trail. I was really enjoying this; my left front paw didn't bother me at all!

After a bit, the trail began to climb. Ryan was going pretty slow which resulted in Chuck going pretty fast; huffing and puffing along the way. Dad's legs are much shorter than Ryan's. Anyway, the trial climbed gradually like this for maybe a mile, and then got very steep. Here we hiked slow and steady, and kept going up. We were on rocks quite a bit, and I had to scramble a bunch, but I was doing fine. And, really having fun.

Suddenly, we entered a very strange and mysterious section of the trail. It leveled out a bit and everything was covered with thick green covering Chuck called moss. It was everywhere, except on the trail. Chuck pushed his finger into it and it disappeared- it was really thick. This place was almost spooky. The trees started getting very thick and closed in on the trail and the wind was howling through the tree tops. The temperature dropped down into the low sixties, according to what I heard Chuck say to Ryan. And everything was green! Very strange.

Just as quickly, the trail got steep again. And broke out of the trees. I needed a boost in several places because the rocks were just too steep. This quickly led to us being above the trees and open (and steep) rock. Boy was it windy! I managed to stay on the mountain, though the wind tried, and suddenly we were at the summit. The wind was really strong. It had taken us 2 hours and 35 minutes to climb the 2,200 feet and 3.2 miles to the summit

Chuck needed to take a shoe off and settle down behind a rock to block the wind. I laid down at his feet and instantly went to sleep. I guess the hike was more tiring than I thought. I think I heard Chuck tell Ryan that I was snoring, but I could have been dreaming.

We rested about 15 minutes and headed down.  The trip down was pretty quiet. Ryan was whistling and singing; and texting. It is probably not a very good idea to text and hike; teenagers! I was pretty pooped, so I didn't do my normal downhill dashes off the sides of the trail, I just stayed with Chuck and Ryan. It took just over two hours to get back to the car, bringing our total hike time to almost exactly 5 hours. As soon as we were there, I got into the back seat and went to sleep.

It was a super day! When we got home, we all went over to the Henry's, our neighbors. They were showing movies on the side of their house. We watched Muppets in Space and Back to the Future. Chuck had made a sleeping bag into a blanket. I was tired from the day, so I got into the sleeping bag and curled up around his feet and went to sleep. What a great day!