Ritzhikes

Where: Farmington River above Collinsville, CT When: 7/18-7/19, 1998 With: Chip, Seth, Dave Year Four of the annual excursion to Collinsville. Other than setting a date there was almost no preparation done prior to the week before the trip. A couple of e-mails were exchanged and I checked the USGS web site to see about the river flow. I was encouraged to see that it was running above normal. I finally made a couple of phone calls to get things going. First was a call to Fin & Feather Sports in Upton to see about renting kayaks, but their Old Town boats did not have the folding seat backs we required for access to the storage space behind the seats. The next call was to Collinsville Canoe & Kayak, where I arranged to rent three Keowees. I had to do the usual song & dance about where we were going and how we were getting the boats there. The third call was to Dave. Though I'd reserved a boat for him, I suspected he might want to bring his sea kayak and I was right. ...

Where: Mt. Monadnock When: 7/3/98 With: Andy Andy's first real mountain climb. It was the start of a 10 day vacation for us and I thought I'd kick it off with a hike. Jane took the opportunity to visit with friends while Andy & I packed up a few supplies and headed to New Hampshire. We missed one turn and wound up taking a rather scenic back road into Jaffrey. We emerged from the woods onto the main road with the mountain looming directly ahead of us. Cool. It was a beautiful sunny day as we pulled into the parking area, paid our fee, and found a spot for the car. It had only taken us about an hour and a half to get there, so we had a nice early start for our hike. We smeared on sunscreen/bug repellent, checked the pack and the maps and were on our way. I had intended that we take the White Cross or White Dot trails to the summit, since they were the most direct paths. We left the parking lot and headed toward where I thought they started, skirting the end of the re...