Soon after my family moved to Connecticut, which happened in 1963, when I was nine, we started taking camping vacations every summer in the White Mountains. We (my dad, my older brother, and I at first, and later others) would make day trips up into the mountains. I know I summited Washington, Adams, and Jefferson during those days, and I'm pretty sure I summited Monroe. I also, when I was a child, went on a number of long (but not mountainous) hikes as a boy scout.
After I grew up I would still hike occasionally, but not very often. I know I hiked in the Presidentials at least four times in the seventies, eighties, and nineties, including one disasterous hike in which I greatly overestimated my abilities while encountering sleet in August. I could hardly walk for days after that hike.
In October of 2001, wanting to lose weight, I decided to try to go on a hike every weekend. I hiked on several trails, but the trails of Case Mountain Park in Manchester, Conn. became my default location. At first I only hiked a mile or two, but I kept extending it until by the next spring I established my standard weekend hike, an eight (now more like nine) mile trek through Manchester and Glastonbury, Connecticut mostly on the Shenipsit Trail. I still do this regularly. I've probably hiked at least 45 weekends a year every year since then.
I now have some pictures online of my Shenipsit hikes.
I did not lose weight doing all of this hiking, but I did feel more vigorous. I found that, in everyday life, I lasted longer before I started feeling fatigued. In 2003 I put myself on a diet and finally lost the weight. In 2004, in much better shape that I had been since my 20s (I was 50 years old at this point) I decided I was ready for something more ambitious. So I returned to the Whites. This became the first trip reported here. I loved it. I soon decided I wanted to do this every year, and then I decided I wanted to do it every season, and then I decided I wanted to do it every couple of months. In May 2007 I joined the online hiking group Rocks on Top, and started taking advantage of hikes organized by them.
Because this page was getting so big, I've split it up by year. Mulityear trips are sorted by start date.
I hiked the Long Trail in 2009.
I've made a gallery of summit pictures for the ADK46, inspired by a similar one Christa did for the NH4Ks.
I've also made a gallery of summit pictures for NEFF first ascents. This counts a "first ascent" as the first ascent in 2004 or later.
There are much better hiking report sites on the web than this. Here are a few.
You can go to my homepage or mail me.