King Family Outdoors: Mt. Willard July 24, 2011

We spent the weekend camping in Twin Mountain and visited Santa's Village on Saturday. We wanted to do something on Sunday on the way home and after a late checkout around 11:30 and a blueberry pancake breakfast (with fresh blueberries picked at our campsite) Mt. Willard was the target.

Billed as one of the best views for the effort required this relatively short hike was perfect to kill a few hours with the family. We arrived at Crawford Notch around noon and started up the trail. This is an extremely popular hike for families and given this was a weekend day with nice weather, it certainly was busy. I don't think 5 minutes ever went by w/o running into other hikers: mostly families with young kids.

Near the start

We stopped often on the way up as Alex kept wanting to take breaks and eat snacks so we did whenever he wanted to. I always took Ethan out and let him run around during the breaks and when we would start off he of course runs after his big brother and tries to keep up. Which is nice for me since an empty pack weighs far less than a pack with another person inside it! Ethan hiked on his own a fair amount on this trip as the trail is very wide and not that steep.

Ethan trying to keep up with Alex who looks on

Ethan loves to throw rocks and he spent more time doing that than hiking, I kept trying to get him to stop as I don't want him to get into a habit of throwing rocks while hiking and he did eventually seem to get it.

Throwing rocks!

Before to long we reached Centenial Pool which is just off the trail on the right. There were 2 other families already here who were on their way down. Typically I would continue on and leave the pool to them, but knowing how crowded this trail was today I figured it would never be empty so we stopped and checked out the pool and short falls.

Ethan at Centenial Pool

There are 2 geocaches along this trail and I had them both downloaded into the GPS which beeped when we were at the pool so I sent Alex off looking for the cache. He invited the kids from the other families to look for it and suddenly there were a bunch of kids running through the woods looking for a little box with trinkets in it! We eventually found the cache and dropped off a trackable we had and Alex grabbed a pack of silly bands in exchange.

Alex, Denise and Ethan at the Pool

After a break we headed back up the trail, more of the same - this trail is like a mini highway that tunnels through the trees.

Alex was getting hot so he took off his camelback, then eventually took of his shirt and was hiking w/o a shirt. Whatever floats his boat. Up up up we went until eventually we rounded a corner and literally saw the light at the end of the tunnel. A very unique approach to the summit as the photo below shows:

Light at the end of the tunnel!

And as described the views looking down Crawford Notch were certainly great. Ranging from Willey to our right and Webster Cliffs on the left and Mts. Webster, Jackson and Pierce and even Washington peaking out over its smaller neighbors.

Ethan at summit

Ethan with Webster Cliffs in the background

Jackson and Webster

Crawford Notch

302 and railroad trestle

Family photo at summit!

We found a quiet place on the summit and ate lunch and rested up. There was another geocache up here closer to the true summit where the trail headed further along the cliffs into the woods. So I handed Alex the GPS and he led us down the trail and a short bushwack through the woods to the 2nd cache. There was a little dog toy in there that Ethan wanted so we left some of the sillybands gathered from the 1st cache and Alex grabbed some colored chalk and Ethan the dog.


Ethan and Alex at Mt. Willard sign

Running along the cliffs (got away from mom)

On the way back down Alex was in super charged speed mode and practically ran down. He was trying to stay in front of me and Ethan as if we caught him we were going to give him a great big kiss, so he booked it to stay ahead. I had Ethan on my back the whole way and he wouldn't stop laughing saying "Alex funny! Alex funny! Alex funny!" all the way down. Alex kept running around making a fool of himself planting tree bombs on the trail that we would step on to slow us down. This game did the trick as boy did he move, I was going as fast as could while still keeping safe with Ethan on my back and was barely keeping up. We even passed a group of adults which is the first time Alex has ever passed anyone on a hike I think.

Before we knew it we were back to the pool and mom was nowhere in sight. So we took off our shoes and dipped our feet in the very cold water which was very refreshing!