White Mountains, NH

Last summer, we spent a week in the White Mountains with Briar and Gus, Grant and Melissa and all 5 grandkids. Briar and Gus found another house this year and we shared it with them for the week.

Saturday, 8/5 was a travel day. Check-in was at 4pm so we didn't do much.

On Monday, 8/6 we went on a couple of hikes. Both started at the Pinkham Notch Visitors Center which is one of the main trail heads for the Mt. Washington ascent.

We found these great T-shirts at the Visitors Center. If you don't recognize the images, they are cairns (above the treeline, the trails to the top of Mt. Washington are marked by cairns).

First hike was less than a mile up the Appalachian Trail to a small waterfall on the Ellis River.

After returning to the Visitors Center we decided to cross the highway and do the Lost Pond hike.

On the map, the hike appeared to be just over a mile on the Appalachian Trail with a short side trail at the end to get us back to the highway close to the overflow lot where we'd parked the car. I guess that scale is everything. It was more like 3 1/2 miles.

The trail was very difficult to follow over some pretty tough terrain. When we finally looped back to the road, we found that we had a pretty wide and fast flowing river blocking our way. There were stepping stones most of the way across but there also was a couple of 4-5 foot gaps. It didn't look crossable so Gus and I scouted up and down stream looking for a better spot. We didn't find one so it came down to crossing at original spot or backtracking the entire 3 1/2 miles. Gus and I were able to leap the gaps and stay dry. Kristen and Briar decided to take off their shoes and socks and wade through the fast water. They lifted Niko and Maya across the large gaps and Gus helped them rock hop the rest of the way.

This amazing rock and tree seemed to be fused together.

Some goofballs that we met along the trail (Briar, Gus, Niko and Maya).

Finally, Lost Pond (It was a whole lot less lost than most of the trail around it and back to the highway).

Our hike wasn't over. There was a parking lot across the road but it was the wrong lot (the overflow lot hadn't been on the map). We still had a mile or so to hike back up the road to the car.

A waterfall that we spotted from the road.

You'd think that they would have been exhausted but that didn't stop Briar, Gus and the kids from heading over to Storyland at 3pm. A full day ticket to Storyland allows you to spend the 3 hours before closing on another day at the park. After visiting Storyland last year, we decided that we were kind of done with it so we didn't go this year.

On Monday, 8/7 we started the day with a long steep hike up to Arethusa Falls. Fortunately, it was beautiful and well worth it.

In the afternoon, we went into North Conway for some miniature golf.

We had an adventurous Tuesday, 8/8.

In the morning, we went over to the Attitash Mountain Ski Resort with the intention of riding their Mountain Coaster and Alpine Slide. The Alpine Slide doesn't run when it's wet and we had light sprinkles just often enough to keep it closed. Fortunately, the Mountain Coaster was running. Niko and I each went alone while Maya rode with Briar (not quite tall enough). Gus and Kristen wimped out.

In the afternoon, we all went up to the Wildcat Mountain Ski Resort where we all rode the gondolas to the top of the mountain and then Gus and I did the zip line.

The view from the top of Wildcat.. At the time, we thought that the pointy mountain in the middle was Mt. Washington. Subsequent research has revealed it to be the mountain on the left.

That's me in the lead with Gus trailing. We started at the same time. Gus asked what he needed to do to go faster and the guy told him to eat more.

Kristen and I had the day off on Wednesday, 8/9 while everyone went back to Storyland. We did some shopping, had lunch in town and just took it easy.

On Thursday, 8/10 we went tubing on the Sako River. We intended for it to be a morning activity but, when we showed up, found that we needed a reservation. It ended up being an afternoon activity. The river couldn't have been much slower. It took more than 2 hours to go 1 1/2 miles. The only tough spot was reaching the take out spot. It was a very small shelf that the river just didn't want to go to.

A late addition (9/1/17): Kristen has been after me because I didn't mention 2 things,

1. While we were tubing along with 50 or 60 other people, a flock of geese came in low and floated with us for a bit before taking off, barely missing our heads.
2. Along the way, we encountered a couple of fly fishermen right out in the middle of the tube traffic. Durring the time that we were able to see them,  they reeled in several trout while oblivious tubers bounced off of them.

Our last full day started out with a hike to the top of Blackcap Mountain. Different subsets of our group did it twice last year (I went both times).

In the afternoon, we wanted to hike in to the falls at Diana's Bath and wade in the falls. Since last year, they had raised the fee for the small lot from $3 to $5 and they had banned parking on the road for about a mile in either direction (i.e: the parking situation is now nuts). We ended up doing our wading at Jackson Falls which didn't involve much hiking.

Niko didn't want anything to do with walking up the falls. Maya just grabbed my hand and said "C'mon Grandpa". Niko announced that we were both nuts.

We started for home early on Saturday, 8/12. Briar and Gus had a wedding to go to so the kids spent the night with us. Usually, the run us ragged with outdoor activities but they were spent. One of the calmest visits that we've had. Maya did manage to harvest our entire blueberry crop.

-JC-