Hiking with Amber and Kirsten

My son DJ has two little sisters, Amber and Kirsten . I write about my buddy Amber all the time. Over the years we have spent a lot of time together. I haven't spent as much time with Kirsten but she is a good kid also. Amber went with DJ and I to Acadia National Park a few years ago. Kirsten had never been to any mountains, hiking, camping or as she said, "seen a waterfall."  Finding time to see them is hard enough because they both do competition cheerleading. So finding a couple days to go hiking was almost impossible. Luckily, they had this week off from cheer so we planned on going up on my days off.

Two tents as far apart as I could make them.
I don't deal well with snoring 

We went up Thursday late afternoon, but because of traffic and difficulty finding a campsite we didn't get any hiking in.  We stayed at Sugarloaf Campground ($20). The girls were happy to have places to go to the bathroom.

Friday morning we drove to the Davis Path. We hiked it up to Mt. Crawford. Mt. Crawford has one of
my favorite 360 degree views. It was very overcast. I knew going up there was a good chance the taller mountains would be in the clouds. It did look like the cloud ceiling was well over 4000 feet. I hoped that we would see most of the mountains under the overcast conditions.

We got lucky, although it was overcast when we reached the top two hours later, the sky was clearing. We could clearly watch the cloud ceiling rise. Even Big  George made an appearance for a few minutes.

We stayed on top a couple hours getting pictures and taking in the views. We took almost as long going down. There is a lot of sand on the rocks so we took our time to minimize falling. After we got down we went for pizza in Twin Mountain.

Amber doing a cartwheel on Middle Sugarloaf

When we got out of the pizza place, the sky was bright blue. All the humidity was gone. We had planned to go sit on top of the elephant head near Saco Lake. Instead I told the girls (who just did five miles hiking AND ate pizza) that we should hike another small mountain that has a great view. So at 6:50 pm, he started up to Middle Sugarloaf. It is only 1.3 miles to the top. We made it to the top at 7:30. This gave us about 40 minutes before we had to screw down to beat the darkness. Time flew by
on top. The girls loved the view and playing on the rock slabs. Being cheerleaders, they wanted  pictures doing cartwheels on the mountain.  We stayed on top ten minutes too long. By the time we got to the bottom, Amber was using her phone's flashlight app.

Saturday morning after we packed, we drove to the Elephant Head to eat breakfast. I promised them we would go there. Then we went to the Lower Falls of the Ammonoosuc River. Kirsten got to see her waterfall. From there we drove to the Basin and then to see the Indian head profile. Ten we drove to Waterville Valley.

It was still only 11 am at this point. The main focus was Welch-Dickey Mountains.  I figured the girls would love the big views on the clear day. I had forgotten how steep the slabs are. Although they liked the views, they  were none to impressed with the steepness.

I had done Welch-Dickey last year after I hiked Tripyramid. I started at 5:30 pm and had to be down at dark. That meant I hustled, it took me exactly 3 hours. This hike I wanted to enjoy the views more. I hoped the hike would last about four hours. However, Amber was tired and done. She put her head down at the top of the second mountain and just went down. We made it in 3:40. The only good part of that was, I still had a three hour drive home, so it was okay.

It's becoming a tradition

My drive home was lonely. The girls slept almost from the beginning of the drive to the end. Periodically they'd wake for a snack, then fall back to sleep. All in all we had a great time.

It was 52 degrees Saturday morning. Amber wore my raincoat for
warmth, because why would you pack a sweatshirt in July

Things I learned

Hiking with girls means waiting for hair to be brushed. It means hearing "wait a second" a lot because of untied shoes, stopping for a rest, and fixing their hair. Hiking with girls also means they want to see every picture after you snap it, if it is not the way they want it, we retake it. That was actually cool for me. I like taking photos, it was nice to have such willing subjects.

Amber on Mt. Crawford

Blueberry picking

The light was perfect at the Basin