laxplaya1346
It'll be an ongoing thing...
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2005
- Messages
- 3,914
Well thought it would just be fun to post about my amazing trip hiking the Saddlebacks and biking to Vermont. I'll try and talk about days by two so I'm not rambling on about absolutly nothing.
Well first of all for a little background info, I traveled to a camp ran by the American Youth Foundation or ayf called Merrowvista(MV). MV is located in ausopee(sp?), NH and is basically for children 10- going into Senior year of High School to travel with a group and have fun. What my parents love is that there is no technology allowed meaning no cell phones or iPods. The younger group (age 10-13) usually stays in camp and participates in all kinds of activities. The older group or The Four Trails program is for older ages and mostly consists of Hiking, Biking, and Canoeing trips. At age 14 you go with a group called Explorers and you basically sample what all three trips have to offer(biking, hiking, canoeing) and those are 4 day trips. Then at age 15 you have Adventurer which can either be Hike-Bike or Bike-Canoe. Since I've known all the same people since my first year at MV we tend to stick together each year and this year was the first Co-ed group.(We did Hike-Bike) These are followed by Voageur year which is a bike trip around Nova Scotia and Odyssey which is the 100 mile hike. Moving on to my trip..
Day 1- July 1st- I arrive at Camp around 1pm and meet my new counselors for this year, Lauren and Matt. I also meet up with everyone from last year including two new additions to the group. A boy named Dexter from upstate New York and Maxime from Paris, France! All of us arrived and were suprised to find our in-camp cabin to be brand new as since members of the Four Trails program are usually out of camp get the not so nice cabins. We were known as Katahdin(each "village" is named after a mt in the NE region) and we consisted of 4 girls and 7 boys.
All the guys in front of our new cabin ( girls were on other side )
Day 2&3- Day 2 was spent welcoming everyone and seeing new faces. We also preparred for out upcoming 6 day hiking trip. The next day we went on something called a "shakedown" which is basically a warm-up for our hiking trip. Just further down the road is Mt. Flag and about 3/4 of the way up is The Ledge where we hiked to and had lunch. Younger groups take their overnight here. We then returned to camp and tried to think of how to pack for 6 days but also travel light since we would be carrying that weight.
View from the Ledge. The water is known as Dan Hole Pond and that little dock off to the right is the MV Waterfront
Day 4- 4th of July!- So while all of you VMKers were busy getting your 4th of July pin we, Katahdin, were leaving on our trip. We left a little late around 11am and had about a 4 hour car drive since we would be driving through North Conway which is crazy during the holiday. We arrived around 3pm and got ready for the hike in front of us. Saying goodbye to civilization we began and luckily we only had 3.8 miles before we reached our first campsite at Sabboth Day pond lean-to where we slept in tents and woke up the next day. Oh and the rain began that night
right before our hiking trip, van behind us takes us there.
Grabbing our gear from the back before we begin our hike.
Day 5- 6.4 Miles- 2nd day was pretty routine since we mostly just hiked. We did not summit any peaks and unfortunatly I was feeling a little under the weather and would be the rest of the trip. We crashed for the night at the Piazza Rock Lean-to and did not reach camp until 7:30.
Day 6- Our longest day 11.4 miles, 3 summits, a thunderstorm, and some cranky people. 3rd day of the hiking trip was the day we summited most of our peaks including (forget the 1st) the horn, and saddleback Jr. Coming up the first seemed like forever and once we reached tree line we were forced to go back a little ways since we did see rain coming and you do not want to be the tallest thing on a mountain during a thunderstorm. After a quick lunch we knew we needed to move. Before we summited our first peak around 4000 ft we were completly engulfed by a cloud and it made it very difficult to see someone in front of you. Once we reached the top we had nothing to see but everything to celebrate. We took a while taking pictures and then had to go down to go back up to the horn. As we went down we got a clear view of what was ahead and it was beautiful. After another peak we hiked down to where we crashed for the night and I went to sleep when we got into camp since I was exhausted since I could not eat from being sick while everyone had s'mores haha. So ended our longest day.
Our leader Lauren at tree line before we hiked down to get away from the rain.
Approaching our first summit, Inside the cloud
All of us on our first summit. Enjoying the cloud again
Day 7- Now has been a week and this was an 8 mile day up towards our final destination, Sugarloaf. We hiked downhill until we reached the base of Saddleback Jr. and then hiked half way up Sugarloaf and stopped there for the night.
Day 8! To Sugarloaf!- From here it only got easy, it was 3 miles to the top of Sugarloaf and when we arrived at the top we were stunned by the beautiful view and we stayed in the lodge at the top which was a very nice treat. Since we got there early we had plenty of time to look around and just have fun. We then watched the Sunset from the balcony and slept for a bit and woke up to watch the sunrise. Well some of us did anyway, I was too lazy
.
Balcony
The Ski lift next to the lodge
Sunset
Me on top of Sugarloaf, Red Sox pride right there
Sunrise, since I was too lazy had a friend take it
Day 6- Started with a sad goodbye to the summit we loved and an easy 3 mile hike down to our pick-up point where our driver accidently got our van stuck in a ditch
Well thats my first trip and I'll have to add my second later.
Glad to Be Home!
Disniplaya
Well first of all for a little background info, I traveled to a camp ran by the American Youth Foundation or ayf called Merrowvista(MV). MV is located in ausopee(sp?), NH and is basically for children 10- going into Senior year of High School to travel with a group and have fun. What my parents love is that there is no technology allowed meaning no cell phones or iPods. The younger group (age 10-13) usually stays in camp and participates in all kinds of activities. The older group or The Four Trails program is for older ages and mostly consists of Hiking, Biking, and Canoeing trips. At age 14 you go with a group called Explorers and you basically sample what all three trips have to offer(biking, hiking, canoeing) and those are 4 day trips. Then at age 15 you have Adventurer which can either be Hike-Bike or Bike-Canoe. Since I've known all the same people since my first year at MV we tend to stick together each year and this year was the first Co-ed group.(We did Hike-Bike) These are followed by Voageur year which is a bike trip around Nova Scotia and Odyssey which is the 100 mile hike. Moving on to my trip..
Day 1- July 1st- I arrive at Camp around 1pm and meet my new counselors for this year, Lauren and Matt. I also meet up with everyone from last year including two new additions to the group. A boy named Dexter from upstate New York and Maxime from Paris, France! All of us arrived and were suprised to find our in-camp cabin to be brand new as since members of the Four Trails program are usually out of camp get the not so nice cabins. We were known as Katahdin(each "village" is named after a mt in the NE region) and we consisted of 4 girls and 7 boys.
All the guys in front of our new cabin ( girls were on other side )
Day 2&3- Day 2 was spent welcoming everyone and seeing new faces. We also preparred for out upcoming 6 day hiking trip. The next day we went on something called a "shakedown" which is basically a warm-up for our hiking trip. Just further down the road is Mt. Flag and about 3/4 of the way up is The Ledge where we hiked to and had lunch. Younger groups take their overnight here. We then returned to camp and tried to think of how to pack for 6 days but also travel light since we would be carrying that weight.
View from the Ledge. The water is known as Dan Hole Pond and that little dock off to the right is the MV Waterfront
Day 4- 4th of July!- So while all of you VMKers were busy getting your 4th of July pin we, Katahdin, were leaving on our trip. We left a little late around 11am and had about a 4 hour car drive since we would be driving through North Conway which is crazy during the holiday. We arrived around 3pm and got ready for the hike in front of us. Saying goodbye to civilization we began and luckily we only had 3.8 miles before we reached our first campsite at Sabboth Day pond lean-to where we slept in tents and woke up the next day. Oh and the rain began that night
right before our hiking trip, van behind us takes us there.
Grabbing our gear from the back before we begin our hike.
Day 5- 6.4 Miles- 2nd day was pretty routine since we mostly just hiked. We did not summit any peaks and unfortunatly I was feeling a little under the weather and would be the rest of the trip. We crashed for the night at the Piazza Rock Lean-to and did not reach camp until 7:30.
Day 6- Our longest day 11.4 miles, 3 summits, a thunderstorm, and some cranky people. 3rd day of the hiking trip was the day we summited most of our peaks including (forget the 1st) the horn, and saddleback Jr. Coming up the first seemed like forever and once we reached tree line we were forced to go back a little ways since we did see rain coming and you do not want to be the tallest thing on a mountain during a thunderstorm. After a quick lunch we knew we needed to move. Before we summited our first peak around 4000 ft we were completly engulfed by a cloud and it made it very difficult to see someone in front of you. Once we reached the top we had nothing to see but everything to celebrate. We took a while taking pictures and then had to go down to go back up to the horn. As we went down we got a clear view of what was ahead and it was beautiful. After another peak we hiked down to where we crashed for the night and I went to sleep when we got into camp since I was exhausted since I could not eat from being sick while everyone had s'mores haha. So ended our longest day.
Our leader Lauren at tree line before we hiked down to get away from the rain.
Approaching our first summit, Inside the cloud
All of us on our first summit. Enjoying the cloud again
Day 7- Now has been a week and this was an 8 mile day up towards our final destination, Sugarloaf. We hiked downhill until we reached the base of Saddleback Jr. and then hiked half way up Sugarloaf and stopped there for the night.
Day 8! To Sugarloaf!- From here it only got easy, it was 3 miles to the top of Sugarloaf and when we arrived at the top we were stunned by the beautiful view and we stayed in the lodge at the top which was a very nice treat. Since we got there early we had plenty of time to look around and just have fun. We then watched the Sunset from the balcony and slept for a bit and woke up to watch the sunrise. Well some of us did anyway, I was too lazy
.
Balcony
The Ski lift next to the lodge
Sunset
Me on top of Sugarloaf, Red Sox pride right there
Sunrise, since I was too lazy had a friend take it
Day 6- Started with a sad goodbye to the summit we loved and an easy 3 mile hike down to our pick-up point where our driver accidently got our van stuck in a ditch
Well thats my first trip and I'll have to add my second later.
Glad to Be Home!
Disniplaya
