Woods Wind Wander

The vista from Snows Mountain This fall our trip to the White Mountains started off with some extreme mileage, a twelve mile hike (which is at least extreme to our kids), followed by two 4,000 footers.  Some times it is easy for me to get wrapped up in the "big" things like: how long is the hike, is it a famous/popular hike, is it a 4,000 footer, etc.?  But I've found that the  problem with that sort of focus is that you can potentially exhaust yourself physically and mentally (and your children!), and you tend to overlook some pretty amazing sights.  For instance, the day we drove to New Hampshire we arrived at about 4 p.m.  That is not enough time to do anything "substantial" but we walked from our house down to the river and followed the Mad River Trail for about a mile or 2.  It was gorgeous and the boys absolutely loved being along the water, the crossings, and all the rocks.  We probably would have never considered the hike otherwise.  Another such hike, 

Thrilled to have "held" (fed) a gray jay atop Mt. Jackson This is a tale of a mother and seven year old son summiting back to back 4,000 foot peaks in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and a Gray Jay that saved the day! Sunday evening I spent quite some time online doing a bit of research.  I was trying to find a few 4,000 footers that I felt would be appropriate for my 7 year old.  As our first hike of this trip would suggest ( read about it here ), both kids are capable of hiking 12 miles in a day, but honestly, I don't like pushing mileage too frequently.  No one has fun on those hikes, so I try to do my best mixing up easy and tougher trails, shorter and longer mileage, etc.  I really wanted to climb a 4,000 footer or two this trip though.  I got on Google and looked up easier 4,000 footers.  A few people have blogged on this, and given that it really comes down to someone's opinion, I tried to see if there were a few that showed up on a couple of people'