First Mountain Hike

He's now an official hiker. Dylan climbed his first mountain. Okay, technically I carried him up but he was there, awake for some of it, and did really well!

Last week we decided to get to our NH getaway to see the peak of the foliage up there. We headed up Tuesday afternoon and planned to hike on Wednesday. I looked for a good hike for us to take and decided upon a small mountain with great views of Crawford Notch, about an hour away from our condo.

Wednesday morning we packed up and headed that way. Unfortunately, my plan had some flaws I didn't consider. First, the notches in the White Mountains (Franconia and Crawford) are always a little windier and colder than the surrounding areas, hence the colder seasons arrive quicker to them. As we got into the notch, we realized that peak season that was elsewhere in the mountains had passed here. More leaves were on the ground than in the trees. Also, as soon as we parked at the base of our mountain trail, the wind picked up and snow flurries started falling! Since I had packed lots of layers for Dylan but didn't really have sufficient winter clothes, we had to abandon our Plan A.

Crawford Notch

Plan B consisted of driving another half hour to North Conway, home of lots of outlet stores, and buying Dylan some good winter clothes. It was a little eerie arriving to lots of closed stores...some entire strip malls were empty. The economy had definitely taken a toll on this shopping town. Even though a couple of stores we wanted to go to had disappeared, we still found a few great kid's clothing spots and got some good winter clothes for Dylan. Armed with proper bundling for the little guy, we planned our hike for the next day.

So, for Thursday, I found a spot closer to our house where there would be better foliage. We decided to hike Mt. Stinson, a trail we snowshoed two winters ago. It had nice views of Baker Valley at the top. The weather was pretty chilly and cloudy, but we still figured it was nice enough to have a nice hike.

All Bundled Up!

Dylan was awake for about 10-15 minutes at the beginning of the journey and was really alert and observing all the pretty trees around us. Then, he fell asleep and just relaxed for the rest of the ride up the mountain. We started out around 1100 feet in elevation and hiked up to just over 2600. Even though Dylan's a little guy, carrying him up was a lot tougher than I thought! It was a pretty difficult hike for me. I was so pooped when we got to the top that I honestly wasn't sure if I could make the last little climb up the rock to get the view. With some encouragement from Mike, I did! Here's what I got to see:

And yes, that is snow on the trees! About 2/3 of the way up, there was snow on the ground. Wow, winter is coming early this year. (In fact, as I write this in Boston, we have a wintry mix falling. It's not sticking to the ground but I think this is the earliest I've seen winter weather in my years here.) After a snack at the top to refuel and a few photos, we needed to start heading down. When Dylan woke from his nap, he would surely be hungry!

Dylan and Me - His First Mountain Climb!

Given that I'm vertically challenged (aka short), it was slow going downhill since I couldn't see where I was stepping unless I looked around Dylan's head. So, once we got to a not too steep spot, we transferred Dylan over to Mike for the trip down. I had trouble keeping up with the pace that Mike was able to keep while carrying Dylan! So, it was still a challenge for me on the way down.

We didn't quite make it back before Dylan woke and was unhappy so we did have to stop for a quick feeding in the cold. Then we continued back to the car, stopping along the way to pick up a few souvenir leaves.

Though a tough day physically, we all had a great time!