Yearly Archives: 2012

Sunday night – family

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Vacation part 2. N we drove down to Boston this afternoon.. First stop was to see our nephew Vincent and his gf Trish before they head off to India.. It was great meeting Trish !


Diane, gabe, max and I are in sherburn am at my folks house. My brother billy, his wife Shaun, and their kids, Ben, Betsy. Berto, billy, and Chris are hear.. My sister and her 3 kids ellery, jake and theo get he tomorrow.. And her husband john gets here thursday (unfortunately after we leave) were all together for the first time in several years.. It feels good and at the same time sad for not having Sam here.. It’ll always be like that I know…
It is very good seeing everyone.. Its a pleasant chaos.. Folks talking at o nice.. Everyone (including me) doing show and tell.. We just had fun playing with the led hoop.. I’ll get some pics of that from Betsy when she posts them.. Hre are some pics from the rest of the evening..

gathered around the electronics,


Chris, berto and Shaun


Ben and Betsy


Us


Din-din


My brother , pa and me


Chris


Shaun, Ben and pa


More in the coming days… Should be fun..
Nite all, nite Sam .. Missing you much

-me
– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:N Main St,Natick,United States

Saturday eveing – off the trail

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We got home today from a truly wonderful family vacation backpacking in the mountains near our house. In the end we opted for a slightly different route than we intended Puffer shelter was so nice, that we opted to stay there last nigh, which meant walking home was too far to do in a day. We opted instead to leave the trail and walk down the back country ski trails to Bolton Valley. It was such a wonderful trip.. physically strenuous and away from hustle and  bustle and people. In fact we saw only one person yesterday after we left taylor lodge and no one at all today until we came out in bolton . It is amazing that there is that kind of beauty and that kind of isolation within 10 miles of our home. it was great and peaceful time…

As I wrote before . , there was no good way to upload pictures on our walk.. so I’ll do that here.. my apologies for the large number of pics.. but I post these as much for me as for readers.. it makes htem easy to find later on.. and its great having a record of a trip like this

 

Here we are thursday about to leave from stowe

and there goes our trail angel (and ride) jenny

first leg up was with the gondola, more for fun than laziness

then , the toughtest part of the hike, the cliff trail.. here are the boys at the cave of the wind.. the trail was pretty tough with 40-50 pound packs.. several palaces where you had to hoist tyourself up and over things

at the top of the cliff trial, max and gabe let off a fire balloon with Sam’s name on it.. it was a great way to launch our trip

about 30 minutes into our hike I heard max shouting.. we coincidentally ran in to the couple Aaron and Mary at whos wedding max was in Virginia last week (yes.. Virginia !!!) .. They were honymooning here in vt.. what are the cances of running in to them on a trail at the top of mansfield ?

and hour or so later we stopped for lunch still overlooking stowe,

there were some great scrambles on the trail .. about 7 steep wooden ladders and a few dodgy places.. but all in all a pretty steep but fun trail

around 7 PM we got to taylor lodge.. we started setting up camp  to get done before dark

we shared the lodge with soem nice guys from ohio .. they were good company

the lodge was dedicated to our friend Debo who passed away about 5 years ago , Debo used to play soccer woth Diane about 25years ago.

We slept well that night.. the boys in tents and Diane and I on the table out front.. it was pretty warm.. with a fantastic moon

We woke up in shifts.. diane around 6, me around 8 and the boys around 9

it took us a while to pack up

we wrote in the log book placed a samstone and took off south

well. not before gabe tried out the ninja tree climbing gloves that max just gave him

the trail south of tatlor was a mix of up and down hill with .. some great scenery along the way

 

 


around 3 pm it started pouring right before we got to puffer shelter.. buy the time we got there , we were pretty soaked.. we got there, ate lunch and started to dry our stuff… and fell in love with the place.. We decided to stray the night…   that meant building ‘THAG’ our friendly camp mate..

complete with smoke bomb dyed eyes


then gabe built a siege weapon to defend our space..

it was just past full moon, another beautiful evening.. the photos cant do it justice..

we all slept well .. and woke to find THAG still standing guard.

Gabe did some of our water pumping today.. the stream was almost dry, we had to pump and filter water  from some stagnant pools.. yum !

all day I was wearing some goofy pink reading glasses i found at the leanto. quite a fashion statement

 

we left the camp around 9:30 .. after placing a samstone

and waving goodbye to Thag !

It was a steep half mile climb from there up tot the top of Bolton mountain. Our kids were all raised on this moutain, so it had special significance.. Diane had smuggled in a Redbull.. so we drnak a toast to Sam.. and put our last samstone on the highest rock.

from there it was just over an hours walk down the beautiful ack country ski trails to bolton valley..

to find our car that deb had left there for us. yeah !!!

then back home to shower.. and to wash our gear.. especially our shoes.. check this out !

what a great trip !

OK.. so I’m sure you’re tired of pictures.. and I’m just tired.. .. so I’ll stop here.. now comes vacation phase 2.. more from the road tomorrow

 

nite all, nite sam

-me

Friday night – hiking day 2

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Greetings from puffer lodge, a tiny leanto on the north side of Bolton mountain . We’re looking over a 30 mile valley with nothing in it but trees.. And we’re only about 10 miles from our house.

It’s you sending too many pics from my iPad.. So I’ll send them tomorrow when we be home


Today was an easier and fun day today.. We woke around 8 after a good nights sleep.. Bugs weren’t too bad, it was a little warm.. But there was a beautiful moon out.

We puttered around Taylor lodge sort of getting ready to go.. By the time we got hiking again it
Was about 11.
We hiked for about four hours.. Lots of up hill (which we like) ..just after we got to the top of mt mayo, the heavens opened and we got drenched,l we’d tried to make puffer before we got soaked.. But it was too far. By the time we got to puffer we were plenty wet…. But it was sunny again.
It was so beautiful here that we decided to spend the night.. We spent the rest of the afternoon building things around the campsite .. Like our friend Thag here


–

We just ate dinner and are watching a beautiful moonrise.. More pics from that when we get home tomorrow..
Right now I want to hang out with family..so I’m turning this thing off..

Nite all, nite Sam
-me

Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Day 2

Thursday night – hiking day 1 (delayed)

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Just got cell again… Posting from last night

Greetings from the south flank of mt Mansfield . Max, gabe, Diane and I are 1 day into our 3 day backpacking adventure . We’re walking home from Stowe on the long trail. Today jen picked us up around 10 and drove us to the Stowe gondola . We rode up which may be considered cheating but was really fun. Then came the toughest climb of the day, the cliff trail. Diane started by dislocating the pinky of her right hand. She yelled then popped it back in and kept climbing. Atta girl ! There was about 200 meters of white knuckles (for me) hoisting to get our over heavy packs up to the junction with the long trail once there we launched a hit air balloon with SAMs name to lunch the trip . From there it was about 6.5 miles to Taylor lodge where we are now. On the way we incredibly ran into a couple mary and aaron from Virginia who’s wedding max attended last week (what ?!?!) aaron irat saw me and recognized me drom the colony.. Then he saw max and he frakd put . Max actually saved someone at the wedding by doing the heimlich.
The rest of the hike today was hard and beautiful. Lots of ups and downs with heavy packs. Still it was wonderful all being together. We dropped a couple of samstones along the way. S was here with us on the trail
we got to the cabin around 7… Which was 2 hours later than planned. There’s a nice group of recent grads from Ohio state sharing the place with us
Dinner was wonderful.. Fresh pesto , noodles and home made bread yum. We’re all exhausted now. So I’ll end here. I have lots of pictures to send… But not enough bandwidth to send ten. Hopefully tomorrow .

Sleep well everyone

Nite all, nite Sam
-me