Jamie grew up hiking and camping with his family. Dolly Copp Campground in the White Mountains of New Hampshire was a favorite campground from his childhood. He has many fond memories of trips taken there. Fast forward many many years and a couple of his own kids later and our little family finally made a trip there.
Arriving at Dolly Copp
Dolly Copp is five miles outside of Gorham. It sits nestled in the Presidential Mountain Range, which includes Mt. Washington.
After a foggy and drizzly drive we arrived to an almost full campground. Thankfully we found a campsite. Dolly Copp is the largest campground in the White Mountain National Forest, but is currently under construction, making many of the campsites unavailable. They are currently a no reservation campsite.
Exploring Dolly Copp
Jamie has many happy memories at Dolly Copp and after we finished settling in he showed us around. There is a river and access to multiple hiking trails within the campground. We didn’t utilize them this trip but plan to in the future.
Drive to Gorham and Berlin
After our tour we headed back to the campsite to have hotdogs for lunch. Then headed on a drive a little farther north to the Gorham/Berlin area. We hadn’t been this far North in New Hampshire. Jake fell asleep and ended up taking an epic nap the whole drive. I gave Anika cotton candy to consume which appeased her.
In Berlin we drove past The White Mountain Company Sawmill. Also in a small town called Milan we saw the Nansen Ski Jump State Historic Site. This was the largest ski jump in its time when it was first built.
Quiet time
After our drive we headed back to the campsite. It was still cool out, especially since our bodies are currently primed for 90 degree camping weather, so we spent some time in the camper for a little bit. I took a nap (sort of, there were various interruptions) while the kids listened to an audio book. Jamie sat outside since he was loving the cooler weather. He is energized by the cold, drained by the heat. I’m the opposite.
After this Jamie started a fire and made chicken tacos for dinner. I decided to try meals a little different this time and I prepared as much as possible in advance. The night before we left I cooked some chicken breast with taco seasoning in the crock pot and shredded it. This way he only needed to heat it up.
After dinner we had s’mores and then took Tweak for a little walk around the campground. We met the sweetest dog, a mini Australian Shepard (also known as mini American Shepard), named Rory. She looked like a bigger version of Rocky.
The next morning we woke up and Jamie made bacon and eggs for breakfast. The kids also had surprise lucky charms.
The Peabody River
We cleaned up a bit and then all headed out to explore some more. We stopped at a parking area along the way and found an awesome area on the Peabody River that had tons of small little waterfall natural water slide areas and wading pools. The best part was there was no one there. We decided to let it warm up a little bit more, take a drive into Jackson and get some coffee.
Jamie found a place called Autumn Nomad that had delicious coffee.
We changed into our bathing suits and headed to the river. The water was cold and it wasn’t super hot yet so the kids didn’t want to go in at first. While we warmed up we found some materials (grass, sticks and leaves) and made a boat that we put at the top of one of the waterfalls to see how far it would float down. This process took us awhile and by the time we were done we were sufficiently warmed up.
Jamie found a cool slide area. The kids were a little hesitant to go down so I went down to show them how fun it was, but quickly learned that my bathing suit did not provide the same slideability (totally making that word up) that Jamie’s did. Later we leaned Jamie’s wasn’t as great as we thought either as he ended up with the seam split up the middle of the back. But none the less the kids were up for it after seeing me go down. They took turns coming down on Jamie’s lap. Once Jamie had been sufficiently worn out we decided it was time for lunch.
We ate sandwiches on the rocks by the river. We were so lucky because we had been at this amazing little area, and had the whole area to ourselves for two solid hours. Just as we were finishing lunch a couple of other families arrived, but we were ready to head out anyway. We headed to Gorham to grab some more ice before going back to our campsite.
When we got there Jamie set up the camping hammock for Jake and then he ended up falling asleep in it (Jamie not Jake).
Creative Time
Anika entered her own little world and began creating a “gardening store”. She made the “softest sand”, a shovel, a rake and set up various other things on top of a container. Then she even made a store sign and an open and close sign. The whole thing was completely adorable. I didn’t think to take a picture until all of her merchandise had been “purchased” but it was super cute.
While she worked on this, Jake and I had fun with leaves. First we made leaf rubbings with paper and crayons. Next we mixed different paint together to see what colors we could make and then made leaf prints on paper. Finally Jake just started painting leaves and rocks.
After we finished that up we played in the dirt with his construction vehicles until Jamie woke up. Then we headed down to the river. The kids played in the water for a bit before heading back to our campsite for spaghetti, followed by more s’mores.
We read some Dragon in the Library before bed. This is the current book series we are making our way through.
The next morning we woke up, ate breakfast and packed everything up. After one more walk around the campground we headed home.
This was a wonderful camping trip. Camping with our kids is always special and memory making full, but sharing a place with them that was important to Jamie made it even more special.
