Hiking Wachusett Mountain

I was ecstatic when Mike asked me if I’d like to hike Wachusett Mountain (we hadn’t been hiking since Waterville in the summer!). One of our favorite things to do as a couple is go hiking; to walk through the quiet woods,  determine how to maneuver our way through the steep, rocky hills of the trail and appreciate the views at the top of the mountain. Hiking takes us out of our everyday element; it slows life down (if just for a few hours) by removing us from our household responsibilities, work projects and constant social media notifications. In short, it simply brings us closer together.

World Hike a Mountain Day

Little did we know, however, that our big weekend plans to finally go on a fall hike would essentially make us active participants in World Hike a Mountain Day. We would pick World Hike a Mountain Day to go hiking.

We weren’t even aware of this worldly day until we approached Wachusett Mountain, where we discovered that it was not only World Hike a Mountain Day, but that it was also Apple Fest (we really thought we were being unique in our plans, but alas our attempts to go against the grain only made us more mainstream for the day- we would seriously fail at being hipsters).

It was hilarious that we accidentally stumbled upon all of this commotion. I couldn’t believe it, how could neither one of us have realized this? We had even visited the Mount Wachusett website? God, we suck.

Regardless, we had an AWESOME day! Here are some photos from the hike:

First stop Balance Rock Trail.
(behold…the balancing rock)

Balance Rock Trail turned into Old Indian Trail, which then turned into a game of “Where’s Waldo”:

(birds eye view of our sense of humor- its the little things in life that make us laugh)

Made it to the top!

 Learned a few important things while eating PB sandwiches at the summit:

We headed over to Apple Fest after making it back down the mountain (alive) and grabbed a cider donut and cup of cold apple cider. There were so many booths with all kinds of fall treats that had I known this was taking place earlier, then I would have come more prepared to look around.

One of our biggest motivating factors for coming back down the mountain was where we were headed next: The Wachusett Brewery.

We went on the Wachusett Brewery Tour, which was free (score!), and got to try some great local beer in the process. It was a lot of fun and the tour was really cool. Unlike a few brew tours we’ve been on, the tour shows you where the actual beer is made, bottled and packaged.

The brewery tour waiting area displayed tons of photographs and samples of the old beer cans, bottles and growlers that Wachusett beer used to be sold in.  I thought these black and white photos were really cool, so I snapped a few photos of the photos to share here.

My favorite beer they make is Wachusett Blueberry.  Saying that I only like Wachusett Blueberry would be an understatement (it would be like saying I only like to go shopping or I only like to eat multiple plates of pancakes for breakfast). If you haven’t tried it before, then get on that A.S.A.P. (now that you know how much I love Wachusett Blueberry, shopping and pancakes, we can move on with the story…)!

After the tour, we tasted a few more beers and purchased a growler of Wachusett Octoberfest as well as a few other souvenirs:

I’ll be enjoying my blueberry beer in my new Wachusett Blueberry pint glass during the Pat’s game this afternoon!