Becky and Steve had taken Jacoby out hiking several times.
But up until 2015, they had never done a backpacking trip together!
Steve’s company EMC allowed “volunteer days” so that employees could do volunteer activities for the day without taking a vacation day. One such activity was wilderness monitoring, where the United States Forest Service asked volunteers to count the number of hikers at specific remote locations.
And since Becky also worked at EMC, the two of us decided to take Jacoby to monitor a spot called Camp Rich near the peak of Mt Passaconaway.
So on Aug 8, 2015, Becky, Jacoby, and Steve started our hike on a flat section that started from the Ferncroft parking area.
As we climbed higher up the trail, the views became better, and Jacoby asked to stop for snacks.
After several hours we made it to Camp Rich, looked for the best place to set up our tent, and then started hiking up to the peak.
The views were amazing!
After taking in the views, we walked back down to our campsite to build a fire and have dinner together.
Jacoby was quite worried to be outside of the tent when Becky was on the inside!
That night, Becky woke up and said, “Dad, I think there is an animal outside of the tent!” So we turned on our flashlight and there was Jacoby, sitting up and staring right at us. He had been rustling around and startled Becky!
On the next day we did our four-hour Wilderness Monitoring of the site and then hiked back down! It was a great trip.
