the squibix family blog

That's Monadnock, by the way. It could totally be a day trip from our house—it's just about an hour and a half away—but I wanted to be able to climb it in a leisurely fashion, and I wanted time to relax at a campground too. So two nights of tenting, with the climbing day in between. My original thought was to leave after Backyard Farm Club on Monday afternoon, but when I broached the idea Sunday it was too sudden for Zion. He needs more warning than that, reasonably enough. So we went Wednesday afternoon instead, after Park Day. Which means we got a late start, since Park Day is so hard to leave, and then with the steady drizzle I didn't feel great about trying to start a fire for supper so we stopped on the way for McDonalds (and a salad for Harvey at Hannafords) and got later still. Getting the tents up in the rain and rapidly falling dark was a little stressful, but we made it happen and then enjoyed a delightful evening of reading books and (in my case at least) being glad of not having to cook.

Thursday morning dawned bright and clear, and we took our first real look around the campground. It met our approval. We breakfasted on cereal and milk and bagels, then read some more before getting packed up for the main event of the day. All four backpacks were stuffed with lunches, warm clothes, and most especially water bottles, after our very thirsty experience the last time we climbed a mountain (I really should write about that trip!). At least, most of our packs were stuffed with water bottles; when we got to the trailhead Harvey found that he had left his at the campsite. For a minute he though he'd left his shoes too, so we were all set to go back, but then he found them. And I loaded him up with the almost-full gallon jug of water I had planned to leave in the car for our return, and we headed up.

The way up Monadnock is steep and long. And kind of unrelenting, really. Most of the hike is a steady slog up a wide, cobble-y path that feels a lot like a stream-bed. At least there were a few big slabby bits to provide some interest.... plus, as we got higher and higher, glimpses of some amazing views. There was also lots of water, which was delightful on what had turned into a surprisingly hot day.

Towards the top the trees started to thin out, and we really felt how high we were. And the last bit was totally exposed rock, just like a real mountain. There were even a few spots where we needed to use our hands to get up! It felt like a real accomplishment to make it to the top, and it would have been more amazing yet if there hadn't been 30 or 40 people up there already.

Oh well, at least it wasn't a couple hundred like it would have had it been a weekend. We found a spot a little ways from anybody else (and out of the swarms of bugs that for some reason were plaguing much of the summit) and had our lunches. After lunch I read the boys some of the chapter book we're doing together, and we took pictures of fall foliage and red squirrels.

Of course, having gone up we had to go down again. That wasn't easy either. We took a slightly different path, one that was supposed to be a little longer but less steep. It was steep enough, and long enough too. At one point I was sure we had already descended well below our starting point—maybe to the center of the earth. No, it just takes a long time to get down 1,800 vertical feet. Eventually we made it back to the parking lot and the visitor center, where we were delighted with the water fountain and the bottle filler. And with the benches, to be honest; I was entirely ready to sit down.

After we had restored ourselves for a little while we wandered over to the gift shop, where the boys took advantage of my pride in their endurance by buying them souvenirs: an otter for Elijah, a coyote for Zion, and a pocket knife and sticker for Harvey. Plus two gatorades. Then we headed back to the campsite. As hot as we were climbing the boys had been very much looking forward to swimming in the pond when we got back down, but it turned out that after over five hours of exertion (and seven hours away from our tents) we were ready for a rest. Good thing we brought lots of books! And good thing that I had planned a simple dinner, because I didn't have much energy for cooking (and all that I did have was taken up by starting a fire with the wet wood we collected). But never fear, there was enough fire for marshmallows to finish the day.

Not having done anything like this before, I spent hours pouring over maps and guidebooks—or the online version, at least. I love OpenStreetMaps, but it doesn't have any context for the trails it shows, and it's terrible at locating parking. So I also used the official Massachusetts State Parks page, plus some guidance from other websites with details about particular trails. Nobody writes that kind of thing about places like the October Farm Riverfront (they should! I should!) but it turns out that lots of people like talking about climbing mountains. It made me much more confident in setting out last Thursday morning bright and early for the hour-long trip to the base of the mighty peak.

We got a new audiobook for the drive—The House of Many Ways, by Diana Wynne Jones—so the trip went quickly. When we reached it we marveled at the ski slopes as we drove by, then stopped briefly at the visitor center to pick up a trail map in case I didn't have cell service for at any point on the trip. It would have been less brief but the visitor center was closed—even the portapotties!—so we piled back in the car for the two minute drive to the parking lot at the trailhead where we wanted to go up.

My thought was to go up the steepest trail on the mountain, because Lijah likes mountain climbing quite a bit more than hiking, at least when he's primed with the expectation of being on an actual mountain. But I wanted to do a loop down (especially since that steepest way is only half a mile to the top!), and I didn't want to get up to the top right away and then have a long walk to finish off. So even through there's a lot at the bottom of the steep trail, we parked about a mile away and started off with a walk on a trail parallel to the road. Judging by the map I had thought it would be pretty flat, but it actually went up a fair grade, in addition to being made of boulders for much of the route. It felt delightfully mountainy! After that, though, the turn onto the steep path up was something of a disappointment when we saw that it was all stairs. At least for the second half the woods thinned out a bit and we could chose to walk on the bare rocks beside the stairs—which of course we did.

There was some disappointment at the summit too: even though I'd told them what to expect, the boys were a little dismayed to see the parking lot and the observation tower and all the people—yes, even on a weekday morning the top of Wachusett was a little crowded. But when we started to pay attention to the views I finally got the kids to understand that they were actually up higher than they had ever been before in their lives. That was cool in its own right, and it also meant that we could see pretty far (even though it was frustratingly hazy for October). There were four signs around the observation deck with labeled pictures of the landmarks you could see in each direction; spotting the tall buildings way off in Boston was pretty cool, but the massing mountains of Vermont were the most exciting. We could see Vermont! A magical place that they'd barely ever thought about before! Then we found a quiet spot to have lunch. Quiet in that is was out of the way of people, that is; the wind was plenty loud! Oh yeah, I forgot to say that whatever other ways it was lacking as a mountaintop Wachusett certainly provided an appropriate amount of summit wind.

The way down was longer than the way up, and more interesting. If I were to do the mountain again—which frankly I can't imagine doing, unless friends want to go with us—I'd definitely go up that way and down yet another way. We passed through different types of woods and one small meadow orchard, and took a little detour to visit the grandly named Echo Lake (pretty, but smaller than most ponds we know). Then it was an easy walk back to the car. The whole thing was far from the longest hike we've ever done, even outside of camping, and when after looking at the clearing haze I jokingly suggested going back up to take another look at the distant hills Harvey was ready to go for it. Really, we all could have made it back to the summit pretty easily a second time. But we did have obligations for later in the afternoon, and the audiobook was calling, so we were all happy enough to head for home... thinking about the next mountain we might climb. "How much higher is Mount Washington?" Harvey wanted to know.