I’ve been an avid — if sometimes infrequent — hiker since my very first “real” hike up Welch Mountain in the mid-1970s. I was lucky enough to have a high school English teacher, Carol Jensen by name, who became something of a life mentor. Carol liked to hike — so we hiked. Many of the details of that day are lost in the sands of time, but I do remember the great joy of breaking out of the woods and seeing the sweeping views from the first ledge — Acteon Ridge, the Tripyramids, Mount Tecumseh (little did I know the role these mountains would play later in my life!). I also remember how good the squished olive loaf-on-white sandwich tasted, the American cheese melted from hours in my backpack. I remember Carol taking me out to dinner at The William Tell in celebration of our hike — my first real “fine dining” experience. I also remember how good it felt to get back to the car and peel off my boots, establishing a life-long theme: most of the things I love to do are things that feel really good when I stop.

I remember a late fall day a few years later, driving north from Concord with three friends. We diverted up 49 to scramble up to the ledges on Welch as low clouds scudded by and the first snow of the season glazed the low spruces. We built a small snowman and ate gorp in the lee of the trees, catching peeks of the surrounding mountains through wisps of cloud and spattering snow.

I remember a young-adult trip — I was a more serious hiker by then and fitfully working on my 4000 footers — with my buddy Scott. We planned to hike the Tripyramids and camp on the way back out. Saddled with heavy packs and the exuberance of late adolescence, we clawed our way up the North Slide, stunned at how steep it was but moved by the sensational views. That night, we camped not far from the base of the South Slide (this was long before the area was designated as wilderness) and woke to the sound of heavy rains drumming on our tent. The next morning was a long, wet slog back out the Livermore Road — a route that now takes me less than ten minutes on my mountain bike.

More recent years have found me back in the Valley with my family. Welch Mountain was, appropriately enough, my kids’ first “real hike” — stopping at the ledges was plenty for us all, and juice boxes never tasted so good as on that chilly spring day. A couple years later, we found ourselves back on the ledges with friends Lynne and Olivia, who’d been away all summer (and missed very much). A relaxed hour in the sun, watching grasshoppers camouflaged to look just like granite, was just the tonic we all needed, and gave us time to catch up on all the news.

That same fall, a group of parents from the Elementary School celebrated the first day of school with what we dubbed “Freedom Hike” — up Mount Osceola on a gorgeous sunny day, leapfrogging each other up the trail and laughing. From the summit, we looked back down at the Valley floor and thought about our children, nestled safely back in school, and thought for a few moments about how quickly they were growing up.

While many of my happiest memories are of hiking trails with friends and family, I have also been known to slip away for a little “me time” in the woods. Solo hikes to Noon Peak, Greeley Ponds, Snows Mountain, and my first climb of Tecumseh stand out as some of my very best days. Hiking with others is a great shared experience; hiking alone is to some extent a journey into one’s self.

Most recently, my brother came to town for a visit. We had a lot to talk about, as our father had passed away a month before. Matt, like me, is an avid hiker, but ten years of living in Wisconsin mean he seldom has to climb anything steeper or longer than a flight of stairs. We decided to start out easy, wandering up Livermore Road to the Kettles Path, then shooting up the last, steep yards to the Scaur.

On the way, Matt joked about a scene from the movie The Eiger Sanction, in which Clint Eastwood pulls out cold beer on the summit after an arduous climb. Clint’s partner, incredulous, says “I can’t believe you carried beer all the way up here.” Clint squints and says, “I didn’t, you did.” The joke was on Matt, though, as I pulled out two icy cold Tuckerman IPAs when we sat down on the top of the Scaur (at least I carried them, Matt). We had a toast to our Dad and quietly soaked in the timeless view.

The next day, having survived the Scaur, we went a little further afield and hiked Tecumseh to the base of the Northside chair. Cold water, a Clif bar, and quiet conversation were our reward before we humped it back down (the surprisingly steep in hiking boots!) Lower Tippecanoe to the base, stopping occasionally to sample the sweetest wild blueberries I have ever eaten. Matt had atoned for his flatlander ways and acquitted himself well.

In times when I have to be away for days or longer, I often think back to the hours of my life spent on the trails of Waterville Valley. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that these memories sustain me. A moveable feast indeed.

I had the perfect summer night tonight.  Nancy and I packed our all-purpose picnic of RyKrisp crackers and a variety of cheeses, some exotic and some impressively local (Tip: check out the whole-milk cheeses at the Plymouth farmer’s market, held Thursday afternoons in the summer just off Highland Avenue between Hannaford’s and the high school — wonderful local farm produce, served up with a spirit of pride and Yankee independence).  While I was a relatively poor Boy Scout, I do believe in being prepared, and I tucked a couple of good screw-top bottles of red wine in our picnic satchel as well.  Properly provisioned, we set off for Town Square and the Shakespeare in the Valley production of “Twelfth Night”.

I was thrilled to see the crowds in the Square for Chocolate and Jazz — in its eleventh year, and now an institution, there were dozens of people at each station waiting to sample the treats.  Chocolate is good, but Shakespeare is better, and we pushed through the crowd and down the stairs to the river.  We picked up our tickets (free this year in honor of Marc Paul Decoteau, one of the first YPP campers and an great supporter of Shakespeare in the Valley) and were seated by the indefatigable Madame Claudine Gall, who managed to find our friends (and fellow WVF board members) in the substantial crowd.

Timing is everything in life, and we had no sooner unfolded our camp chairs when the emcee came on stage to warm up the crowd and remind us that in Shakespeare’s time, the audience was expected to participate, urging on heros and roundly booing villains.  Nancy and I are old hands at this by now, and can “Huzzah!” with the very best of them.  We don’t even need a reason.

In a matter of moments, the actors took the stage.  Over the years, I have noticed that watching the first few minutes of a Shakespeare drama are very much like the first few minutes of listening to a foreign language one knows, but not terribly well.  Your ears are pricked for every nuance, and you perennially feel like you’re half a stanza behind at very best, processing, listening intently, barely hanging on.  I have to say, tonight, the transition was so easy, I barely noticed.  It may well have been the familiar tones of “My Bonny Lies Over the Ocean”, soulfully rendered by Chiara Klein, but there was none of the turbulence I usually encounter shifting from 2010 to 1600.

I have never seen a performance of Twelfth Night before — and now I realize how impoverished I have been.  I certainly knew a few of the key lines… who doesn’t know “Shall I compare you to a summer’s day”?  But I never had the context, the feeling, for the words before.  I loved every minute of the show, and I only felt a little the bumpkin when I confessed as much to Shakespeare in the Valley artistic director Donna Devlin.  I was greatly comforted when she reassured me that Twelfth Night is one of her favorites, too, and that she’d been waiting years to produce it for our local stage.

I cannot adequately convey to you how perfect the scene is:  a small open-air theater, down by the gently burbling Snow’s Brook; the cool evening air kissed by the last of the day’s sun setting behind Mount Tecumseh, and a professional theater troupe performing a gently modernized version of the Bard’s classics.  I am not exaggerating when I say many of my happiest (and proudest — remember, my kids are in the Kids’ Corp) moments have been spent by this very stage.  Tonight ninety other people shared this pleasure with me.  I sincerely hope that you’ll be able to catch one of the few remaining performances this month, and that you’ll continue to support Shakespeare in the Valley, because it is truly one of the things that makes Waterville Valley unique.

Had my evening ended there, it would have been a memorable and satisfying night.  However, to exit this summer’s Theatre Under the Stars, one must make one’s way back through Town Square, which can be a gauntlet if you’re blessed with a great many friends in a few square miles.  The folding chairs came back out, and soon we were arranged in a horseshoe with many of the people we care about most, sipping the second bottle of red wine.  We were all enjoying the sounds of the Tom Robinson Trio (imagine if you will a smooth segue between Winter Wonderland and the theme from the Flintstones — can’t?  It worked, trust me) and chatting while our kids ran happy circles around the Square.  Chocolate and Jazz has been growing each year, and tonight was a huge — but very relaxed — success.  And through it all, across Corcoran’s Pond, Bill and Jane  Cantlin were celebrating the nuptials of their daughter (Maseltov!).  There was a certain electricity in the air that made us all very glad to be alive and in a special place.

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The Waterville Valley Foundation is proud to support Shakespeare in the Valley.

When I reflect on what makes Waterville Valley special, I inevitably come up with a long list which includes its spectacular range of outdoor recreational opportunities and its beautiful, unspoiled natural setting.  There’s a palpable sense of history here, starting with farming but quickly passing to tourism, with guests at first flocking to spend summer months in the cool mountain air, and later to play in the natural snow pocket formed by the four thousand foot peaks which rim the valley.  There’s a purpose-built village that provides comfortable accommodations without sacrificing the small-town feel on the altar of commerce.  All of these things make Waterville Valley a great place to visit, to take time away and literally re-create oneself.  It’s a great spot for a weekend or a vacation week.

I want to thank all the people who joined us for this special evening, and who came out in part to support the establishment of a memorial for Marc Paul Decoteau.  I’d also like to thank the generous donors who, even though they couldn’t attend the event, gave freely in support of the memorial.  Finally, I would like to thank once again all the members of the event committee and the Waterville Valley Foundation board of directors, who worked so hard and tirelessly to make the event such a great success.  I think I can say with confidence that a good time was had by all.

Amid the reconstruction project, the Marc Paul Decoteau memorial flagpole stands proudly against the summer sky.

One of the great pleasures of spending a lot of time here in the Valley is living in close proximity with nature. Ironically, this has been brought home to me keenly during recent weeks, as my family has made its way across the country to experience the wonders of Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks.  Both Parks are truly spectacular, both geologically and from a wildlife perspective, serving as they do as refuges for some of North America’s greatest and most endangered creatures.  There is an indescribable majesty in seeing bison herds close up – and no small measure of humor and joy in watching a 2000 pound bull bison rolling on his back in a dust bath.  There is a special, quiet thrill in walking across an Alpine snowfield to encounter a bighorn sheep or a mountain goat browsing on grasses poking through the snow.  Seeing a bull elk mere feet away is truly impressive. All these things have marked Nancy and me – to say nothing of our children – indelibly, and have made all the long miles in the Wagonback Family Truckster worthwhile. I  urge you to make the trip yourself someday soon.

All that said – and not to be an apologist for the White Mountains – being out west has made me appreciate all the more what we have back home in Waterville Valley.  What we lack in grizzly bears and interpretive ranger walks, we more than make up for in intimacy with our nature experience. It’s actually quite easy to find wildlife in our western national parks… just look for the big crowd of people or the “bearjam” on the narrow park roads.  You’ll invariably find some wonder of nature studiously ignoring the gaggle of tourists or backing warily away from some clueless Nimrod encroaching thoughtlessly on its comfort zone. That more tourists aren’t trampled, mauled or gored is no small wonder to me.  I think I have come to take for granted my regular, chance encounters with wild things, whether it’s a fox stepping lightly through my yard, a moose in a bog along 49, or a bear on his rounds of Town Square. In each case, however fleetingly, it’s most often a one-on-one, quiet experience, and I walk away feeling enriched. I think it’s endemic in those of us who love the Valley to also treasure such encounters.  Whether in Yellowstone or in the White Mountains, they are the stuff of lifetime memories.

And on the subject of memories: I want to remind you that it’s just two short weeks until the Waterville Valley Foundation’s “Memories in the Mountains” community gathering. My family has had a milestone this week with the passing of my 86-year old father after a long illness; some of my happiest recent memories of Dad are of his visits to our home in the Valley… lingering over dinner and enjoying each other’s company.  I’ll be thinking of my Dad and of other absent friends and loved ones on July 24th, but I will also be thinking of all the great memories I have of time well spent in the DubVee, and all the great memories yet to come.  Tickets to this event – which takes place on Saturday July 24th at 6pm at the WV Conference Center and includes a buffet barbeque and entertainment by the Wicked Smart Horn Band – are available by mail, through the WV Rec Department, or at the Concierge desk in Town Square.

Founded in the 1830s, the Waterville Valley school has a long and storied history.  In its earliest days, there were actually two school districts in town — not surprising given the large geographic distribution of citizens at the time — and students attended classes in private homes.  In 1885, the one-room schoolhouse (now the Osceola Library) was built, though there were many years during the early part of the 20th century when there were no students to grace its single large room.

This school year, 31 students from Kindergarten through Eighth Grade attended the Little Red Schoolhouse.  For several years running, our pupils have distinguished themselves with outstanding scores on standardized tests — every student in the school tested as Proficient or Proficient With Distinction in both Mathematics and Reading.  WVES is too small to report comparative numbers, but I think it’s safe to assume that we may well have the highest achieving primary school in the state.  By any measure, that’s very impressive.

Those are the basic facts of WVES, but neither the long history nor the unusually small class size today nor even the record of academic achievement really define the school.  What defines WVES is what defines the town of Waterville Valley itself — a strong sense of community and of shared responsibility.

Listening to this year’s graduates, each of whom gave a brief speech during the commencement ceremony, you realize how profoundly the involvement of their teachers — we’re blessed with a strong but loving principal, three excellent “home room” teachers, and a great array of professionals who rotate through each week for “specials” such as art and music — has marked them.  You get a sense for how important the school’s active PTA and parent volunteers have been in their experience.  You recognize how transformative the tradition of a “Monthly Meeting” (held in front of a parent audience the last Friday of each month, where each student gives a presentation or a performance) has been — these kids don’t seem to know they’re supposed to have stage fright. You also understand how the town’s mountain setting has provided a larger canvas for their learning and development, whether skiing at the resort or hiking and biking on the trails.

Listening to this year’s graduates, you get the sense that it hasn’t always been easy growing up in such a small school and such a small town.  You have to learn to get along, as you really can’t get away.  You also hear a kind of eloquence and a level of maturity you don’t generally associate with fourteen-year-olds.  The small classroom, and the small town, have been a crucible of sorts for their learning, and to a one, they’ve taken full advantage.

The Waterville Valley Foundation believes that the Waterville Valley Elementary School is both integral to the life of the town, and a healthy reflection of the things we as a community believe in.  In this spirit, we decided to recognize this year’s graduates with a small scholarship, to be granted at the time of their graduation from high school.  The grads — Andrew, Annie, Elizabeth, Ian, Max, Sergey, and Shea — will each receive $250 to spend on college books, or to assist them in getting started in life as they see fit.

Congratulations, kids — we’ll miss you, but if you’re like most kids who move on from WVES, you’ll remain an active part of our community for years to come. We look forward to that.

A few weeks later, I had just clicked into my bindings when a good friend slid over and said, “Did you hear?”  The rest of the weekend and the following week were a tumult of emotions for us all, however casually we knew Marc Paul.  At every level, it was sad and tragic and wrong that a good young man was taken from the world before his time.  And yet, as we all gathered solemnly at the side of Valley Road, or on the DiCenzo Bridge in Plymouth, or again days later when we pulled together for a pot luck dinner in Marc’s memory after Town Meeting, it seemed somehow right that Marc was bringing us together again.

It was actually this exact recognition – how good it felt to be together as a community, no matter how sad the circumstances – that was the genesis of the upcoming “Memories in the Mountains” community gathering.  As we met this winter, the Waterville Valley Foundation directors reflected on January’s events, some somber, but also some simple in the joy of being together (I don’t envy Town Moderator Bruce Saenger, who must bring us back to order with equal parts earnestness and good humor, after each vote at Town Meeting).  It is in this light that we conceived what we hope will be the first of many summer gatherings.  Yes, the proceeds of this year’s event are to benefits a memorial for Marc Paul Decoteau, quite fittingly to be placed at the Waterville Valley Elementary School… but I sincerely hope and believe it will be anything but a somber event.  I know Marc Paul would expect nothing less of us.

Marc Paul Decoteau was laid to rest at the Waterville Valley Cemetery on June 12^th, 2010.

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Waterville Valley Foundation’s “Memories in the Mountains” community gathering will be held on Saturday, July 24th at 6pm under the tent at the Waterville Valley Conference Center. It promises to be a great evening out with old friends and new, with a barbeque buffet dinner and dancing to the Wicked Smart Horn Band.  Tickets are $50 per person, and proceeds will benefit a planned memorial to local soldier Marc Paul Decoteau to be placed at the Waterville Valley Elementary School.

Tickets are available by mail (make your check payable to the Waterville Valley Foundation, PO Box 464, Waterville Valley, NH 03215), during select hours from the Waterville Valley Resort Concierge Desk in Town Square, and, starting in June, through the Waterville Valley Recreation Department at their summer home at the Waterville Valley Academy.  You may also reserve a table for ten, if you’d like to block out space for a group of friends.

For more information, drop us a note at info@watervillevalleyfoundation.org.

First off, a note about share community services, such as transfer stations and post office boxes: as we grow more comfortable and insular in our suburban lives, I submit we give up a great deal as well.  When a large diesel truck shows up at the break of dawn to pick up and compress our trash, we lose touch both with the responsibility for the waste we produce and with those who produce waste around us.  When my family lived in Hingham on Boston’s South Shore, we lived with the odd paradox of high taxes and low services – which meant a regular visit to the transfer station, where one quite literally rubbed elbows with a broad spectrum of humanity, sorting bins of glass bottles (did you really serve that wine?  Hmmph…) and magazines into the appropriate receptacles.  It was ultimately democratic and very human, and even though it added a half hour or more to most weekends’ to-do list, it felt right in an odd way.  If you live in a private home in Waterville Valley (versus a condo complex, with refuse valet service and the occasional visiting bear checking the locks), you’re familiar with this routine.  If you’re like me, it’s both grounding and refreshing in ways that garbage generally isn’t.

The same can be said – but much more so – for the Waterville Post Office, where we full-timers all must eventually stop to collect items dispatched from beyond the Six Mile Bridge.  Ann and John know us all very well, and don’t even blanch when we forget our PO box keys or ask them to check – dearth of a yellow card notwithstanding – for an expected package.

My visits to Town Square for the mail inevitably end in a stop by the Coffee Emporium (spoiler alert… did you know the difference between the top-line, $1.75 a cup drip coffee, and everything below it?  The $2.00 menu of exotic names is all ground to order and French pressed while you wait, resulting in a simply stunning cup any time of day), the Adventure Center, or Jug Town – and as often as not results in bumping into a friend and an extended catch-up.

But back to my main point, as I really did have one.

This particular afternoon, I made the circuit of transfer station and PO, and chanced a stop at the Town Square offices to see if my hunch was correct.  It was, and I found Kali calmly presiding over the front desk. We hadn’t seen each other since the end of ski season, and she came around the desk for a big hug, and we caught up, unhurried, on all our shared news.  I congratulated her once again on her impending nuptials, and she filled me in on the details of the fall wedding – right here in the Valley, as befits a local kid who grew up in and around town, won races for the mountain, and has patched together a very respectable young adult life between slipping away for college and coming back to babysit for friends (which she still does, lovingly and uncompromisingly – I am sure the kids she sits for would happily go home with her at the drop of a ski pole), and lately as an employee of Booth Creek, where her organizational skills and quiet intelligence serve us all very well.

Eventually, our conversation inevitably worked its way around to our mutual – and incredibly dear – friend, Danette Colella.  Dr. Nettie also grew up skiing at Waterville Valley, was an instructor here back in The Day, and has since brought her young family here in all seasons, to ski and hike and mountain bike.  Nettie and her husband David are fixtures in both Kali’s and my life: kind, generous, and fun-loving friends who make you look forward to the weekend so you can see them again.  In February, Nettie was diagnosed with breast cancer, and Kali and I compared notes about her treatment and her state of mind – Nett is one of the strongest women you will ever meet, we both agreed.  It’s been a tough road, but Nettie has faced it like a champ, with the same determination she faces True Grit on an icy morning or a particularly tough rock garden on her mountain bike.  She rolls with it, leans into it, and does her very best – and she is winning.

Our tongues tired, Kali and I lapsed into silence agreeing on one thing:  we were proud of our friend and how she’d faced the fight of her life – and that we knew she was going to beat the disease.  In the mean time, Nettie has brought a new level of awareness of cancer to the broad circle of loved ones, friends, and patients.  If you’d like to support Dr. Nettie’s fight against cancer, you can do so at:

http://www.relayforlife.org/WeymouthMA

Search for “Nettie Colella” and make a donation in any amount you see fit.

See you around Town Square…

When we pulled up stakes four years ago from Boston’s South Shore and moved to Waterville, we did so on a veritable wing-and-a-prayer.  We literally knew no one in town, only a few smile-and-nod relationships in the lift line or at the Coffee Emporium on an early Sunday morning.  I said to my wife Nancy before we moved, “Look, no one is born there, I can’t imagine that it’s not populated by people just like us.”   I was right, in ways that I could never have foreseen but which I appreciate anew just about every day.

The truth of Waterville Valley is, very few people end up here by accident.  We’re the town at the end of the road, and if you drive here more than once, you meant to.  You’re driven by a love of the mountains, of skiing on powder days and days when your breath freezes as it leaves your mouth and even days when your knees ache from the vibration of edging over corrugated frozen granular.  You can’t wait to break out above treeline on Welch Mountain or Osceola or the Scaur, to soak in the panorama and the majesty of the wilderness around you.  You’re fascinated by walking the dog on a clear night and seeing stars you simply couldn’t imagine back home in the western suburbs of Boston.  You’re willing to accept a few itching, bleeding welts from black fly bites as an acceptable trade-off for an afternoon playing with your friends.  For whatever reason, whether destiny or magnetic fields or happenstance, you love the place, surrounded by wildness and rugged beauty, but welcoming, too.

Today, we had a quarterly Waterville Valley board of directors meeting.  I looked around the table at a circle of people who, like me, have chosen to make Waterville Valley their home (some full time, and some on weekends, but it is home none the less), and I was simply awed by their passion, concern, and caring for the place, and for the responsibility invested in them each year by our donors and supporters.  I want to reassure you, our supporters, that your trust is well founded and in good hands – that the board of directors of the Waterville Valley Foundation truly does understand what makes the Valley unique, and seeks to foster that with every decision we make.

In the last few years, I’ve been fortunate enough to have a flexible work schedule that allowed me to work from home on occasion.  This has taught me that there really is a better way – working remotely on Friday or Monday has a lot of advantages – to you, your family and your employer – assuming you have some flexibility, plan ahead carefully, and are certain to fulfill your obligations (so you get to do it again!).  By shifting your north-bound or home-bound commute a day, you buy back an extra evening in a place you love, and you also avoid the worst of the travel rat-race with a reverse-commute at least one direction.

With that thought, here’s my modest proposal for this summer:  test the waters by working remotely from the Valley a few Mondays – you might be pleasantly surprised that getting out of the office actually frees you up to do some thinking and concentrate on tasks that require you to focus. You will also get your Sunday nights back to enjoy in the mountains, you’ll delay the shock of re-entry by a day, and, if you’re lucky enough to be coming back to the mountains for the coming weekend – you will be that much closer to getting away again.

Many office-based professionals can very effectively do their jobs remotely, given a laptop computer, an internet connection, and a reliable telephone line (sorry – this doesn’t necessarily work as well for medical professionals or people whose jobs absolutely require face-time.  Yet anyway.)  Here are a few tips to ensure the success of your plan:

Get your technology ducks in a row…

• Many employers provide web-based access to corporate email; ask your IT department and request directions or support in setting up your access.
• Check to see if you have available and qualify for a higher-level of remote network access (often it’s available with a security token or digital certification) – with advanced access, you can connect to your office network just as if you were at your desk.
• Explore remote meeting software options at your firm – you may be able to dial in, share screens, and more during meetings.
• Check to see if it’s possible to forward your desk phone to your cell phone.  Many enterprise phone systems have sophisticated call-forwarding support.
• Many of the lodges and hotels in Waterville Valley offer free wireless access, and SkiSat and Fairpoint both have reliable high-speed access options for condos and private homes.
• Work out the kinks of your access to all the things you need to do your job before you try to work remotely for a full day.

Plan your work

• Be sure to pack any paperwork you need and to copy all computer files you’ll need for your remote work before you leave the office.
• Try to set aside “thinking tasks” – writing reports, reviewing employees, creating long-term plans – for remote work days.  You’ll probably find that you benefit greatly from the quiet and periods without interruption.
• If you can, minimize meetings for your remote work day.
• If you do need to dial into meetings, be sure you’re in a quiet place free from interruptions from kids and pets (or mowers and the sound of swinging golf-clubs – all bad for credibility).

Don’t underestimate the importance of “visibility”…

• Make sure you’re truly available during your scheduled working hours
• Answer your phone, respond to voicemail and email messages promptly, keep a presence on instant messaging if your firm uses it – you should try to be more available when you’re working remotely than you would be in your office.
• Depending on your corporate culture, some people are going to assume “working remotely” means “not working”.  Prove them wrong.

Make the most of your extra time

• Pack the ingredients for a simple meal or picnic before you leave home – or enjoy dinner at the Coyote Grill or Diamond’s Edge without having to worry about a wait.
• Plan a late-afternoon activity for Sunday…  a hike to Goodrich Rock, or a mountain bike ride out the Livermore Road, nine holes at the Waterville Valley Golf Club, or a few sets at the Tennis Center.  Relax into it, knowing you have a whole night to enjoy.
• Get up early on Monday morning and take a walk.  Grab a cup of coffee in Town Square and watch the swallows skimming over the still water of Corcoran’s Pond.  Read the newspaper.  Remember that right about now, you’d be rushing for the door and a ride on the commuter train or an hour in bumper-to-bumper Monday morning traffic.
• If you’re feeling ambitious, go for an early road or mountain bike ride before the heat of the day sets in.
• Do your best work, taking advantage of the lack of interruptions, then pack up and head south at the end of the day, knowing that you’ve put Monday behind you.

If your family is like mine, Waterville Valley is a very special place, and you treasure your time here.  Why not explore your options for extending your visits?

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While we’re on the subject of summer fun…

Consider saving the date for The Waterville Valley Foundation’s “Memories in the Mountains” community gathering on Saturday, July 24th at 6pm.  Held under the tent at the Waterville Valley Conference Center, it promises to be a great evening out with old friends and new — a barbeque buffet dinner and dancing to the Wicked Smart Horn Band.  Tickets are $50 per person, and proceeds will benefit a planned memorial to local soldier Marc Paul Decoteau to be placed at the Waterville Valley Elementary School.

Tickets are available by mail (make your check payable to the Waterville Valley Foundation, PO Box 464, Waterville Valley, NH 03215), during select hours from the Waterville Valley Resort Concierge Desk in Town Square, and, starting in June, through the Waterville Valley Recreation Department at their summer home at the Waterville Valley Academy.

For more information, drop us a note at info@watervillevalleyfoundation.org.

Friendly fox on West Branch Road

From the Livermore trailhead, I walked out the Livermore Road to the Greeley Ponds trail and along the stony track for a little over a mile to where the Goodrich Rock trail diverges left and up the ridge.  As usual, the Road and trail were both well maintained and clear of blowdowns — in spite of the rough winter we had — thanks to the Forest Service and WVAIA crews.  I am a regular visitor to the Greeley Ponds Trail, on foot and on my bike, and there is much to say for the charms of this lovely woods-walk.

The Goodrich Rock Trail, though, adds a new dimension.  The trail, as local guide and hiker Dan Newton (now the president of the WVAIA) so eloquently puts it in the description on the WVAIA map, “…winds creatively through a field of large boulders.”  Creatively indeed… the early hikers who laid out this track had both a sense of humor and a sense of delight, steering through the narrow cleft of a huge fractured glacial erratic, then under and over a dozen other obstacles.  After a brief, steep climb, the trail rises and falls along the ridgeline until it reaches the base of the impressively large Goodrich Rock.  You wind around the back of this huge boulder and clamber up a log ladder to find stunning 180 degree views of the valley, including a unique view of the ski area itself.

View from the top of Goodrich Rock, looking toward Waterville Valley Ski Area

If you love Waterville Valley, this is a perspective not to be missed.  Take the kids or some friends for a walk some weekend soon, and check on the Goodrich Rock Trail.  Hike from Livermore trailhead is just over four miles round-trip, and took me just about two hours to complete.  The trail itself is not too strenuous, and rewards with both a interesting journey and a great view from the top. Thanks again to the WVAIA for all their hard work, maintaining the treasure of our ancient and excellent trail network!