I went camping with my dad this weekend. Him and I haven’t had any one-on-one time in probably 5 or 6 years, it’s always been with my brother, or mom, or a combination thereof.
There’s a difficult hike he has been wanting to try for a long, long time, but my mom never wants to go. Even with me, he was hemming and hawing about if we should try it, or go for an easier hike… I said “Fuck it let’s do it. We don’t have anything to prove, if it gets too treacherous we can just turn around”
We got to a little bald overlook area lower on the trail and saw where the trail shoots above the treeline on a super rocky crag to the summit, it looked intimidating and steep, with no trees for cover. My dad was like “Holy shit we aren’t even going to make it to that first cap”… But I pushed him, and we continued on, and DID eventually make it to the first cap, after a decent amount of hand-over-foot scrambling up incredibly steep rocks. Here’s an unflattering picture my dad took of me climbing a section still below the treeline Here’s what the trail looked like at one point, it’s really hard to see how steep it is.
And here’s the view from where we ended up stopping to turn around. I wish I would have taken more time to get a better picture. This was my first time hiking above the treeline, and it was really exhilarating. I want to go back and do it again right now, but alas, I must work.
We didn’t make it to the summit, but we did make it much further than we expected, and had an absolute blast. We will definitely be coming back next year with better footwear, lighter packs, and more preparation to get to the summit.
(Photos were taken on my Olympus D-360 point-and-shoot digital camera from the year 2000, which explains the… everything about the photos.)
Is the NH in your username for New Hampshire?
This was the Caps Ridge trail up Mt. Jefferson!
A friend and I have been saying for years we just need to find a nice weekend and yolo Mt. Washington while we are still young and can make those kinds of rash decisions without just straight up dying lol. This hike I did with my dad let me see that it might not actually be that farfetched. We turned around not because we were tired, but because we were nervous about going back down the bald rock-faces ahead of us… For Mt. Washington, if we booked a descent trip on the Cog, we wouldn’t need to worry about the trip down lol
Why yes, it is for New Hampshire! I used to hike every fall (summer gets too hot), but haven’t done more than local jaunts the last few years. Mt. Washington is out of my league, lol!
Definitely will be a short trip that we’ll remember!
Through my teens and early to mid 20’s I was pretty anti-family, I thought my parents were super annoying (mostly my mom) and I tried to avoid going on trips with them if possible. I feel like that’s fairly typical, though I still feel bad about it, looking back. Only now in my early 30’s have I really started to appreciate spending time with them. Better now than never, I guess haha.
I’m actually going camping with both my parents this weekend, too, so more fun to be had!
I went camping with my dad this weekend. Him and I haven’t had any one-on-one time in probably 5 or 6 years, it’s always been with my brother, or mom, or a combination thereof.
There’s a difficult hike he has been wanting to try for a long, long time, but my mom never wants to go. Even with me, he was hemming and hawing about if we should try it, or go for an easier hike… I said “Fuck it let’s do it. We don’t have anything to prove, if it gets too treacherous we can just turn around”
We got to a little bald overlook area lower on the trail and saw where the trail shoots above the treeline on a super rocky crag to the summit, it looked intimidating and steep, with no trees for cover. My dad was like “Holy shit we aren’t even going to make it to that first cap”… But I pushed him, and we continued on, and DID eventually make it to the first cap, after a decent amount of hand-over-foot scrambling up incredibly steep rocks. Here’s an unflattering picture my dad took of me climbing a section still below the treeline
Here’s what the trail looked like at one point, it’s really hard to see how steep it is.
And here’s the view from where we ended up stopping to turn around. I wish I would have taken more time to get a better picture. This was my first time hiking above the treeline, and it was really exhilarating. I want to go back and do it again right now, but alas, I must work.
We didn’t make it to the summit, but we did make it much further than we expected, and had an absolute blast. We will definitely be coming back next year with better footwear, lighter packs, and more preparation to get to the summit.
(Photos were taken on my Olympus D-360 point-and-shoot digital camera from the year 2000, which explains the… everything about the photos.)
This whole memory deserves a post of it’s own somewhere.
That was wonderful. Thanks for sharing!
Is the NH in your username for New Hampshire? This was the Caps Ridge trail up Mt. Jefferson!
A friend and I have been saying for years we just need to find a nice weekend and yolo Mt. Washington while we are still young and can make those kinds of rash decisions without just straight up dying lol. This hike I did with my dad let me see that it might not actually be that farfetched. We turned around not because we were tired, but because we were nervous about going back down the bald rock-faces ahead of us… For Mt. Washington, if we booked a descent trip on the Cog, we wouldn’t need to worry about the trip down lol
Why yes, it is for New Hampshire! I used to hike every fall (summer gets too hot), but haven’t done more than local jaunts the last few years. Mt. Washington is out of my league, lol!
This is an amazing comment! That’ll always be a lovely memory and is a real dad and son day. Thanks for sharing it!
Definitely will be a short trip that we’ll remember!
Through my teens and early to mid 20’s I was pretty anti-family, I thought my parents were super annoying (mostly my mom) and I tried to avoid going on trips with them if possible. I feel like that’s fairly typical, though I still feel bad about it, looking back. Only now in my early 30’s have I really started to appreciate spending time with them. Better now than never, I guess haha.
I’m actually going camping with both my parents this weekend, too, so more fun to be had!
Absolutely you appreciate and value them better now and it shows how much your relationship has grown. Hope you have a good trip!