New goals for kids (and mom)

Being 10- and 12-years old and having several years of hiking under their belts, the girls have been ready for more challenging adventures. Last year we hiked to Table Rock (about 1/3 of the way up Bald Pate) and The Eyebrow (about 1/4 of the way up Old Speck) in Grafton Notch State Park. Table Rock was on the Appalachian Trail and that was a goal last summer, to hike a piece of that trail in Maine. After seeing the view from Table Rock, the girls decided it would be cool to hike the trail across the notch the following week. We braved the Eyebrow Trail and the girls decided that trails with bars, metal wires and open rock faces weren't really their cup of tea.

But they did it and I was darn proud of them.

So now that the thunderstorms have taken a vacation (hopefully for a long while!), we're on to our fall agenda -- hiking to mountain summmits.

Our goal is to hike to summits higher than 1,500 feet around Maine over the next couple of years. Part of our plan is to take a photo on the summit of each one (like the "real hikers" do). We've been thinking about the idea for a while and our hikes to the top of the South Bubble and Gorham Mountain in Acadia earlier this spring cinched the idea that this was the year to go for it.

A friend recommended Blueberry Mountain in the Caribou-Speckled Mountain Wilderness north of Fryeburg and we decided that should be next on our list so we could visit in August during blueberry season.

It was a challenging 4 1/2-mile hike with a 1,300' elevation gain that was made more interesting because we could pick (and eat) blueberries along the way. We ate a ton (we've never been good at collecting and saving for later). We were also rewarded with a stop at Rattlesnake Pool near the end of the hike. We could have looped the mountain trails with this as a first stop (there's minimal elevation gain so an easy hike for younger kids to this spot on the Stone House Trail) but decided it was better left to the end as something to look forward to. The natural pool was an amazing site and a perfect place to cool our tired hiking feet.

So our plan for summit shots is now officially underway and the girls have already met their first challenge of a 1,751' summit.

There is a secondary reason for this new family goal however, to help me handle my daughters' move from their tween to teen years. Some days it makes me sad to think how much my babies have grown. And truth be told, I simply haven't felt ready for the jump to the new phase of teenager-hood. But now I feel like I have something to look forward to beyond the mood swings and overall insanity that come with raising teens.

And the girls, well, hopefully they'll keep up with their current MO of talking about everything under the sun while we're out on the trail.

The natural world really does have so many interesting layers.

We're keeping track of our summit shots, which start in 2003 with smaller mountains, on MaineOutdoorJournal.com

[L. carried the GPS unit on her backpack during the hike so we uploaded a track of the trail in case you're interested in giving it a whirl with your tweens/teens.]

Blueberry Ridge Trail at EveryTrailMap created by EveryTrail:GPS Geotagging