Sara wants you to know that she took hundreds of photos yesterday and, daughter Anya age 2 allowing, she will post a large batch of pix later on.

 

Meanwhile, turn your attention to the photo offerings by counselors on four different hiking trips from the first few days of the session.  Note how perfect the weather has been for such outings.  In order of their appearance, I will tell you about Mt. Moosilauke, Mt. Cardigan, Cannon Mountain and Mt Piermont.

 

Moosilauke, the name, is not derived from the large animal that roams the woods and, yes, we have a photo of a moose taken from the summit of Moosilauke.  Sheer coincidence!  Rather, Moosilauke comes to us from an early native American word meaning “high flat place.”  Well?

 

Hiking the Appalachian Trail going north from Georgia, Moosilauke is the very first summit that has an open view for 360 degrees and many argue it has the best view in the White Mountains.  Maybe or maybe not, but Kingswood trampers enjoy looking southward towards Lake Tarleton and the Kingswood campus.  In the group photo, look between Gabe Vordick (orange pants) and Griffin Hawley (light blue shirt) and you can see the camp.

 

And those cairns (piles of rocks,) they are there to guide the way in white-out conditions, which we have encountered many times over the years.

 

Next up is Cardigan, another high flat place if ever there was one.  This is rare for the White Mountains and one of the reasons we are drawn to it.  We go up the easy path and one can see the old fire tower (abandoned) way ahead as he inches his way up the hill.

 

Cannon Mountain is a tough hike as it is very steep from one side and goes over (big ups and downs) the three “cannonballs” from the other side.  It is a well-known snow ski attraction in the winter and the aerial tramway stays open in the summer to give the faint-hearted a cheap shot at the summit.  To us, any peak that is not hiked is a cop out and the plan usually is to eat lunch on the observation deck and gross out the tourists with our smelly bodies.  And, those views are awesome.  Eat your heart out, Moosilauke!

 

Lastly, counselors offered some nice photos of the hike up Mt. Piermont.  This one is immediately adjacent to camp and begins in the left field corner of the Little League field.  The summit affords excellent views of Lake Tarleton, Moosilauke and the Franconia Range where Cannon is located.

 

We built the Piermont Trail ourselves and it took about 12 years to get the trail exactly as we would like.  We’ve named the steepest section the “Elevator Shaft” and you can see a camper taking a very large step on a big rock in this area.

 

All hikes at Kingswood are by choice but we do some heavy promotion to urge kids to give this “sport” a decent try.  Many become hooked.  I can tell by the huge number of questions I field regarding the nearby peaks that make up the requisites to the Varsity Club, the only true “club” one can join here at Kingswood.

 

I just added a few pictures of the “Varsity Wheel” and the display in the Game Room.