46 years old! Moriah, my birthday. December 22, 2016

Stony Brook and Carter-Moriah Trails.  10 miles roundtrip, 3150 feet of elevation gain.

Alex will have a trip report of this hike when she returns from her holiday travels.  In the meantime, she posted photos from her hike here.

I will post my own trip report photos below.

First -- 46 years old.  Wow -- I am now officially closer to 50 than I am to 40.  And you know what?  I feel good.  Damn good.  I hike mountains.  I have every intention of hiking mountains until my legs give out and I keel over.  I figure as long as I can get outside on a regular basis then I am good to go.  I don't mind getting older.  I learn more with each day.  Knowledge is good.

Here are my photos -- one note of advice...if you plan on carrying an ice cream cake to the top of a mountain in your backpack, then make sure you insulate the cake from the heat of your back as you hike.  Otherwise, that ice cream cake might partially melt, lol.

Have a wonderful holiday, everyone!  Alex will be back before the New Year with a full trip report of this hike, and we will also hike one more mountain(s) before the arrival of 2017.  Stay safe, keep the faith, and happy hiking!

Tom, Field, and Willey on December 11, 2016

We had a lovely, microspike-able hike last Sunday of Tom, Field, and Willey.  Alex wrote a wonderful trip report about it here. 

We just got a bunch of snow, and we're about to get a bunch more, so it looks like most of the White Mountain peaks will be "butt-slide-able" from now until April.  :)  Looking forward to some fast and furious descents.

The Hancocks on December 4

Alex posted a trip report of our Dec 4 Hancocks hike.  You can read it here.  Now we don't "need" the Hancocks during the snow months anymore...that's kind of sad, since butt-sliding down South Hancock is always a lot of fun.  :)  Oh well -- we have plenty of other peaks left for the winter months, all of which are butt-slide-able in the right conditions, lol.

We have not forgotten about switching our fundraising focus to an organization we feel Trump will antagonize.  Global Fund for Women is important and valuable, and we have been honored to raise money to support women's rights around the globe.  We thank everyone who has contributed.  We now want to do our part, however small, in maintaining the integrity of our country.  We have been watching and keeping up with the news, reading about Trump's cabinet picks, looking, waiting, investigating.  The girls have an idea that we will likely go with, but we will wait until the final days of December before Alex and Sage finalize that plan and write about it.  In the meantime, they will keep knocking off peaks from their Grids.  To those who have been so kind with your private and/or public messages during this catastrophic time for our nation, thank you.  Please keep donating to your favorite female-empowering, LGBT-supporting, civil rights-protecting, and/or climate change research organizations.

Happy hiking, folks.  Be kind to one another out there.

Carter Dome and the Carters -- November 23, 2016

Alex's trip report for the Carters and Carter Dome can be found here.  She used a combination of her photos and mine, and she summed up the trip beautifully, so I don't feel the need to write my own TR for this one.  :) 

On Moosilauke, Thinking of the Future

Alex and Sage posted a video pertinent to the election results.  They did this a little while ago on Alex's blog, but I have been so preoccupied with Thanksgiving that I just realized I never posted the link.  You can find that video/Alex's blog here.

By the way, if you're disappointed that my girls are political, or that they are mixing hiking with political statements, then you haven't been paying attention all these years.  Alex and Sage have used their hiking to raise money for equal rights for women since our 2013 hike of the Camino de Santiago.  They have always been political.  They are young women living in this world; how could they not be?  Of course the current President-Elect disappoints them...and they are disappointed that many people in America voted for an openly racist and sexist human being.  They are disappointed in the immediate rise in hate crimes after the election.  They are worried about the safety and well-being of their LBGT friends and family members, and they are concerned about their own reproductive rights as they head into their teens.  So of course they are going express themselves, and of course they are going to figure out how to use their hiking to raise money, or to do something else that's concrete, to combat what we figure will be an anti-female, anti-science, anti-LBGT, and anti-anyone-who's-not-a-white-Christian-male regime. 

Future posts will find the girls being very pro-equal rights, as they always have been, and definitely supporting an organization (or several organizations, they haven't yet decided) they feel will be under direct threat by Trump and his alt-right crew.  They will focus on the positive -- meaning, how you can specifically help and the wonderful things those specific organizations do -- rather on the negative (the horror show that will soon represent the United States government).  They will have their plans finalized by the New Year.

In the meantime -- donate to the ACLU, to Planned Parenthood, to organizations that support and publish climate change research.  Stand up for people in our country who need support right now -- namely, anyone who is not a white Christian male.  Stand up for the future of our country, and for a climate that is suitable for future generations.  Stand up.  Now is not the time for apathy.

Hancocks. November 6, 2016

Hancocks.  The usual route.  I am too disgusted and angry with half of our voting population to write very much at the moment, but trust me -- Alex, Sage, and I have a plan to do whatever we can to support those wonderful organizations that Donald Trump and Mike Pence will, in their ignorance and hate of everything that is not White, Male, and Conservative Christian, do their best to pull down and destroy.  Our mission for the next four years is clear.  We will stand up for everything that is right and true, and we will do what we can to defend the vulnerable populations of our country.  We will not allow a Trump regime to ruin everything that love and light hold dear.  Alex and Sage will have something to say about all this on video on Alex's next post, which will be Monday evening.

Here are our pictures.  No views today, but we were greeted by one extremely fat gray jay who was far down below on the trail, nowhere near his/her usual summit spot.  Odd.

Too big to fly back up to where he/she's supposed to be..?

North Hancock...

No view by the viewpoint today...

Onward...

South Hancock...

Lovely view on the way back down...

'Til Monday.  In the meantime, stand up and speak out for people who need your help.  Don't allow a gay person to be bullied at your school.  Don't allow a cowardly racist to shout insults at someone who practices Islam.  Stand up.  Be brave.  Help us keep hold of our country -- liberty and justice FOR ALL.

Jackson. November 1, 2016

Jackson-Webster Trail, 5 miles roundtrip, 2150 feet of elevation gain.

Alex's trip report of this hike is here.

This was supposed to be a fast and easy hike - we usually knock off this peak in three hours or less.  Both girls have a ton of schoolwork to finish over the next couple of weeks before they leave with their dad for a pre-Thanksgiving vacation, so this week's hike and next week's hike were/are supposed to be easy-speedy.  We knew there would be ice on the trails, since we keep up with current trail condition reports on various social media sites, but we figured we'd wear traction and be fine.  Unfortunately, there wasn't enough ice to warrant wearing traction...yet there was sufficient ice to slow us down tremendously.  It's that frustrating in-between season right now.

Alex's solo adventures are on hiatus until late spring.  I am a strong supporter of hikers going solo once they have the appropriate navigation and safety skills under their belts (Alex has these skills), but I am not a fan of solo hiking during winter or almost-winter.  That sentiment is strictly for me and my children -- I know of many hikers who solo in winter and I do not feel that makes them negligent.  The risk factor with solo hiking during winter skyrockets though, and it is something I am not comfortable with when it comes to me or mine.  However, for any of you reading this who are skilled solo winter trekker -- hike your own hike, have fun, and stay safe. 

Our hike began easily enough...though I was noticeably slower on the first section than I should have been, thanks to my recent consumption of far too much Halloween candy.

Here comes the ice...there, so hiking becomes tricky, but not there enough to wear microspikes without smashing the spikes into rocks.

We averaged a mile an hour for our ascent, which for us is pathetic, but oh well, safety first.  Finally, we reached the section near the top where you can see the summit.

We climbed up the ledge (too busy watching my step to take photos, sorry!) and were immediately greeted by the resident gray jays.

The sun was out and the scenery was gorgeous!  It felt warm up there; we could linger without getting cold.

I love this shot

Jackson's summit, with the southern Presis and Washington in the distance...

The girls on Jackson...

The girls plus gray jays on Jackson...

Views...

We stayed on the summit far longer than we had intended.  It was such a gorgeous day, and it was warm up there, so we just didn't want to leave.  We finally made ourselves (carefully) descend and ended up getting back to the car two hours later than we had planned.  Oh well.  With hard work, both girls finished all the schoolwork they had to do for the day anyway, so it all worked out.

Hope everyone is enjoying the season of almost-winter.