Gianni and I had a most incredible weekend in the Presidential Mountains of New Hampshire. The plan was to spend Saturday and Sunday with the AMC New Hampshire Chapter Family Group on our annual Mizpah Hut hike. We decided to take Friday off from school and head up early. We started on the Crawford Path around noon and made it to the hut by 2:30. We left most of our gear on our bunks, ate lunch and then headed out on a ridge traverse over to Mt. Jackson. This 3.5 mile hike proved to be most challenging. The conditions were a difficult mixture of mud, ice and collapsing snow bridges. As with any challenge, our effort proved quite rewarding (photo above is us on top of Mt. Jackson, with Mt. Washington in the background). Gianni cooked and cleaned for us and we slept well. We woke up early the next morning and went back down to the parking lot to meet our group. We loaded our empty packs with much of the group food and headed back to the hut. After lunch and plenty of play time with his mates, Gianni and I joined a group that summitted Mt. Pierce. We had more spectacular views of the whole Presidential Range and made it back to the hut before the rain started. Again, Gianni, now with his friends, cooked, served and cleaned up for us. The rain stopped in the morning and we had a pleasant hike down, listening to the kids sign and play most of the way. These were Gianni's third and fourth 4,000 footers. He is eager to climb more. The whole weekend was one of our more enjoyable experiences hiking, particularly Friday. I think Gianni would agree with me when I say our experience climbing in perfect weather together on Friday, just father and son, was simply the best, bliss.Check out my Flickr Photostream for more photos.