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When I agreed to go on a hiking trip to the White Mountains of New Hampshire, I had no idea of what to expect.
I did a lot of research online before my trip, but wasn’t able to find much about “your first hike”, “hiking and photography”, or anything similar that would help me understand what I was getting into.
I’ve decided that I’d record and post as much of the experience as I could recall to help novice hikers understand the process. Maybe my writings will help others out there.
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Planting the Seed
Tom was a friend of mine from Babson. Earlier this year, we drove up to the Peabody Essex Museum with our lady friends and talked about the status of my nature photography.
He told me about his hike last year up Mount Washington and promised that if I went with him, I could see and photograph amazing natural scenes that I’d never see in RI or MA.
My Concerns
I was intruigued, but a couple of things worried me:
First off, I’m not a hiker. I take some day trips that consist of small loops around local nature preserves, but nothing that lasts for over 2 or 3 hours. Hiking also requires a significant investment in equipment, of which I had none. Nor did I have the scratch to invest in said equipment; especially since I wasn’t sure if hiking was something that I’d enjoy.
Second, I’m miles away from being in shape. I think I was in prime condition in 3rd or 4th grade, and it’s been downhill from there. I like my creature comforts and American Express tells me that food was my number one expense last year. Mount Washington? Yeah, right.
Third, could I really afford to take the time off of work? I’m self employed and any time that I’m away is time where half the business is out to lunch. I’m taking a few days off in August for a family reunion, then I have a cruise planned in October, Next year I’m getting married and I’m sure that that will require days away from work.
The Offer
In late May, I received the official offer in an email from Tom – he and a friend named Ryan were planning a trip on July 6th and would love to have me along. Now usually, I try to come up with good excuses to weasel my way out of things like this, but in this particular instance, I couldn’t say no. I wanted to elevate (or at least add some variety) to my nature photography, so I said yes. I wanted to get off of my ass and challenge myself with something physical, so I said yes. I wanted to look people in the eye and say, “I’ve climbed Mount Washington”, so I said yes. The things that worried me were still of some concern, but I thought that there was enough time for me to work those things out and still have a great time. I told Tom, “If you don’t mind having an out of shape newbie along for the ride, then I’m game.” This was email, but I think he was excited to have me on board.
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>>> Continue on to part 2 of our story, these boots were made for walkin'.
Or feel free to eyeball some of the pics that i took on the trip
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back to the nature photos
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