Waypoint Adventure conquered Mt. Willlard for our 8th annual Winter Summit Weekend!
Filled with anticipation and excitement, the group of 9 set out for the Highland Center in legendary Crawford Notch, NH. For some, it was another chance to summit Mt. Willard. For others, it was their first experience being up in the White Mountains in winter and hiking there with new friends.
The theme for this year was this: It Matters. Throughout the weekend, group members were given the challenge of reflecting on the decisions that they made and interactions that they had with each other to determine why they matter.
On the final night together, everyone shared their favorite moments from the trip. Some things that were said were: “This was the most challenging hike I have ever done, but I feel so proud of myself for doing it!”, “I needed this. This empowered me to get out into the world.”, and “This was excellent! (coming from a participant who uses limited speech)”.
After each person shared their favorite moment, they were given a cutout piece of the map from the trail they had just hiked. With a sharpie, each person wrote their favorite part on the back of this piece and had to figure out how their pieces came together to form the whole map. Without all the pieces, the map would have been incomplete. By the end, everyone realized that all the small things can make a huge difference in our lives. They Matter.
While the summit of Mt. Willard was truly a magical and special place, the weekend was made complete through the difficult journey up and down the mountain, eating way too much food, and hanging out with quality people in the lodge (not to mention the endless games of corn hole and ping-pong to boot!). Mt. Willard was just the icing on the cake.
But don’t take our word for it! Below are some pictures from the weekend.
Lodge Life:
Hike:
We are so grateful to have such a welcoming and loving community of people come out with us every year. 2019 was a very special year and we hope to continue the tradition in 2020. Thank you to AMC YOP for extra gear and the reservation at the Highland Center, Peter Fuller Vans (shout out to Jim Cubeta!) for the van and everyone else who made this all possible.
