Little Adventures: Cat Mountain Loop

 

With a small backpacking trip coming up, and great weather in the forecast, I felt it was a good idea to get some time in the woods with Quinn. 

Although I had already done it earlier in the year as a winter hike with Sunny:

and in the summer as part of my buddy's bachelor party:

I'd never doneit with Quinn. This would be his third Lake George peak and I figured he'd be okay with the five miles round trip. My original plan was to take the easy path up, using the Lake George Conservancy trail to the Blue Trail and back.

My man was in good spirits. The breeze was a little nippy, but we had the gear to handle it. I did forget his gloves at home, but his hockey gloves were in the car and we had an extra pair of socks if needed. 

Quinn took his first slug of Adirondack Mountain water. My buddies warned me that such a thing can get dangerously addictive and expensive! I did my best to remain patient as Quinn delighted in throwing rocks and exploring along the way. It is important that he views these outings as fun and stress-free.

"My face hurts."  I wished I had his face-covering Grogu hat at this point. I'll remember that in the future. Still, the air warmed up and the breeze died down shortly after.

We were well past peak foliage, but the woods are beautiful all the time. There was no snow.

I call this trail marker "Wishful Thinking".

We made the summit in a couple of hours. Quinn ate the summit snack he picked out (Goldfish).

We spent some time on the summit. It was chilly, but Quinn had a great time throwing rocks and eating his snack.  I enjoyed the view.  Quinn didn't want to leave, but we had some fun activities planned later in the evening. We gathered our trash (and added it to some trash we'd picked up along the way) and headed back down. I made the mistake of deciding to head down the shorter red trail instead of retracing our steps back.

I didn't anticipate how slippery the wet leaves would be and the steep descent annoyed Quinn a great deal. He declared "I don't like this kind of mountain" a couple of times. 

In order to keep his spirits up, we played some imagination games on the way back to the car. It took us longer to get down the mountain than up it, but we made it. Quinn was rewarded with some rock-throwing at the pond and a chicken nugget Happy Meal.

I am super proud of Quinn's progress and his attitude this year. I will learn from this and make sure the hike back is more fun next time. I'll try to keep taking him for little hikes around the neighborhood until next year when I plan on bringing him North. I may even plan a family weekend or two where we all can stay and go up little mountains together.