playing in the woods
Back at the beginning of October we ventured into the wilderness to climb Mt Monadnock. The hiking was fun and rewarding and we had a great day on the mountain. But even without the lure of alpine adventure Monadnock State Park is a worthwhile destination, because the next we also had an amazing time just exploring around the campground!
campground wilderness
Gilson Pond campground is a pretty cool place even if you don't leave your site: the hilly terrain means that each site is unique, above or below the road and often with wooden platforms hanging off the slope to make enough room to pitch a tent. And they're well-spaced out too, so there's lots of woody slopes to play in between sites. Which we did! (the boys also enjoyed using the spare platforms as stages and battle arenas).
And just beyond the boundaries of the tenting sites there's a pond, a stream through a gorge, and cliffs to climb that are small enough to be doable for younger ones but still big enough to be interesting. And wide open white pine woods: we started off following a trail, but then bushwhacked a ways in search of a shortcut back to our site, and it was even fun just walking through the pines (and along the giant trunks of a couple that had fallen!). It's just the sort of landscape that would be perfect for an outdoor adventure camp with a group of kids; as much fun as we had with just the four of us, we immediately started planning a return trip next year, with friends!
we could play here all day