Start the spring with a 7.5 mile hike through the Blue Hills. Begin at the Trailside Museum (Milton) and finish at the Shea Rink (Quincy). Spotting cars is necessary. This hike is for all levels, but geared towards beginner/intermediate hikers. Must be in good physical condition. L Stacia Zukroff, CL Andrew Shearer. 45 minutes north of Providence, half an hour south of Boston. It’s free, but please register online.

(Trip sponsored by the Appalachian Mountain Club’s Boston Young Members and cross-listed with the Narragansett Young Members.)

Join us for a (free) hike on Saturday, Sept. 23, with the Appalachian Mountain Club Young Members. (”Young” usually means 20s and 30s, though there’s no hard limit.)

This hike is in the Blue Hills, midway between Boston and Providence. It’s a great area to explore whether or not you have a lot of hiking experience.

See the trip posting for more information and to sign up.

Every Thursday evening this summer, there’s a pickup Ultimate game at Narragansett Town Beach. This is what yesterday’s game (19 pictures) looked like.

Catching up on photo collections I’ve posted in the past few weeks:

• A 4-day camping trip in the White Mountains with the Appalachian Mountain Club Worcester Young Members, in which we hiked a few mountains, took turns jumping from a ledge into Emerald Pool, and watched the fireworks display at the Mt. Washington Hotel.
• My Blue Hills beginner hike, which drew a huge crowd. I took the first 25 to sign up, and could run another trip with the rest.
• The RIPUL tournament, where a relatively low-ranked Ultimate frisbee team went to near the top, in spite of my presence on it.

See what Acadia National Park in Maine looks like. I took a trip there a couple of weeks ago with 17 people from the Appalachian Mountain Club Worcester Young Members (an unofficial event). Great biking, trail running, kayaking, and sunrise on Cadillac Mountain—see the pictures. Thanks to everyone involved for a memorable weekend.

There was a snowstorm in Providence last December 9. Most people left work early and traffic was backed up for hours, so I took the scenic route, with a camera pointed out the window.

I’m co-leading a kayak trip in Providence this Sunday, June 26, with the AMC Narragansett Young Members. If you’d like to sign up, we have available spots and a few kayaks for cheap rental. Since it isn’t a purely flatwater trip, you should be comfortable with sitting in a kayak, but don’t need a lot of experience in order to enjoy it.

You can sign up online.

Trip description:

We’ll spend time enjoying downtown Providence from the river, and also paddle outside the Hurricane Barrier to get a taste of Narragansett Bay. Not literally. L Bev Thomas, CL Andrew Shearer. The route is similar to the one in these pictures.

Just to keep everyone current who’s playing along at home: I recently became chair of the Narragansett AMC Young Members, which until we get some more leaders to post is practically my other weblog.

Also, my application with the Boston AMC Young Members to become a 3-season dayhike leader was approved. And I’m now a co-webmaster of the Boston AMC Young Members site. Busy, busy.

I’m going to co-lead a beginner/intermediate day hike with the in the North Pack Monadnock area on Oct. 10. It’s a Boston AMC Young Members event. Most participants will be in their 20s and 30s, but there’s no age limit. AMC membership is encouraged, but not required, and the trip is free.

See more details at the Narragansett AMC Young Members site, which I just set up a few days ago.

I’m co-leading two upcoming New Hampshire hikes for the Boston AMC Young Members.

On Sunday, Oct. 3, join us for an interesting beginner hike on Squam Mountain during foliage season. 5 miles. Read more information and register.

On Sep. 17-19, we’ll have car camping and a somewhat advanced 10-mile hike over the Baldies loop trail, summiting North and South Baldface. It’s known as one of the best hikes in the White Mountains. We’ll have some terrific views of the Presidentials. Includes some steep, exposed ledges, and finishes up with a visit to Emerald Pool. Waitlist only. Read more information and register for the Polish Off the Baldies trip.

I’m co-leading an easy kayak trip with the AMC this Sunday, June 27. It’s a combination Young Members/Kayak Committee event.

Easy Paddling on Pawtuxet River: One of RI’s major rivers with an abundance of wildlife and history. Pontiac Mills in Warwick to Rhodes on the Pawtuxet.

Some rental boats may still be available. AMC membership isn’t strictly required, though participants should consider it. Contact me if you’d like to come.

See also: pictures from past AMC trips and past kayaking trips.

The AMC Boston hike/bike and young members committees use trip rating codes such as “B3B” to indicate difficulty. Recently there’s been some discussion of how hard this makes the listings to understand for newcomers. Here’s a workaround for users, and the core of a script that would help the authors automate a solution.

This tool translates the codes to English text. To try it out, click the link below and enter a code such as A2C.

Decode AMC Rating

To use this on any trip listing page, drag the Decode link up into your links toolbar, or open your Bookmarks or Favorites window and drag it in. You won’t even have to type the codes anymore; it can work on any text you’ve selected. Go to the AMC Boston YM trip listings, double-click any trip rating to select it, and choose the Decode AMC Rating bookmark.

This is part of a proposal to provide English tooltips for trip rating codes in announcement web pages and emails. Here’s an example of a trip rating with a tooltip. Move your mouse pointer over the following code and hold it still for a few seconds: AA1B.

Interested in doing the Newport Cliff Walk? I’m co-leading an easy trip there with an Appalachian Mountain Club group on Sunday, April 25.

Young Members trips like this one are most often attended by people in their 20s and 30s, but all are welcome, and it’s not even required that you be a member. Other typical trips include kayaking, biking, hiking, rock climbing, and skiing, at any level from beginner to advanced. This trip isn’t very demanding; it’s billed as a “leisurely walk.” We’ll probably have some kind of social afterwards and talk about future trips.

I have an archive of pictures of past trips online (including two snowshoeing & cross-country skiing trips this March with the Boston chapter).

The official writeup:

Young Adult Members Walk/Social
Sunday, 4/25 11am
Join us for a leisurely walk on the Newport Cliff Walk before the tourists take over. 6 mile easy hike, picnic lunch to follow.

Leader, Deb Hanley
Co-leader, Andrew Shearer

Contact me to register.

Pictures from a fun weekend snowshoeing in Grafton and Londonderry, Vermont, on a trip organized by the Boston AMC Young Members.

Today’s hike up Mt. Monadnock in New Hampshire, with the the Boston AMC YM group: 25 pictures.

It meant getting up at 4:10 in the morning to make the drive from Providence, but yesterday I hiked up Mt. Chocorua in New Hampshire with the Boston AMC Young Members group. At least half of us brought cameras, leading to many entries in the Photographs of Photographers series. 105 pictures.

I nearly went to Jacob Reider’s Medicine and Weblogs session at BloggerCon yesterday, but the weather was so nice that I went kayaking in Boston instead.

The RICKA-organized trip went from Magazine Beach down the Charles River into Boston Harbor, and was a great day’s paddle. (…Even though I only had 4 hours of sleep the night before, because of a web server power supply failure that meant rigging up other servers to stand in during the replacement.)

After eliminating, or just not taking, many pictures due to a lens fogging problem that struck my camera’s waterproof case for the first time (meaning that I hadn’t thought to bring any defogging solution), I still have more than 100 pictures.

My Mystic, CT trip (with RICKA) and Providence, RI trip (later that day, on my own), in pictures.

I posted the photos from the Ninigret Pond kayak trip (an AMC event that I co-led on Saturday).

I’m co-leading a kayak trip this Saturday in Charlestown, RI. It’s an Appalachian Mountain Club trip, and I’m representing the Young Members. (Young is a relative term, meaning approximately 25 to 35, but all ages are welcome.) AMC membership isn’t required. We’ll paddle on Ninigret Pond, eat lunch on the beach (which we’ll have pretty much to ourselves) and maybe swim there too.

[Contact information removed; use my Contact link.]

A remaining kayak or two may be available for an $8 rental, but priority goes to AMC members.