Adventure with Alex

A few weeks ago Alex and I climbed Middle Mountain in the Green Hills Preserve. Today we returned and tagged Peaked Mountain. These two peaks, combined with the ever popular “Black Cap Trail” and Pudding Pond (see Quickies but Goodies Post) provide a great family hiking destination with trail-heads that begin a minute or two from downtown North Conway.

Middle Mountain (Elev. 1,857 ft, 3.87mi roundtrip)

This trail follows an old road up to the saddle between Peaked Mt. and Middle Mt. before turning south to climb to the summit.

Alex coo’d and hummed the whole ascent

The trail just before the summit

Bear watches over Alex who fell asleep right as we summit-ed

Since Alex was sound asleep, and the blueberries here were begging to be harvested I spent the next half-hour filling a quart container I had brought as a dog bowl (still unused as Bear had found a few fresh streams during the ascent). These would make for some tasty pancakes the next morning, and top our cereal for a couple of days after that!

Thinking it was time to start heading down I checked in with Alex.

Not much had changed

As I started to lift the pack he awoke, so we took the time for a quick diaper change, snack, and summit photo.

He was still waking up and wasn’t happy I was using this picture in my blog

The hike down as uneventful, and we crossed another trail off our list. A few weeks later we returned to tag another summit from the range off our list.

Middle Mountain (Elev. 1,739 ft, 3.55mi round-loop)

This is a beautiful 2-2.5 hour loop hike with excellent views for a modest amount of effort. The views of Washington, the Moats, and Chocurua are superb. We did it in a clock-wise fashion, which you can tell my looking closely at the GPS track.

Half a mile in we stopped for some bug repellant

The Nature Conservancy does an excellent job with signage and trail marking in this preserve

About a half mile before the summit I started noticing lots of fresh bear scat on the trail. A minute late this bruin poked his head up to watch us walk past. Alex’s first bear encounter! Can you see him?

Look closely

We relaxed on the summit with some snacks and water.

I really think he loves these hikes…

I played around with an iPhone Ap I am testing. It uses your GPS location, camera phone, and the built in gyroscope to help you identify nearby peaks (and their elevations in meters). The results were not too consistent, but I plan on working with it a bit and writing a more detailed review in the future. Here’s a screenshot of the Ap in action:

Pretty cool huh?

Our summit photo

On the descent Alex got a bit cranky, reminiscent of his first trail meltdown. I didn’t hesitate to pull out the Renee & Jeremy magic on the iPhone this time and within 2 minutes he was asleep. He slept all the way to the car, and all the way home. I stopped on the North South Road to grab a quick picture of the summit we had just climbed.

Peaked Mountain

Hoping we get out Thursday if the weather is nice, and I know Mommy is itching to put some miles down on the trail with Alex as well. Till next time, happy hiking!