Hike

It’s been far too long since I wrote about my travels here, and there are lots of awful reasons why that is. Rather than waste time talking about how I should have written more, I’m going to jump right in to my next post. At the end of April, over a year into the pandemic, we took a small family “camping” trip in Sturbridge, our (new) home town. We love to stay in cabins when we camp — you can enjoy that outdoor, campground feeling, but never have to worry about putting away a soaking wet tent, or dealing with the maintenance on a camper. For the number of times we camp each year, paying extra for the cabin just seems like a smart deal. ...

During my posts about the big hike this fall, I didn’t really talk much about gear, about the specifics of nutrition, about what I carried and wished I hadn’t, and so on. So I thought a short post on those subjects might be worth doing. There will be no exciting pictures, no trail descriptions, no soul-searching moments in the mountains … so feel free to skip this post if that’s not your thing. ...

(Some photos on these posts are courtesy my friends Bryan and Topher and posted with their permission. This series of posts will be fairly photo-heavy.) Day Four – Mizpah Springs Hut to … home (I’ll supply an elevation profile for each day, courtesy GPS data from Bryan and processing done by Google Earth.) ...

(Some photos on these posts are courtesy my friends Bryan and Topher and posted with their permission. This series of posts will be fairly photo-heavy.) Day Three – Zealand Falls Hut to Mizpah Springs Hut (I’ll supply an elevation profile for each day, courtesy GPS data from Bryan and processing done by Google Earth.) ...

(Some photos on these posts are courtesy my friends Bryan and Topher and posted with their permission. This series of posts will be fairly photo-heavy.) Day Two – October 11 (Galehead Hut to Zealand Falls Hut) (I’ll supply an elevation profile for each day, courtesy GPS data from Bryan and processing done by Google Earth.) ...

(Some photos on these posts are courtesy my friends Bryan and Topher and posted with their permission. This series of posts will be fairly photo-heavy.) Getting Started – October 10 I started the day early Tuesday, out the door by 5:30 AM, heading east and then north. In the back of my car was a backpack, a pair of trekking poles, a pair of boots, and a change of clothes for Friday evening. On the seat next to me was a printout of directions to the parking lot of the Mt. Washington Cog Railway (in case my GPS crapped out or something), where I was meeting my fellow hikers, two friends from work (Bryan and Topher) and a friend of theirs from outside the office (Jeremy). ...

Some news to start: next month I’m heading on a three night, four day hike through the White Mountains of New Hampshire, staying overnights at the High Huts of the White Mountains with some friends from work. So I’ve been gearing up and doing practice hikes as often as I can. I have yet to do a real tough mountain hike (I plan to hit up Wachusett before the hike, but am not sure when I’ll make it happen), but this Labor Day I wanted to hike several days in my hiking boots to break them in and make sure I shook out any issues. ...

On the first Sunday of the New Year, Evie and Jess made a last-minute decision to cheer on a friend at a gymnastics event in Western MA, and I made a last-minute decision to revisit the Sibley Farm / Burncoat Pond property with the intent of walking a portion of the Midstate Trail. I’d hiked here with Jess twice before (1, 2) and both times we had mostly ignored the Midstate Trail. Looking at the map, I realized I probably had enough time to hike the trail from the parking area up to Route 9 and back. ...

It seems a recurring theme that we don’t have as much time to explore the trails on our Saturdays as we used to. Real life conspires to sap away even our protected time. And so last weekend we again found ourselves looking for a close hike which wouldn’t take up too much of our time. We ended up driving towards one trail and stopping at another; we saw a parking area on Holland Road in Sturbridge with a Friends of Sturbridge Trails sign on it, and decided to see what it was. It turns out, it’s a somewhat new extension of the existing Grand Trunk Trail. This section walks along the Quineboag River to the East Brimfield Dam, and will eventually connect into the Brimfield section of the trail. ...

I last wrote about Rock House in November of 2014. On that day, we went for a long hike in the rain. This time around, it was a shorter hike, but the weather was much more pleasant. I started the day by pitching in at a town cleanup of a vacant lot, and spent several hours doing the kind of physical labor I went into engineering explicitly to avoid. So while we still wanted to hike, I wanted something a little less taxing. We picked Rock House because we know the trails well (map here), it was close, and we knew we could do a shorter loop and still get some fall scenery in. ...