Hedgehog Trail - West Simsbury, Connecticut

 

As a "middle" child of four, and now a parent myself, I really understand how time is such a limited resource in the game of parenting. And also because of it, I'm overly aware of splitting my time, of making my two kids feel loved and seen and equal in my time and resources. I hope they look back at their equally completed baby books, email accounts with long winded letters to them both, and matching photos of solo adventures with mom and deeply feel that (at the cost of more time and energy than we have or feel most days). 

And so, on a beautiful fall day while Whitney was in school when I should have been finishing up work or completing 47 other tasks on my to do list, I took Piper on a fun solo adventure, very similar to the one I did with Whitney almost exactly two years ago.

Henry David Thoreau Footbridge (Hidden Valley Preserve) - Washington, CT

In a world where I wasn't a parent, I would have paired my 4.5-mile hike at Macricostas Preserve for another short 2-mile hike at Hidden Valley Preserve (5 minutes away). After that, I would have wandered through a few of these small Connecticut towns. I would have stopped somewhere for lunch, found a brewery to try something new, wander into a shop or two, and slowly make my way home back to the shoreline. This was my typical hiking day/weekend pre-parenting.

Wittenberg Mountain - Phoenicia - Catskills, New York

Adam and I have been trying to balance our love for the outdoors with our need to finish this damn house. If you are new to KW, we bought a complete fixer-upper in May and have spent the last 6 months taking down walls and rebuilding them back up. In all honesty, it was well-timed with the virus and everyone being homebound but it has also been a strain on my love of the outdoors and long weekends in the mountains.

We made a fair compromise with the trails and our renovation when we decided Saturday would be spent in the Catskills (close enough for a day trip, far enough to be in mountains) and work on the house Sunday (Garage/Basement cleanout day!)  We left early on Saturday morning armed with coffee and packed sandwiches, excited to spend the day in the Catskills, and enjoy a new hike on new trails.  I did some quick research online looking for a medium level hike between 4 and 10 miles with some decent elevation gain (and a view!) and stumbled on Wittenberg and Cornell Mountain.  

Mt. Pisgah Loop Hike - Lake Willoughby, Vermont

The temperatures were in the low 30s as I finished off my coffee and traveled across lonely dirt roads in northern Vermont, away from the quaint little village of Island Pond.  You know the dirt roads I'm talking about, narrow paths that cut through the woodsy untouched patches of Vermont.  These dirt roads are often lonely in the best way possible sometimes dotted with a cabin or two, or sweet houses or properties set back in the woods.  As you drive these dirt roads up and down Vermont, you can't help but stop and wonder how people get to their houses when the snow starts to fall.  This time of year, these dirt roads are an oasis, quiet enough to pull over and take in a picture and enjoy the view and you can drive along and feel like you are in a Lifetime romance movie.  It was the last of the leaves in Northern Vermont and it was just Olive and I at the tail end of my Kingdom Trails weekend, on a mission to catch some more golden hues and check out a new hike in the Northeast Kingdom. 

Before I left Connecticut, I did some research on some of the best hikes in Vermont and was happy to see one of these highly-rated hikes was only 20 minutes north of Kingdom Trails.  Mt. Pisgah in Westmore, Vermont makes the "Must Hike List" for its bird's eye views of Lake Willoughby and mountain vistas featuring Vermont, New Hampshire, and Canada.  It's a lovely little hike that is a moderate effort, a day hike that can be done as an "out and back" or as a loop hike if you don't mind a road walk.  Who minds a road walk when you have the mountains on one side and a lake on the other.  I did not. 

Hiking Bear Mountain - Highlands, New York

It was still peak foliage in the northern/central regions of New England and we only had a day to spend in the woods.  Saturday was filled with pumpkin carving and Adams nephew's birthday party (and my first time to Stew Leonards, still not sure how I feel about).  So with the weekend commitment of Saturday around Connecticut, Sunday had its limitations.  The plan was kind of a "no plan" plan....sleep in and in the morning, find a hike within a 1-2 hour radius with prime foliage and awesome views.

Bear Mountain was a state park Adam kept referring to just over the border in New York.  He had never been but knew it received high marks as far as viewpoints and accessibility went.  We had been toying around with the idea of the Catskills but ended up opting for Bear Mountain, a supposedly scenic hike closer than the Catskills, located just an hour from Adam's house in Norwalk, Connecticut.

Fall Hike up Mount Tecumseh via Waterville Valley - New Hampshire's Smallest 48

I am so out of order.  So out of the adventure order. 

I try to blog in the sequence that I travel but sometimes life gets oh so good and I play a lot more than I can blog.  Don't get me wrong, it is a good problem to have when you are enjoying life so much in the present moment you forget to write about it in the past tense.  

So because of all my adventures, I have this sweet lovely yet daunting backlog of posts to share with you.  This one, this post could not wait.  The fall foliage is peak right now in northern New England and this has to be my favorite hike to date.  This may be the best weekend I have had in a long time.  So excuse me as I jump around, but I needed to share this amazing morning in New Hampshire with you.