Conquering Mt. Cardigan

This weekend's adventure included camping with Scott's focused ultrasound lab. He doesn't see them as much anymore since he's in the Alzheimer's research lab more often - not to mention classes and MCAT studying and all. We went to Mount Cardigan in New Hampshire.
Here's our lovely abode. Thank goodness for the rain-fly; that came in handy that night. We made foil meals and s'mores then headed to the sleeping bags. Bruce got up at 5 a.m. the next morning, probably because of a really loud woodpecker that was pecking right on the outhouse door.
We ate oatmeal for breakfast and then began our epic hike to the top of Mount Cardigan. The trail started out with only a mild incline in a "seasonal forest," as Bruce calls them (thanks to Planet Earth).

Then the trail got rockier.
And soon we were climbing on big boulders.

Our hike took us to the top of Mount Firescrew first.
This is at the top of Firescrew.

Here's the view from Firescrew.
Bruce is actually a very good little climber.



After Firescrew, we hiked up a little shoulder to the top of Mount Cardigan.
The only reason Bruce made it was this bag of trail mix. We took trail mix breaks about every 20-30 minutes.
Here's the view from Cardigan. It was a gorgeous day, although the summit was really windy so we didn't stay at the top for too long.


After a short break on the summit, we descended on an easier trail. Bruce did great on the way up; he was fine for about four miles. The last two miles going down were rougher. Scott carried him on his shoulders for the last mile.



When we got back to camp, we ate lunch while chatting with lab-mates. Bruce fell asleep in my arms with a bar of chocolate halfway in his mouth. Unfortunately, the car was parked about a ten-minute walk away. He was a total sack of potatoes though, so I put him over my shoulder and carried him to the car while Scott packed up our belongings and hauled them out. Bruce slept most of the way home, then we woke him up for his friend's birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese's! We drove straight there, so we smelled like sweat, insect repellent, and bonfire - not to mention we were still wearing our grungy hiking clothes. Bruce played with a few games but liked climbing on the play structure the most; I couldn't even believe he had the energy to climb up that thing after topping two mountain peaks that morning. Kids are amazing.

In other news, I saw a hip specialist on Friday who said he's not sure my pain is from the torn cartilage so wouldn't recommend surgery yet. No finish line in sight on this injury. So I hiked the mountain knowing it'd kill my hip, but I needed some exercise-induced endorphins to cheer me up.