Wednesday, April 29, 2009

and while we're being all organized and what not... the Protruberant Mr. Cook has been gracious enough to organize camping at Otter River in MA for May 22-24, so feel free to put your hand in for that as well. It is a very nice local campground with a beach and a 9,000 acre nature preserve. how that got all that nature into jars I'll never know...

and keep in mind that we have reservations for June in Acadia if anyone else would like to join us for that, going up June 10 and leaving June 14.

Island Adventure!

Greetings All,

I hope everyone is enjoying the early summer weather!

I wanted to write and let everyone know about a trip that I'm planning in our summer camping series, Friday August 14th - Sunday August 16th 2009.

I'm always looking for unique backyard adventures, so I reserved some tent sites on Grape Island in Boston harbor, part of Boston Harbor State park. It's also a national park There is supposed to be some decent hiking on a number of different islands, awesome scenery, and gorgeous views of the city skyline. (More info) The Island is accessible by Ferry (Schedule's not yet posted but they run numerous times a day) and you can get between islands by smaller boats that operate for that purpose.

I think this will be an awesome and interesting experience, a great chance to see some wildlife and commune with nature within sight of the city limits. A chance to get away from it all with wonderful sea breezes and sun.

As you might expect, logistics will be slightly more complicated due to, well... it's an island... so I'll help with organizing and coordinating things as the date approaches. Let me know if you're interested... Here's the details again.

We will be on Grape Island, Arriving sometime after 1PM Friday August 14th and departing Sunday August 16th. Please seriously consider joining us and add it to your calender... Space is somewhat limited so I'll operate on a first-come first-served basis and the earlier you can confirm the better.

As always, please feel free to forward this e-mail to anyone that I missed on the initial list that might be interested. This complete letter can be found on the camping blog site at http://extragoldcamping.blogspot.comand future updates will be added there also.

Stay well and enjoy the weather!
-Andy Tibbs

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

HIKING MARCH 21st POSTPONED

Greetings all,

Unfortunately, due to a number of unforeseen circumstances and the need for portions of a house to be demolished this upcoming weekend (and lack of interest due to the fact that I didn't give everyone a suitable amount of advance notice) we have decided to postpone the hiking adventure scheduled for this Saturday.

If you have any questions or if you know someone who was interested in going please don't hesitate to ask.

A new date for the adventure will be announced as soon as I set it up. I promise you'll get more than 5 days notice this time!

Hope to see you all then.
-Andy

Monday, March 16, 2009

Acadia Reserved

After much procrastinating and verbal combat with the nice people who have the unfortunate job of taking reservations for the hundreds of national park campgrounds across this fine nation, we have Acadia reservations.
I have reserved one tent site for June 10 -14 and one tent site for June 12 - 14. 2 tents on each site. 1 car per site. There is a $20 car pass on top of that we'll have to pay when we arrive. We'll just have to deal with the carpooling.
Sites are $20 per night. There are no specific sites to reserve, so I will walk down and claim the best site I can on Friday morning for anyone coming up then.

My list is thus:
People coming for the entire time:
Me and Sandy.
People I think might come for the entire time:
Pat. Leo.
People who might be coming for the weekend:
Erin. Cat. Josh. Jenny. Logan. Sam. Jess.

Put in for the time off now and it'll be a grand adventure way up north with mad hiking and ocean swimming. Please let me know what your intentions are because there is more coordinating to do on this trip than usual.

Be on the lookout for May and July camping trips much closer to home.

Hiking Adventure Saturday March 21st

Hello all,

I apologize in advance for the belated notice concerning this hiking opportunity.

Cabin fever is starting to get the best of some of us and spring is starting once again to make itself known. This means that it's time to get out of the house and spend some quality time outdoors.

I'm trying to organize an early spring hiking trip for anyone that wants to go this Saturday in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. I've chosen a fairly easy route, details of which you can see by clicking on this link - Welch Mountain, Dickey Mountain Loop - The total distance is less than 5 miles and should take around 4 hours to complete.

My plan is to meet up in the parking lot at the trail head (start of the trail) at 11am Saturday March 21st, 2009. This will insure that we have enough time to hike the trail during the warmest part of the day. If you are planning on coming but might be late please let us know so we don't leave without you.. Otherwise we will assume that if you aren't there by 11 you aren't interested. If you need a ride contact myself (andytibbs at gmail) or Dave Leary (drcleary at gmail) and we'll see if we can work something out.

Weather for Saturday in the area looks to be in the mid 40's and partly sunny, though it may shower the next day and we're still a bit far out in the week to accurately predict anything.

The mountains are almost exactly two hours from Boston just off 93 north. For directions check out this link to a map


View Larger Map

(if you click on the view larger map button under the map it will also show you the driving directions)

Activities along the route will include a picnic lunch and perhaps, if we're lucky, some testing for a video project that Dave and I are working on that is an expose type piece with a "hiking in new england for dummies meets David Attenborough's nature" type feel... Participation in the project is optional and the hike will be really fun either way... You should all definitely come!

A few reminders:

1. It is New England in early spring... BRING WARM CLOTHES. Better to be prepared and carry all your sweaters in a backpack than not have them if you need them on top of a mountain. Also in this category... Rain gear and appropriate footwear. If you don't have boots bring two pairs of shoes and a change of socks.
2. Bring your own lunch
3. There will be a $3 dollar fee (per car) to park. When the forest service gets its act together and gets their website back up I'll let you know how to pay it, though I suspect there will be a kiosk in the parking lot.

I sincerely hope to see you all there... and sorry again for the late notice.

-Andy Tibbs

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Acadia details

The Blackwoods Campground has been recommended to us, and I have picked out a pair of sites tucked in back that I will attempt to reserve with appropriate interest. We are allowed 6 people on each site, 2 tents, but only 1 car. I am assuming that we will be able to park extra cars at the registration building, but carpooling sounds like a dandy idea too.

I believe the sites are $20 per night, so this trip may be a bit more expensive, with taxes and crap figure $30 per night, 4 nights, 2 sites, divided by the number of participants on a given day. Perhaps we will do 1 site for the first 2 nights and 2 sites for the second 2 nights?

Be forewarned that the "No Accelerants" rule has been self-imposed, so there will likely be a great deal of swearing before we achieve fire. If you've ever wondered how people make fire without matches or lighters, this will be your opportunity to point and laugh as a group of grown men fritter about on their hands and knees until things go from smoulder to burn, like my love for you.

Additionally, be aware that transporting wood from Massachusetts can be potentially disasterous on account of the Asian Longhorned Beetle. All wood should be preburned, soaked in caustic chemicals, taken from unwanted furniture, or procured up north.

Monday, February 16, 2009

2009 Camping Season

BEHOLD! The power of organization. This year we're going to try something a little different to get our camping trips up and running. The mass e-mail threads must get really annoying for people who aren't participating, and the thread tool on E-vite worked very well last year for getting people together, so I thought we'd try a centralized location for the whole season, found here at the Team Extra Gold Camp Adventures blog. As camping trips come up, I will post details here, we can all RSVP and converse in the discussion threads, and finalized details will go up in new posts as they become solidified.

Thusfar, there are two camping trips tentatively on the docket.

One trip in May, an overnight hike out and back along the MidState trail. We'll lock this one down a bit more an post on it later.

The most relevant trip right now is planned for Wednesday, June 10 through Sunday, June 14 at Acadia National Park in ME. It's about 6 hours north of Boston and is one of the shining beacons of parkdom in New England. The hiking is legendary, the scenery is gorgeous, the drive is tenuously amusing, and the company is what you keep.

I need to make reservations for this trip this month, and even then it might already be fully booked. Please let us know via the Comments section if you are down for one or both of these trips so the planning can go beyond dates.

Also please let us know if there are any places you would like to see a trip organized for or particularly good times later in the summer for you to go outside.