The Local Hills - Wish I'd Kept A Journal

Photo courtesy of Franklinsites.com

I learned recently that you can get an achievement patch from the Belknap County Sportsmen Association for hiking the twelve highest peaks in the Belknap Mountain Range. You hike the hills, fill out a form with names, dates, notes, etc. and send it in. I like the idea.
It's too bad I've never kept a journal though because several years ago we used to find ourselves in some of those hills quite a bit, especially around the backside of Straightback Mountain. It would be nice to know how many I've done. We lived nearby so we were there pretty often. We'd go up to pick blueberries in late summer, go for the scenery during foliage time and of course hunt later in the fall. There was one hunt in particular during which Ben and I must have knocked off at least three of those peaks while tracking a couple of deer in a decent amount of snow. Which reminds me of another time when a light snow turned into a serious whiteout blizzard just as we got to the top and found ourselves scrambling down to where we could see and start hunting again. 
Then there was the day when Laurie's dad and I went up to poke around and we were welcomed by a flock of snow buntings. I'd never seen so many at one time and I've seen very few since. Then as we were starting to head down we met a couple of moose hunters who hadn't had any luck at all and this was the last day of their season. They asked if we'd seen any sign, we told them about a fresh set of tracks we'd come across, showed them where the moose was headed, directed them to the tracks and wished them luck.  

Photo courtesy of peakery.com

On one of the blueberry forays, myself and a buddy of mine hiked up sans blueberry rakes and proceeded to try to fill the containers we each brought. The only problem was that wild blueberries are like candy and we were eating more than saving. By the time we were tired of picking, our containers looked pretty measly so we took what we gathered and gave them to another picker up there who was happy to have them and we headed for home.
But like I mentioned earlier, I never wrote down dates, times and such, I rarely even took any pictures. So I guess I'll start over and hike some of those hills again, not so much for the patch, but for the visit, the views and to jog some memories. If I decide to complete all twelve maybe I'll fill out a form, maybe even one for Chunk since I intend to take him with me. More than likely though, I'll hit the ones I like, skip the ones I have no interest in (the peaks with all the people) and probably call it close enough. We'll see...