Pemigewasette Backpack Trip

I had my dream weekend!  For the first time in five years, I didn't run half of the Vermont City Marathon and that allowed us to actually go away for Memorial Day weekend.  Hazey has been talking about going to the Adirondacks, but we decided to go to the White Mountains because of a fun, accessible route that John came up with. The kids were so fired up to use their backpacks and try out their shoes before heading to Peru. 

We decided to bike in the first 2.5 miles of the trail.  We loaded the kids backpacks into our old Chariot that we borrowed back from the Popkins and we were off.  

John definitely had the most challenging job as the Chariot wasn't exactly balanced that well.

Once we got to the bridge to the Wilderness, we hiked in about three more miles until we found a perfect camp spot on the river. It was perfect in every way, except that we forgot the pump to our stove. 

river hopping

our "stove"

 Because we don't have a four person backpacking tent, the kids slept in one tent with Zephy and the parents got their own tent.

But we all got together in the morning to snuggle:

The rivers were much higher than we imagined they would be.  This made for a much more challenging hike than anticipated. But, we managed to do a five mile hike along the river on Sunday.

At one point we thought about hiking to the top of Owl's Head Peak, but when the kids asked if we could go back to the campsite and just "play", we had to say "absolutely"!

making river art

The bugs were pretty bad, but that didn't stop us.

We hiked out on on Monday morning.  We didn't want to make another fire and we didn't have any coffee.  We ran into a brother and sister who were in their late 20's.  They met up to hike together even though they now live far apart.  They said that they hike with their family as a kid and even though their parents weren't up for it anymore, they made an effort to continue the tradition.  I told the kids that nothing would make me happier than knowing that they might hike together when they are all grown up. 

As we got close to the car, Hazen said, "this was the best weekend ever" and then he thanked us for taking him backpacking.  Bugs, lack of stove, and big water didn't bring any of us down.  It really was an amazing weekend.  It made me realize that some of life's best things are free.

Seeing these kids have such unbridled fun was a dream come true!