Category Archives: Hikes

This past weekend I hiked in to the Carter Notch Hut with my dad, brother-in-law, and a friend. We hiked in along the Nineteen Mike Brook Trail - which is in fact a whole lot less than 19 miles along. It was a nice, chilly morning and we made it to the hut before noon. The photo to the left is right before the hut - it's a tiny pond right at the base of Wildcat A.

The hut was one of the nicer ones I've been to - there were two separate bunk houses, and each bunk house had separate bunk rooms - so we ended up with a bunk room all to ourselves. On the roof of our bunk house was a small deck that could be reached by a ladder, and we spent a lot of time up there admiring the views - that's Mike on the roof in the photo below.

After a break at the hut, we dropped off most of our gear and continued on to Carter Dome - which is actually the peak you can see in the photo of Mike, above. The climb up to Carter Dome was pretty crazy. It was very steep for the first half - almost ridiculously so. Unfortunately, Carter Dome was almost completely wooded on top. Keith and I continued on to Mt. Hight, where the views were amazing. Mt. Hight is bald on top, and we had 360 degree views of the whole area. The photo below is of Keith looking east from Mt. Hight.

Dinner at the hut was phenomenal - although I'd bet anything would taste amazing after hiking all day. They put together a whole turkey dinner, complete with cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, and dumplings. Fantastic! After dinner we sat on the front porch of our bunk house and chatted with a couple of AT through-hikers. One of them had a ukulele with him! The girl that was with him even started playing the first part of "First Day of My Life" by Bright Eyes, which is the first song I learned on the uke. She seemed surprised when I recognized it.

Unfortunately, it started raining on us during our hike out on Sunday morning. Luckily it was only a steady drizzle and it never really opened up like it could have. It was nice to get home, though. Between Friday night at the condo and Saturday night at the hut, I probably didn't get more than 3 or 4 hours of sleep combined. I managed to squeeze in a nap once I got home Sunday afternoon, and it felt great. I'd really like to get in a few more good hikes this fall - I really love hiking in that nice cool fall air, especially now that all the bugs seem to be gone.

Hiked up Mt. Chocorua with Lori, Dad, Andi, and Aaron today. We got an early start, and had an absolutely beautiful day. There were lots of people on the trail on the way back down, though. A little too crowded for my tastes. Still, you can tell that Dugan sure had a good time!

We were up north for our yearly vacation last week - but didn't actually take many pictures this year. But we did get this one, from our yearly hike with the kids up to the summit of Black Cap. We were too early for the blueberries this year though, unfortunately.

While in San Diego, Lori and took a nice long hike along the beach and through the hills of Torrey Pines State Reserve. The cliffs right along the beach were really cool - I definitely dug the erosion of the sandstone, and all the interesting forms that would create.

I climbed up North Sugarloaf - at the northern end of Crawford Notch - while we were up north this year. On the way up, I looked around for the old, open-pit mine up there. I had brought along a brick hammer, and managed to find some nice samples of both white and smoky quartz, as well as a couple of nice pieces of feldspar. Pretty fun! I also found somewhat down the hill a ways off the trail a big chunk of solid white quartz as big as my torso! It would have been awesome to bring that thing home to put in the garden, but it easily weighed a few hundred pounds - so not likely to fit in my backpack. :)

Last week we took a short hike up in Crawford Notch, to something called the Red Bench Overlook. Which it turns out really is a Red Bench, and it really does overlook something. Mount Washington to be precise. At this point in our vacation the kids were getting a little tired of getting the camera pointed at them, so we all just started making goofy faces.

Here's another one from up on Black Cap. I just like the way the wind is blowing her hair around. It was nice and windy on the summit that day, which kept us cool and kept away all the bugs. As an added bonus, the summit was covered with wild blueberries!

While on vacation last week, we all (dog included) climbed up Black Cap. We have so few photos with all of us in the picture (usually it's Lori or I taking the shot), that we tried to capture one while up there. You can barely tell where we are, but I still think it came out sort of fun.

Lori and I went up north recently to celebrate our ten-year anniversary. While we were up there, we hiked up North Sugarloaf with Sadie, to get a nice birds-eye view of the autumn colors. It was a pretty nice day. The day before, it had been raining, so we weren't sure how things would turn out. The trail was pretty wet and boggy in parts, but a pleasant hike all the same. We had the hike up and the summit all to ourselves, and passed a big group of kids headed up on our way back out - so it looks like we timed it just right!

On Friday, I climbed Mt Jackson in Crawford Notch. It's always been a favorite, but it occurred to me that I haven't been up there is almost ten years - not since before we moved to Texas. The view was awesome, but it was incredibly windy up there - windy enough to make me feel fairly uncomfortable. I was getting too cold (from being soaked with sweat in a strong wind), and I was worried about slipping and falling. The last thing I would need was to twist an ankle two and a half miles from the car!