David Kotz

Hiking 52 weekends

Every weekend for a year.

Today marks the 52nd consecutive weekend I’ve been out hiking.

I never set out to hike every weekend for an entire year. It was perhaps mid-November when I noticed I had been out for a hike every weekend (and sometimes more) since mid-September, so I decided to keep it up. The resulting quest has been a remarkable forcing function – sometimes pushing me to get outdoors even when I felt too busy or too tired to identify, organize, and execute on a plan. In retrospect, it was always worth the effort. Always.

The trail on Anchor Island was muddy, slippery, and challenging; Dusky Sound, New Zealand.

Lyme hills

Two hikes today.

Today was a quintessentially gorgeous September day in New Hampshire – early morning valley fog, then cool air with warm sunshine and calm winds. My long to-do list precluded any serious hiking, so I headed out on two short hikes before and after breakfast.

Early morning fog between the Lyme Pinnacle and Smarts Mountain.

Svalbard landscapes

Spectacular scenery from the high arctic.

For my final installment in the Svalbard series, I share some of the incredible scenery we encountered on this arctic archipelago in late March. When I speak to others about this trip, they imagine a land covered in snow and ice would be monotonous. Far from it! The stark contrast between rock and snow, the ever-shifting sea ice, and hour after hour of low-angle sunlight led us to some spectacular photographic opportunities.

Svalbard wildlife

A belated post to share photos from my visit in March.

As regular readers know, I spent ten days on an incredible cruise around the arctic archipelago of Svalbard, latitude 77-80º north, in late March. I was there for a week-long photography workshop with Muench Workshops, aboard the MS Virgo, and captured over 12,000 raw images in ten days! It has taken me many months to winnow this collection down to just a precious few that I want to share with you. My earlier posts included photo/video galleries with an overview of the trip, the town of Longyearbyen, walking on ‘fast ice’, and landing on the windswept Moffen Island at 80º north during a snow squall. Today I’m going to highlight some of the wildlife we encountered, and share three new photo/video galleries.

Bearded seal on an ice floe – Forlandsundet, Svalbard.

Mount Mansfield

Above the clouds on Vermont’s highest peak.

We were in the area of Burlington, Vermont for the long weekend, so I was eager to take advantage of the amazing hiking opportunities in this beautiful corner of Vermont. Sunday morning’s weather looked good – few clouds and almost no chance of rain – so Andy and I headed for Mount Mansfield. As Vermont’s highest peak at 4,393′ (1339 meters), with open summits offering grand views, it is an extremely popular destination. With the Stowe ski area on its eastern slopes operating an easy gondola ride close to the summit, even in summer, and with the proximity of Vermont’s largest city, I knew the trails would be busy on this holiday weekend – so we were on the trail before 8 a.m.

A pretty stream on the Sunset Ridge trail of Mount Mansfield.

Lyme wildlife – August

My cameras are back in action!

After deploying my five wildlife cameras into a nearby forest, three weeks ago, I went back yesterday to check the cameras and collect the memory cards. Several cameras were askew, hinting that some critters were trying to interfere – and capturing a selfie in the process. You’ll see several of those in this month’s videos! You’ll see bears – lots of bears – deer, coyote, and a new animal I’ve never seen before. Up first: a doe and her fawn. Warning: don’t watch this video unless you can handle massive cuteness!

Clay Brook Trail

A walk in the Lyme Town Forest.

Our little town of Lyme has several beautiful natural areas, many of them conserved and open to the public. The Lyme Town Forest spans a range of forest types and stretches from the Connecticut River up and over some rolling hills in the northwest corner of town. Today I took a walk on some of those trails – far more difficult than I expected – in search of a waterfall.

The ‘waterfall’ is not much to look at, in August. Just a trickle!

Unfortunately, this trail – the Clay Brook Trail – is severely overgrown, its treadway underused and covered with forest litter, and its painted blazes fading. So I spent much of my time pausing, backtracking, and searching for the route. At times it felt more like bushwhacking than hiking. But it was nonetheless a pretty day in a pretty forest. See the photo gallery!

Hike stats: 49th consecutive weekend hike!
Distance: 4.0 miles (6.4km)
Gain: 826 feet (252m)
Time: 1h54m
GaiaGPS track

Moosilauke

It’s been a year, old friend!

Mount Moosilauke is of the first places I wanted to visit after returning home from London. My favorite mountain, of course! I headed up early this morning, while it was still sunny, trying to beat the incoming clouds. The result was a lovely hike, with broad views from the summit. I set off at a brisk pace, wondering how I might feel climbing a big mountain after a year of mostly level ground and rolling hills in the South Downs.

Signs to Mount Moosilauke at the Baker River crossing.

What a year!

A year of personal and professional exploration.

One year ago, today, I headed out the door for a year-long sabbatical. The professional core of that sabbatical was my Royal Society Wolfson Visiting Fellowship at Imperial College London, but I also enjoyed meeting colleagues at University College London, during visits to universities across the UK in England, Scotland, and Wales, and at conferences in France, Portugal, and the United Kingdom. The year was academically very productive! And the year also presented incredible opportunities for travel, much of it described in this blog. Here’s a quick summary, with one photo per month. Each month’s heading is a link to the blog posts for that month, and the bullets link to a few travel highlights.

Familiar terrain

Back to my home stomping grounds.

My calves strained as I hiked up the steep, forested hillside, following a familiar route that has no trail and rarely feels the pressure of human soles. Except mine. For this weekend’s hike I decided to stay close to home and visit a patch of forest that I know very, very well. I have traversed this hillside dozens, nay, hundreds of times, following my whim instead of any formal trails. My senses perk up as I move slowly through the underbrush, looking and listening and sometimes even feeling for animal sign, trying to read the land and determine where I might place my motion-sensor cameras to capture interesting videos of the local wildlife.