Hiked May 17, 2008 by Tim, Valerie, Debi and Will
Conditions: Heather had a sleepover this afternoon, so she couldn't come with us on this hike. We picked up Debi and Will after his baseball game around 10:30am and headed straight out.
The hike started out very well. It was a beautiful day and not too warm at all. There was a nice breeze blowing on top of South Pack. Along the trail, we found Hobblebush and Trillium, but that was when we realized that we'd put the wrong memory card in the camera. Just like the olden days, we were out of "film". Tim took a couple minutes to delete off some less than perfect pictures so that we could get at least a few on this trip.
The stop in the col for flower pictures had brought to light a new issue. The weather was warming up and the blackflies and mosquitoes were out en force. We stopped for the obligatory 'snack break' that you need to take when you have a 9-year-old with you, but the bugs were on us so badly that we finally made Will eat while we walked.
Will took my place as the keeper of time and distance. It was amazing how many landmarks he remembered from our trip two years ago. He also was charting the time it took us to get across the col, and told us quite confidently when we were just a couple minutes from the summit of North Pack - and he was 100% correct.
We had a nice lunch/snack at the summit of North Pack. Again, the wind was enough to keep the bugs off us. When we came off the summit, it was a quick trip back with no snack breaks. Will moved faster than we would have if he weren't there. He kept us huffing and puffing up South Pack all the way to the car.
Back on South Pack, Will enjoyed that we all went up in the tower and could see the skyline of Boston.