With summer drawing closer and closer to its inevitable end, I suddenly had the idea to try and do the "ultimate summer day," where I would do the things I enjoyed most this summer all in one day- hike, mountain bike, swim/throw the B, and eat a buffaque calzone while watching a movie. In a sense, I failed because of bad preparation- I went to the wrong trailhead and set us back a solid hour on the hike, spent too long on the mountain, and finished biking in the dark, leaving the swim to be in the dark as well. I also didn't plan it on a day that Rich or Josh would be around that night, killing any chance to get calzones and watch a movie. BUT, I still hiked, biked and swam in one epic day and we swam and got calzones the next day, so a "summer day (across 2 days (one of which was rainy and shitty))" video will be up soon.
Originally I was planning on trying to hike 2 4,000 footers (the Osceolas) to reach my goal of getting 4 done this summer. My old work friend turned concert buddy Lambert had been sending me facebook messages, asking to go hiking, so I threw the idea out to him, and although he was worried, he was in. After him asking me a billion questions and it getting to the point of me asking him if he had ever actually been outside before, my common sense finally kicked in at 3 in the morning (when we had planned on meeting at 9, meaning I'd have had to leave at 7) and I remembered that my leg hurt me so much on my last hike that I could barely walk down the mountain, and maybe trying to do an 8 mile hike was a bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, BAD idea.
I decided to do a closer, more southern and easier hike, and went with Kearsarge, in Wilmot, NH. The Osceola loop would have been 4,000+ feet, like 8 miles and around 2200 feet in elevation change. This was a 3 mile loop to a 2,937 foot summit with around 1,000 feet in elevation change. This was a MUCH better idea, especially with me trying to mountain bike afterwards.
There are two campgrounds to start from- Winslow State Park, where you hike up the whole mountain and I should have met Lambert, and Rollins State Park, where you drive up all but the last half mile and I definitely went instead. Here's to not bothering to get directions until I'm already driving there 20 minutes late!
Lambert was great though- I would have been PISSED if I had had to wait over an hour for my stupid ass to get there. He didn't seem to mind at all. He was ready with a trailmap, walking stick, excitement, and a WICKING METALLICA SOCCER JERSEY. Oh the fun I would make of him...
endlessly happy, wearing sauconys as hiking shoes
We walked up the steeper trail, which was only like 1.2 miles but definitely steeper than the other way (1.7 or something). We stopped frequently and talked too much. It had a few parts that were pretty serious, but there were a million roots and rocks to walk on, as this is an incredibly popular hike. I sweat and got tired just like anyone, but it was great to feel like a mountain that would have killed me earlier in the year wasn't a big deal. I had a few "oh wow, we're practically already there" moments when we got to the top. Those whopping 2 4,000 footers have made me used to only doing huge hikes.
roots galore
Lambert walking up to a false summit
and being blown away at the view
Lambert hadn't hiked since he was a little kid, so it was kind of fun to see someone so blown away by a view that I have already kind of taken for granted in even my limited hiking. Just seeing buildings and roads made this not feel as enormous or isolated as some of my recent hikes (and it wasn't), but it's still a damn fine view- it's easy to forget that when you hike bigger mountains.
This is when Lambert shrunk and stood on this small pile of rocks.
After a short while, we made the summit.
And it was niiiiiiice.
We talked to an 85 year old man who had taken the easy hike (can't blame him) from Rollins State Park. Needless to say, the fact that he was on top of a mountain at 85 was pretty inspirational.
After walking around for a bit and taking in the views, we noticed the coolest thing about this summit- that there are words EVERYWHERE in the rock- like it's incredibly easy to carve into the rock and everyone who hiked it had written something. It obviously isn't easy to carve into rock though, so there was a lot of dedication beneath us. Lambert found one that had been carved in 1920 I think. It was neat.
The Ten Commandments
This summit, like Tecumseh, had a tower (which must be a cell phone tower), and like Blue Job in Rochester, had a building to climb up and get a better view.
It also had a sweet shack that I'm pretty sure I could live in quite comfortably.
This would be Lambert's house:
We ate some granola bars on the top, and I realized I was running out of day, so we hit the trail for a really pretty descent.
We talked about and listened to music the whole way down, and parted ways. Thanks for the company Lambert, I hope you had fun on your first hike since forever. Sorry for making you wait.
Instagrammed clouds from the summit
This was a solid intermediate hike, and it was easy to see why it's hiked so often- the views weren't breathtaking, but for being pretty far south of the White Mountains and not being a very hard or long hike, they were pretty awesome. We could see seemingly forever even though it was cloudy, and according to some websites, you can even see all the way to Boston on a perfectly clear day. We couldn't quite figure out what we were looking at in any direction, but it was all pretty. This is definitely a nice beginner/intermediate hike, but be careful when you go- there may be a helicopter working on the summit... 8 years ago.
I then booked it to Franklin Falls for some get-in-as-much-as-you-can-before-it's-dark mountain biking. This was the first time I'd ridden solo here, and as darkness settled in, I found myself calling Kevin twice to A) find out how to get to the best trail, and B) find out how the hell to get out of there in the dark. Since he designed and worked on a bunch of the trails, he was just as helpful as I had assumed, and actually even more- he got me exactly where I needed to go with perfect detail. Thanks Kevin. Some footage will be included in the video, but the best part was this:
I see deer all the time on mountain bike trails, and have seen them run across the trail before as well, but this took the cake- about 300 feet into riding the first trail I hit there, I saw a deer standing in the middle of the trail, and it didn't move until I was very close to it. I got off the bike and stood probably 40 feet from 2 deer, who just stared at me. The fact that they weren't too scared actually convinced me that this would be the time I would get a deer to come to me, and I'd get it on tape. HA! As soon as they ran away a little bit though, one started walking towards me as I walked out of the woods. Then I went back in, and it ran away again. Odd creatures. I rode fast and violent though, and had a blast. I rode the best trail there twice, and although it was too dark to get any footage, Kevin plucked a not-fully-formed idea right out of my head and made a little movie about that trail just last weekend. Here it is:
I then swam in the dark at a lake I didn't know about until I passed it on the way to Franklin Falls (Webster Lake), where you can apparently swim at all hours of the night (something we've been looking for all summer). It doesn't need to be said, but I'll say it anyway: It was incredibly creepy to walk into an unknown lake, completely alone in the dark. The beach was right next to the road, but still. I was surprised though- the sand was great, it was shallow pretty far out, and it was the absolute perfect temperature. I would have loved to have swam with friends or at least swam in the daylight or sunset, but still, this was a phenomenal way to follow up hiking and mountain biking, and a phenomenal way to accept summer's passing. Not a bad summer day- video will come soon.
currently listening to- We Are The Illusion- Podium of Lies
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