Bare Mountain

Dad was on daycare pickup duty today, as Mom was away on a work trip. So as usual, when Mom's away the boys will play. This time, Grafton and Dad decided to spend their evening together hiking up Bare Mountain. When I told him the mountain's name, he said "it has that name because there are a lot of bears on this mountain!"  I explained that fortunately this wasn't the case, and that its name was due to its (mostly) bald summit.

It's a fairly rocky trail with lots of big rocks to climb up and over, but Grafton did really well. He got a little tired near the end, and started resisting the idea of making it to the top. But he responded well to my encouragement that the summit was getting close. And he made it to the top on his own. We held hands over the tricky spots.

He really enjoyed the view at the top! I remember him telling me (in one form or another), "Dad, you said it would be good!" Meaning that he agreed. We saw the quarry down below, as well as the parking lot where our car was waiting for us. I think he was impressed by the vertical distance between us and the parking lot. He asked what the buildings in the distance were (UMass), and I pointed out where Ivorie, Grahm, and Sawyer's house was, on a distant hillside. And we looked across to Mt. Norwottuck, whose peak was nearly level with our own.

Unfortunately, the bugs were pretty bad at the summit, so we stayed for only a few minutes, and started heading down.

As we began our descent, I asked if he wanted to climb Mt. Norwottuck on our next hike. He said he would and then commented, "and then when we get to the top, we can look over to this mountain and see it from over there." I thought that was a very insightful comment from my little hiker-in-training.

On the descent, we talked a bit about rocks and lava and what the earth is made of, and he seemed genuinely interested. I wish I had recorded him saying the word "geology." It was very cute.

Grafton was getting tired though, and on the way down he started getting a little silly and less careful with his footing. After a few missteps and slips, I took his hand and explained how important it is to be careful when you're out hiking, trying to make him understand that it's hard to get help out here if you get hurt! It seemed to work, and he focused the whole way down. And I held his hand the whole way. Well right up until the bottom, where I thought he would be fine. And then he fell again. A little more dirt on the knees, but no damage done, and we walked hand-in-hand back to the car.

We stopped at the Village Commons on the way home for a bathroom break and, more importantly, to catch the last evening concert of the summer. And there we ran into his friend Landon and his family! After some craziness with his friend, and a carrot & Clif Bar snack, we headed home for dinner and bed time.