MQ 2015 No.2

Today (Thursday) I hiked my favorite mountain of the Wapack Range, Pratt Mountain.

It was a great walk up, challenging enough to break me a sweat. The sky was blue, the air was cool & dry. I took many photos, both Instagram and 'normal'. I snagged some birch bark to draw on at the summit. I had almonds and a white chocolate Kit Kat. And I listened to Cocteau Twins "Blue Bell Knoll" and some Telefon Telaviv on the way down, plus I ended the walk with Major Lazer's "Peace is the Mission" in a rhythm-timed boot stomp. A great day.

Beach and Brewery and Bros

I decided to head up to New Hampshire to hang out with my old friends on a Friday night.

I left the house at 3 pm, and headed for Hampton Beach. The traffic was so bad on 495 North, that it took me two hours for what would normally be about a 75-minute drive. But once I hit the sand, and the salt air hit my nose, I didn't care anymore. I took a few photos (including one of "LEGO Ken" holding a 'Hi Miss K! ♥' flag, which I messaged to Karley), and then hung out in the surf for a half hour, swimming, floating, and just enjoying the feel (and taste) of the Atlantic Ocean.

At 6:15 I headed to the Red Hook Brewery to meet the guys for beer and food. First, I changed in the car, and then I went to the bathroom to wash the sunscreen and salt water off my hands and face. I got an ESB at the bar, and bought Erik a beer too when he walked in 2 minutes later. Brian showed up soon after, I snagged him a beer, and then we got a table. Chris showed up about 30 minutes later, and we all shared tortilla chips & salsa and some cheese quesadillas. Brian's girlfriend Jackie arrived later, and Rob soon after, and I had a crappy burger and chips, Brian got the mac & cheese, Erik snagged some buffalo tenders, and Chris got some nachos.

After we settled our bill, we all got in our various cars (minus Jackie), and drove over to Chris' 3rd-story apartment in Exeter. Brian & I walked to Gerry's Variety for beer, and then we all hung out til around one am, drinking beer, reminiscing about old times (Barnes & Noble, music, ex girlfriends, etc...).

I drove home with the stereo blasting either WXGR or my current favorite pop songs, and arrived home at 2:30 am, a very happy guy, for having spent an evening with 4 of my best friends.

MQ 2014 - Six: Winn Mountain

It was dry, sunny and cool throughout my hike. I went up for 90 minutes, following the scant instructions I'd printed off the internet, but I never found the way to the summit.

It was still a very enjoyable walk, with lots of ups and downs on the untended trail. There were more horseshoe tracks than human tracks (and far too many piles of old dog crap) during the first half hour of the ascent. There were several wide open vistas with great views. There were deep dry river beds (or perhaps old wagon trails, the gullies could have been deep tracks). There were big birch trees fallen everywhere. The way back down was about an hour, though to say "up" or "down" is misleading, as a lot of the hike was in an around-the-mountain direction.

Someday I'll return with better trail information, because all of the photos I've seen of the various summit views are amazing.

Beginning of the trail up (road).

At the first open space (trail back down to right).

Approaching the steep part. Reminded me of "Lost" for some reason.

My favorite kind of tree!

On the way down...

MQ 2014 - Four: Temple Mountain

The last time I hiked Temple Mountain was back in November of 2011. Back then I only made it to Holt Peak. This time I went farther...

MQ 2014 - Three: Barrett Mountain

I climbed Barrett Mountain, part of the Wapack Trail, today from roughly 6:00 - 7:30 pm.

As I was putting on my socks and hiking boots in my car on the road near the Windblown Ski Area, I startled a flock of 20 or so wild turkeys!

I came upon a woman and her Lab retriever within the first few minutes, and after greeting both (and getting muddy from the dog), I continued up the trail. It was a great hike. I stopped frequently for photos and water, and to just look around. I saw a large hawk on the way up, and then again on my descent. Awesome.

At the summit I met an old man in his 70's who was a bit turned around. Apparently he had been hiking for the past 4 hours, having begun his walk at Mount Watatic! Talk about a motivator. I steered him in the right direction, and then ate an apple before beginning my descent, with the music of Cuushe playing on my iPod.

Notes: It was sunny, dry and in the 70's. The air smelled fantastic. I wore my Orijeans selvedge to break them in hard (my legs sweated like crazy today, and my they are still blue from 'denim dust'!). Hike times were 54 minutes up, and about a half-hour down.

What a day.

MQ 2014 - One: Gap Mountain

It was a sunny dry day, in the low 50's as I drove up to Troy, NH to hike Gap Mountain. It was kind of windy, and very muddy, with patches of snow on the ground and lots of running water. The hike was great. No one on the mountain at all, except for at the summit (a nice couple in their 20's and their dog Allie, taking professional-grade photos of the girl, who must have been a dancer with all of the bending and stretching she was doing). I took a few vista photos myself (including Mount Monadnock), and headed back down with the music of The Beatles, Duncan Sheik, and St. Etienne on my older iPod. I stopped at Kevin's on the way home, and ate Oreos (chocolate and vanilla inners) while we watched David Ortiz help beat the Rangers 4-2 with a 3-run homer in the bottom of the 8th inning.

MQ 2013 - Two: Pratt Mountain

For some reason I seem to choose late October to hike Pratt Mountain each year:

• 2011 - Tuesday October 25th
• 2012 - Saturday October 27th
• 2013 - Sunday October 27th

Today it was a windy day, dry and cold. It was partly cloudy, but the sun snuck in just enough times to make the hike better.

Mission: Maine

My district manager wants me to undertake two work missions in Maine over the next week or so:

1. Work Friday and Saturday (11am - 9pm) and focus solely on sales in our severely-understaffed (3 employees!) store up there.
2. Work Tuesday and Wednesday (1pm - 10pm  and 9am - 5pm, respectively) teaching the staff operations and observing their daily routines & paperwork management.

I plan on hitting Old Port Friday night after work (Gritty McDuff's!), and maybe stopping in Portsmouth on the way home Saturday night to hang out with Brian & Rob.

I'm actually more excited about this weekend's work shifts than I am about the two days off I am currently in the midst of. Weird...

November Year's Resolutions

Yep, not 'New Year's Resolutions'. I need to get things on track, so I am making a list of things to work on in November beginning tomorrow (actually today):

• Visit more: I haven't seen some friends in over a year, and that's just wrong, no matter how busy everyone is. I want to get up to Portsmouth to hang out with Brian, Rob, Erik and Chris. I want to get into Boston to hang out with Jay and/or Gavin. And I want to hang out with Mike and Keith around these parts as well.
• Family Fun: I haven't seen Kevin in a long time (his fault mostly), so I will drop by on the next Sunday I happen to have off. I used to spend one day a week on average at Sarah's house when I was unemployed. I haven't been there since summer. And I will call Jason to gab with him and the kids at least once, since the likelihood of getting to California in the next 30 days is marginal at best (haha). Plus: at least two visits to Dad & Ma's.
• Exercise: I have had some success with this over the last two months. I added two hikes to "Mountain Quest 2012"; and I worked out ten times. I want to ramp that up to two hikes this month alone, and I will do my best to lift 3 times each week (except for maybe the week of Thanksgiving/Black Friday/my birthday).
• Eat Smarter: I need to stop eating after 7 pm, whether I work the day shift or not. And I need to quit the coffee in the afternoon as well. Plus, no Chinese or pizza delivered to my home! It's back to South Beach, as much as is practical with my schedule.
• Get rid of clutter: My apartment needs to be reorganized top to bottom. I will jettison anything I do not need. I will get rid of clothing that is useless. I will rearrange the place to be more conducive to artistic endeavors. And I will winnow my comics collection to a more manageable size.

I will update every weekend until the month ends, including this weekend, even though it's only three days away.

Mountain Quest 2012 No. 4

I decided at the last minute to hike Pratt Mountain today. It was cool and dry during my ascent, which took about 50 minutes. At the top I took photos, ate some almonds and an apple, sent my brother Jason a few pictures, and just enjoyed the view.

I also had planned to begin a series of Lego stories with a 'lost' Jedi named Kenzor Moh (who looks a lot like me, go figure!), so I snapped a bunch of pictures of 'me' and Boba Fett, and turned them into a photo tale (here).

The descent was rather humid, which wasn't too surprising, as I could see the mists rolling in while I was on the summit. I listened to Cocteau Twins' "Blue Bell Knoll" on the way down, and at the last minute decided to not drop in on my brother Kevin and his family, despite their house being right down the road. Some days I like to keep my hikes to myself for awhile, and today especially since I had the mountain to myself!

Mountain Quest 2012 No.1

At precisely 1:20 pm today I began my "Mountain Quest" series for 2012 with a hike up the Wapack and Kidder Mountain trails to the summit of Kidder Mountain.

I parked my car at the Wapack Trail head on Nashua Road in Sharon, NH, and before I even had my pack on my back, three mountain joggers and their dog preceded me onto the trail, and they were soon out of my sight. I set out on a sunny clear day, with the temperature around 50 degrees. The first part of the trail was a steady incline, very muddy but easy to navigate. A lot of the route was a frozen mountain stream, with various bypasses to get around the wettest spots, and lots of views through the trees. My shoes had been on their last legs for some time, and I expected to get soggy anyway, so I just enjoyed the walk down the woody trail full of icy patches (but no snow) and across several streams.

The directions I'd jotted down indicated that after spending some time on the Wapack Trail that I should turn left to follow the Kidder Mountain Trail to the summit. Well, at a point where it was well-marked to turn right on the Wapack (see above), I turned left as I thought I should. After a half mile up an old cart track I came to a vista, with a huge house on the right and no obvious route to the top of the mountain. I should have known it wasn't the right path to take, because there were no blue triangle blazes, and my assumption led me astray. Oh well... Thankfully the view was worth the backtracking, which I did after a few moments.

Once I was back on the Wapack I continued for awhile until I realized that the sun was in my face, and not on my left where it should have been since I was headed to the summit. So I backtracked once again to where some electrical towers ran up the hill, and found a poorly-situated marker sign to point me the right way (it can only be seen from the opposite direction). Then it was smooth sailing up a frequently-blazed trail, with a more challenging incline, random sweeping views and lots of switchbacks. The actual climbing part of the day had finally arrived after a lot of up and down wandering. I passed a pair of older women on their way down, exchanged pleasantries ("It's beautiful up there!" "Oh good, thank you!"), and with anticipation, trudged (can one 'trudge' merrily?) to the summit.

The view atop Kidder Mountain was amazing. There was nearly a full 360-degrees of unobstructed vision. I could see Watatic, Monadnock, Barrett, Temple, and a ton of other mountains and hills. I could see the ski trails on Mount Wachusett. I could even see Boston way off on the horizon. Who'd have thought the view would be such a perfect a payoff on January first? The bracing 30-something-degrees temperature on the summit didn't even bother me. The sun was out, I had my first climb of the year in the books, and the sights were incredible. I spent 15 minutes or so taking a few photos and then eating my customary almonds and apple (don't apples always taste better when they are eaten outdoors?) before choosing some songs to play on my way back down. Kristin Cifelli, Mojave 3, Abbie Barrett & The Last Date, and Barnaby Bright all took turns on my iPod. The trip up (with the two unplanned, yet welcome, detours) took me an hour and forty minutes, and the descent took only an hour. I was in my car at four, with muddy shoes (soon to be retired) and a happy spirit, and I drove home content...

Mountain Quest 14: Gap Mountain

Today, after sitting around trying not to think about my sore throat, and how annoyed with myself I'd be if I didn't make the most of my one day off this week, I loaded my backpack and headed off to Troy, NH to climb Gap Mountain.

 I got to the parking lot at 2:45 and set off into the woods. Soon enough I passed a guy and his two dogs, and after that I never saw another human. The beginning of the hike was easy, a wide-open meander. Then at the stream I hooked up with the Metacomet-Monadnock Trail and made my way to the summit. There were many cool features to the hike: there were small sets of stone staircases of 3-5 steps; wooden terrace-style steps; a steep rock scramble near the summit; and fog all day. When I got to the summit at 3:45 I felt like I was wandering over a grassy sand dune at a beach to get to the ocean. The view from the top, which is supposed to feature a spectacular vista including the mighty Mount Monadnock, was a blank wall of fog for 360 degrees.

I ate my apple and my almonds, took a few photos (including a trio of goofy Lego Star Wars ones), and then began my descent just as the rain began to mist all around me. I listened to music from Sidewalk, Vanessa Kafka, and Kristin Cifelli, making my way carefully down the cliffs, and then enjoying a dusk jaunt the rest of the way back to my car, where as soon as I got inside, the skies opened in a major downpour. The ol' Kenozoic luck with weather was in play once again!

Side note: I always enjoy the music part of my hikes (the descent during non-loop trail hikes), and I always feel inspired to rush home and practice my guitar playing, but by the time I get home and clean & fed and settled, I never fail to forget all about said inspiration until the next hike...