Caleb and I went hiking and camping in the White Mountains this weekend. Here’s a clip from our trip. (Note: It’s a bit long. My favorite part, if you want to skip ahead, is around the 4-minute mark.)

Here are some photos from our hike this Sunday in the Middlesex Fells Reservation (click on the photo to see more).

Caleb, Megan and I started our hike from the Medford High parking lot, heading straight for Rams Head Road, which we then took to the top of Rams Head Hill. We stayed there for a few minutes, took a family shot, had some water and snacks, and then headed down to the north side of the hill to pick up Rams Head Road again. We parted ways there, Megan and Caleb heading back to the car, while I went on to hike the Skyline Trail that circles the western half of the reservation.

The day was perfect for hiking, and spending some time exploring the Fells really makes me feel blessed to live within walking distance of so many of its trail heads.

We took a little family hike today (photos to come later) and I thought this clip of Caleb scrambling up the last bit of trail before the top of Ram’s Head Hill was pretty cute.

Caleb, Nadine and I had a great Daddy Day yesterday. The weather was beautiful (sunny, pretty clouds, and in the mid 60’s) so we decided to go for a hike. We packed up a nice hiking lunch, filled our water bottles, and drove to Great Brook Farm State Park. Caleb nabbed his own trail map when we arrived, and chose a wonderful loop hike that meandered through the woods and also by several ponds and meadows. We had a nice lunch (snacks along the trail, and then a sit-down lunch by the big pond) and said hello to the farm animals. Unfortunately we could not find Nadine’s goat friend, but she didn’t seem to mind too much. Unfortunately, though we packed a great lunch, I forgot to bring a camera. So…

Instead of hiking photos, I offer this photo of “Dash” (from the Incredibles). Caleb was looking forward to Megan’s train arriving in West Medford and rather than giving him a much-needed trim, we decided to spike his hair. He insisted on being called Dash thereafter (yes, all night — he pretty much would not answer to “Caleb”) and could (almost, if you looked really quickly and have very sharp vision) be seen sprinting around the house for the rest of the afternoon and evening.

After dinner we decided to walk to Arlington since the weather was so nice and a bit of walking would be fun. By that point Caleb’s hair dried in a big spikey puff. It was fantastic.

Mt. Washington, though tiny at under 7,000 ft. in comparison to the rest, is considered (at least in this list) to be the 9th most dangerous mountain for climbing.

› World’s 10 Most Dangerous Mountains

[Update, 4/5/09]: Here are three very interesting articles related to Mt. Washington:

• A 2004 National Geographic Adventure Magazine article about Mt. Washington
• A February 2009 National Geographic article about Mt. Washington
• Amazing photographs from the National Geographic article (previous item)

Caleb, Nadine and I went on a hike in the Middlesex Fells Reservation this afternoon. It was a gorgeous day in the high 30’s and a perfect afternoon to go on a Daddy Day hike (check out the photos here!).

Sometime during the past few weeks I made up my mind to get Caleb some proper outdoor gear. He’s made it through two winters now in his bulky Columbia snow jacket, which served its purpose very well, but is too puffy for some applications. The jacket is waterproof and warm, which is great when playing/hiking outdoors in the snow, but overkill for any semi-warm to warm wet weather during the other three seasons. He had a rain jacket at some point but grew out of it. And about a year ago, when we were exploring New York City, we ducked into a store to buy him the only rain jacket available — an oversized pullover anorak.

I like being outdoors quite a bit (a lot, actually), but Caleb may actually like being outside more than I do. So, rather than force him to wear his winter jacket in wet spring weather, or his bulky (width-wise) anorak (I suppose he could also wear it over his backpack like a poncho…), I figured it was time to get him a proper shell for his torso, and perhaps a pair of rain pants as well.

I did a bit of research online as well and decided that the jacket should be more of a performance item (waterproof with as much breathability as possible) and figured he could live with semi-breathable rain pants to save a few bucks. Now comes the hard part… In looking at the various jacket options in-person, I found that as the sizes increased from the toddler range to the “boys” range, the girth noticeably expanded as well. This was a consistent feature in many of the jacket brands I checked out. (I’ll save my comments about childhood obesity, diabetes, exercise, quality of diet, television, parental responsibility, etc. for some other time…)

I managed to find two jacket brands that stayed slim as the size increased: The North Face, and Marmot. Since Caleb seems to grow a few inches in height every time I blink, I eyeballed the jackets for a size that I figured would carry him through two seasons (we did the same with his Columbia jacket, which was also on the trim side). Both jackets were quite nice but I settled on the Marmot for a few outdoorsy-geeky reasons (front pockets above the hip belt, double storm flap, lightweight and more flexible fabric) and because Marmot is an awesome company.

For pants I chose REI’s Cascade Pants, which have a waterproof, windproof, breathable material. They are also nice and trim and the pair I bought him may actually last him three seasons (the first two will require some cuffing, of course!).

So, head to toe, save gloves, Caleb is now water and wind-proof. For winter outings we’ll layer him up (just like we do) rather than encase him in a single puffy layer, and for the other three seasons we’ll do the same, with fewer layers, of course. I’m eager to get him out for longer hikes and have a few camping/hiking trips for he and I (+ Megan and Nadine for a few) planned between now and next winter.

Here’s a photo of Caleb in his new high-tec shells:

And what does any responsible outdoor-type person do as soon as they bring new gear home? They test it out of course! (Yes, I know I’m a dork but I’d rather find out something is not waterproof in my shower than 5 miles down a trail in pouring rain…)

This past weekend we spent a few days in the fantastic White Mountains of New Hampshire. Megan’s parents were along for the trip and even pulled babysitting duty one morning and afternoon so Megan and I could get a nice hike in together (check out a few videos…). We drove up early Friday morning and stayed through Sunday afternoon. I managed a hike just after the drive up, finally getting to the top of Mt. Avalon and the higher yet less-impressive Mt. Field. Megan and I hiked to the summits of Mt. Pierce and Mt. Eisenhower, and on the last day, everyone enjoyed an extended exploration of Elephant’s Head, the approach to Bugle Cliff, and had a nice and slippery walk around Saco Lake.

Click on the photo below to see all the images!

Here are two videos, both of Megan, from our trip to the White Mountains this past weekend.

The first is of Megan on the very windy and cold summit of Mt. Eisenhower. We think the temperature was around 10° F or so, and with the 40mph+ winds the wind chill was around -15° F (though we also think the wind was 45-50mph+). The hike from Mt. Pierce to Mt. Eisenhower (the second video) was entirely along an exposed ridge and subject to the same wind, but it seemed measurably worse on the final approach and top of Eisenhower. Otherwise the conditions were perfect — completely clear skies, and a view well worth the effort!

While mom and dad were traipsing about above the treeline, Caleb had some quality time down below with Grandma and Grandpa. Photos and more about our trip to come…

Following are a few quotations (edit: OK, quite a few…) that I want to pass on to Caleb for one reason or another. While I am a big believer that words can be unnecessarily jumbled around any thought, issue, trial, or opportunity to make oneself sound fancy, I do like the clarity of certain quotations. Though the below list is fairly exhaustive, there are still many more not included that I think are worthwhile to think about every once in a while.

• › One who is firm of purpose in a just cause is shaken from his tenacious resolve neither by the clamour of this fellow citizens for that which is unjust, nor by the tyrant’s menacing scowl. ~Horace
• › The measure of a man’s real character is what he would do if he thought he would never be found out. ~Lord Macaulay
• › Even the tiniest initial deviation from the truth is subsequently multiplied a thousandfold. ~Aristotle
• › It is not the oath that makes us believe the man, but the man the oath. ~Aeschylus
• › If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. ~Henry David Thoreau
• › We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give. ~Winston Churchill
• › Patience is the companion of wisdom. ~St. Augustine of Hippo
• › Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears. ~Marcus Aurelius
• › Forgiveness is the final form of love. ~Reinhold Niebuhr
• › Pleasure can be supported by an illusion; but happiness rests upon truth. ~Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort
• › It is easy for us to forgive a child who fears the dark. The true sadness in life is when men fear the light. ~Plato
• › Death tweaks my ear. ‘Live,’ he says, ‘I am coming.’ ~Virgil
• › This body is not a home but an inn, and that only briefly. ~Seneca
• › Why do you hurry to remove anything that hurts your eye, but if something affects your soul you put off the cure until next year? ~Horace
• › A cheerful heart is a good medicine. ~Proverbs 17.22
• › Plan for this world as if you expect to live forever; but plan for the hereafter as if you expect to die tomorrow. ~Ibn Gabirol
• › O how small a portion of earth will hold us when we are dead, who ambitiously seek after the whole world while we are living. ~King Philip II of Macedon
• › Pale death with an impartial foot knocks at the hovels of the poor and the palaces of kings. ~Horace
• › To wish to be well is a part of becoming well. ~Seneca
• › The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them. ~Thomas Merton
• › Love grows by giving. The love we give away is the only love we keep. The only way to retain love is to give it away. ~Elbert Hubbard
• › Submit to love faithfully and it gives a person joy. It intoxicates, it envelops, it isolates. It creates fragrance in the air, ardour from coldness, it beautifies everything around it. ~Leos Janacek
• › True compassion flows fast, as if we were wounded ourselves, yet without diminishing our strength. ~Yukio Kurasama
• › If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete. ~The Buddha
• › I would rather feel compassion than know the meaning of it. ~St. Thomas Aquinas
• › A friend is one before whom I may think aloud. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
• › A mere friend will agree with you, but a true friend will argue. ~Russian Proverb
• › As yellow gold is tried in the fire, so the true bonds of friendship are seen in adversity. ~Ovid
• › A friend’s eye is a good mirror. ~Irish Proverb
• › You will find, as you look back upon your life, that the moments that stand out are the moments when you have done things for others. ~Henry Drummond
• › I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve. ~Albert Scheitzer
• › One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody. ~Mother Theresa
• › Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive. ~Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama
• › Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy. ~Thich Nhat Hanh
• › No man is born hating another person… People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite. ~Nelson Mandela
• › Open your eyes, and you will have plenty of bread. ~Proverbs 20.13
• › If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
• › To seek all your applause from outside yourself is to have your happiness in another’s keeping. ~Claudius Claudianus
• › We have nothing to fear but fear itself. ~Franklin D. Roosevelt
• › Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don’t know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is! ~Anne Frank
• › We’re fools whether we dance or not; so we might as well dance. ~Japanese Proverb
• › I’m a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work the more I have of it. ~Thomas Jefferson
• › You cannot prevent the birds of sadness from lying over your head, but you can prevent them from nesting in your hair. ~Chinese Proverb
• › What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expect generally happens. ~Benjamin Disraeli
• › As long as a word remains unspoken, you are its master; once you utter it, you are its slave. ~Ibn Gabirol
• › The risk of an incorrect decision is nothing compared to the terror of indecision. ~Maimonides
• › You cannot run away from weakness; you must some time fight it out or perish; and if that be so, why not now, and where you stand? ~Robert Louis Stevenson
• › Those who are always preoccupied with something cannot enjoy the world. ~Laozi
• › Before you take another step, step back into yourself. If you can govern yourself and be your own master, yours is the whole wide world and everything within it. ~Paul Fleming
• › Anger is an expensive luxury. ~Pope St. Gregory the Great
• › If you find a thing difficult, consider whether it would be possible for any person to do it. Because anything that is humanly possible, that falls within human capabilities – you too can accomplish. ~Marcus Aurelius
• › The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith. ~Franklin D. Roosevelt
• › One man with courage makes a majority. ~Andrew Jackson
• › One needs to be slow to form convictions, but once formed they must be defended against the heaviest odds. ~Mahatma Gandhi
• › Consider how the suffering caused by your anger and grief is often much greater than the suffering caused by the very things for which you are angry and aggrieved. ~Marcus Aurelius
• › If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins. ~Benjamin Franklin
• › Even while we speak, envious time has passed. Seize the day, putting as little trust as possible in tomorrow! ~Horace
• › First tell yourself what you want to be; and then do what you need to do. ~Epictetus
• › A great revolution in just one individual will help to change the destiny of all humankind. ~Daisaku Ikeda
• › By attempting the impossible one can attain the highest level of the possible. ~August Strindberg
• › Life can only be understood backwards: but it must be lived forwards. ~Søren Kierkegaard
• › A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be. ~Abraham Maslow
• › Our plans fail because they have no aim. For the sailor who does not know where to set his course, there are no favorable winds. ~Seneca
• › Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead. ~Lousia May Alcott
• › The endless road is the only one worth traveling. ~Modern Sufic Saying
• › Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. ~Mahatma Gandhi
• › If you see nothing to be thankful for, be certain that it is your won fault. ~Tecumseh
• › Remember that what you have now was once among the things you only hoped for. ~Epicurus
• › Pleasure in the task puts perfection in the work. ~Aristotle
• › Everyone needs to work. Even a lion cannot sleep, expecting a deer to enter his mouth. ~Hitopadesha
• › That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest. ~Henry David Thoreau
• › There is no heavier burden than having too many desires. ~Laozi
• › Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand. ~Mark Twain
• › Greater happiness comes with simplicity than with complexity. ~The Buddha
• › It is better to be seventy years young than forty years old. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes
• › Choose a job that you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life. ~Confucius
• › Far and way the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing. ~Theodore Roosevelt
• › Vocations which we wanted to pursue, but didn’t,bleed, like colored dyes, onto the whole of our existence. ~Balzac
• › One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar. ~Helen Keller
• › You must be the change you wish to see in the world. ~Mahatma Gandhi
• › What we think, or what we know, or what we believe in, is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do. ~John Ruskin
• › Stand up, be bold, be strong. Take the whole responsibility on your own shoulders, and know that you are the creator of your own destiny. All the strength and succour you want is within you. Therefore, make your own future. ~Swami Vivekananda
• › To be always intending to live a new life, but never find time to set about it – this is as if a man should put off eating and drinking from one day to another till he be starved and destroyed. ~Walter Scott
• › Gold dust is precious, but when it gets in your eyes, it blurs your vision. ~Xitang
• › If you must begin, then go all the way, because if you begin and quit, the unfinished business you have left behind will haunt you for all time. ~Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche
• › It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see. ~Henry David Thoreau
• › Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties. ~Erich Fromm
• › Concentrate all your thoughts on the task in hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus. ~Alexander Graham Bell
• › They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. ~Edgar Allan Poe
• › Whatever we perceive in the world around us reflects who we are and what we care about most deeply, as in the old saying, "When a thief sees a saint, all he sees are his pockets." ~Robert Frager
• › The reality of the other person lies not in hat he reveals to you, but what he cannot reveal to you. Therefore, if you would understand him, listen not to what he says, but rather to what he does not say. ~Kahlil Gibran
• › It is one of the commonest of mistakes to consider that the limit of our power of perception is also the limit of all there is to perceive. ~Charles Webster Leadbeater
• › They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea. ~Francis Bacon
• › Power without wisdom collapses under its own weight. ~Horace
• › One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning. ~James Russell Lowell
• › Don’t break your shin on a stool that is not in your way. ~Irish Proverb
• › To be clever enough to get all that money, one must be stupid enough to want it. ~G.K. Chesterson
• › Men of most renowned virtue have sometimes by transgressing most truly kept the law. ~John Milton
• › What strikes the oyster does not damage the pearl. ~Jalal Ad-Din Rumi
• › The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers. ~Thomas Jefferson
• › A donkey with a load of holy books is still a donkey. ~Traditional Sufi Saying
• › How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live. ~Henry David Thoreau
• › Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. ~Leonardo Da Vinci
• › A mind is a fire to be kindled, not a vessel to be filled. ~Plutarch
• › Children need models rather than critics. ~Joseph Joubert
• › Do not confine your children to your own learning, for they were born in another time. ~Chinese Proverb
• › It is vain to do with more what can be done with fewer. [Occam's Razor] ~William of Occam
• › If you want to see what children do, you must stop giving them things. ~Norman Douglas
• › The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one. ~Elbert Hubbard
• › Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts. ~Winston Churchill
• › Inches make champions. ~Vince Lombardi
• › We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery. ~Samuel Smiles
• › The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none. ~Thomas Carlyle
• › The true way to be deceived is to think oneself more knowing than others. ~Francois, Duc De La Rochefoucauld
• › If people never did silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done. ~Ludwig Wittgenstein
• › Beware you be not swallowed up in books! An ounce of love is worth a pound of knowledge. ~John Wesley
• › Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. ~Confucius
• › The little reed, bending with the force of the wind, soon stood upright again when the storm had passed. ~Aesop
• › Quarrels would not last long if the fault was only on one side. ~Francois, Duc De La Rochefoucauld
• › Never stop because you are afraid: you are never so likely to be wrong. ~Fridtjof Nansen
• › We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are. ~The Talmud
• › Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for truth. ~Benjamin Disraeli
• › Which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to your span of life? ~Matthew 6.27
• › A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties. ~Harry Truman
• › When one door closes, another opens, but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us. ~Alexander Graham Bell
• › The best, most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen, or even touched. They must be felt with the heart. ~Hellen Keller
• › Positive anything is better than negative nothing. ~Elbert Hubbard
• › Our chief affliction is that we live not according to the light of reason, but after the fashion of others. ~Seneca
• › If you live according to the dictates of nature, you will never be poor; if according to the notions of humankind, you will never be rich. ~Seneca
• › Who reaches with a clumsy hand for a rose must not complain if the thorns scratch. ~Heinrich Heine
• › When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world. ~John Muir
• › The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
• › Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves. ~Chief Seattle, Suquamish Nation
• › I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in. ~John Muir
• › Glance at the sun. See the moon and starts. Gaze at the beauty of the green earth. Now think. ~Hildegard of Bingen
• › Man’s heart, away from nature, becomes hard. ~Chief Standing Bear, Ponca Nation
• › Under cherry blossoms there are no strangers. ~Issa
• › Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see Beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see Beauty never grows old. ~Franz Kafka
• › It would indeed be a tragedy if the history of the human race proved to be nothing more than the story of an ape playing with a box of matches on a petroleum dump. ~David Ormsby-gore
• › The more we sweat in peace, the less we bleed in war. ~Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit
• › Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box. ~Italian Proverb
• › I think the king is but a man, as I am; the violet smells to him as it doth to me. ~William Shakespeare
• › He that is kind is free, though he be a slave; he that is cruel is a slave, though he be a king. ~St. Augustine of Hippo