A wilderness refuge in northern New Hampshire.
Regular readers will have seen my three posts about hikes this past weekend –Sugarloaf, Magalloway, and North Percy Peak – all in far northern New Hampshire. I was visiting that region for a Dartmouth event in the Second College Grant – a Dartmouth-owned township spanning 42 square miles of forest, wetland, and wilderness. Dartmouth manages it for sustainable timber production, recreation, research, and education. It has a fascinating history dating back before the American Revolution.
My third hike in three days – again, with limited views.
They say the third time’s the charm. Two days ago I hiked to the summit of Sugarloaf Mountain, nestled among the rolling hills and bogs of Nash Stream Forest in northern New Hampshire. Though I had waited out the rainstorm before hiking, the low clouds clung to the nearby peaks and the summit offered limited views. Yesterday, sunny weather with cloudless skies offered better luck for our hike to Mount Magalloway, whose fire tower provides wide views into Canada, Vermont, Maine, and the northern-most tip of New Hampshire… only to be foiled by dense wildfire smoke drifting in from faraway Manitoba.
Today we struck out to climb the Percy Peaks, a pair of notable nubbins just downstream from Sugarloaf in the Nash Stream Forest. (I had a view of these paired peaks two days ago.)
Continue reading “Percy Peaks”Irony: this fire tower’s views were obscured by smoke from wildfires.
The afternoon sun burned hot overhead as we bumped along miles of remote dirt roads, in the far northern corner of New Hampshire. We were aiming for one of the most remote peaks on the “52 with a view” list – Mount Magalloway. This steep-sided peak has a commanding view of the rolling hills of northern New Hampshire, a sparsely populated region that has long been an important source of timber and pulp. A coalition of timber-management companies built this fire tower in 1935, where a fire warden would keep a keen eye out for the emergence of any fires – which could clearly be devastating to their business.
Another 52WAV without a view.
As I sat in my car waiting for the rain to let up, while parked far up a remote dirt road in northern New Hampshire, I read again the description of the trail I was about to follow. It was quite steep, apparently, but this small peak promised strong views in almost every direction. Read on and check out the photo gallery!
A beautiful scene just outside Bristol NH.
Yesterday was a beautiful day, so we took a road-trip to Bristol NH, about an hour from home. Our long loop drive took us through some beautiful New Hampshire countryside, with a stop at a new Mexican restaurant, Cielito, in Bristol. (Recommended!)
I thought perhaps there might be some interesting waterfalls along this route, so I checked my friend Eli Burakian’s book Hiking New England Waterfalls for some ideas.
An endless field of black-eyed susans.
Not far down the road from my home is a luscious meadow, a former farm pasture that the owner has preserved via a conservation easement to the Upper Valley Land Trust. This meadow is popular with local deer, turkeys, and other wildlife. In recent years, the conservators have planted the roadside with wildflowers, allowing me a brilliant commute on summer mornings. Last year, I shared photos of the multicolor feast of wildflowers. This year, the field is carpeted with the yellow and orange tones of Black-Eyed Susan flowers. Today, a mildly foggy morning provide just the right atmosphere for photographs. Click through the gallery!
Another 52WAV peak – this time, with a view!
After two weeks of unusually hot and humid weather, a proper summer’s day finally arrived here in New Hampshire! The forecast was for clear skies and cool-to-moderate temperatures – and my morning calendar was blank – so I headed for Mount Shaw, the highest point in New Hampshire’s Lakes Region. I’d had my eye on this peak for a while, and today was a perfect day for it. I encountered nobody on my 90-minute climb to the summit – no humans, that is… but read on for my encounter with the mountain’s ursine inhabitant!
Huge branches = lots of firewood.
Earlier this year, a large branch snapped off one of our silver maple trees. We sawed, split, and stacked it – firewood for a future winter! Yesterday, I climbed a ladder and sawed off the rest of the branch, which was 10-15′ long. It took an hour or more just to saw it into stove lengths, in part because this branch – just a branch, mind you – was thicker than our chainsaw bar. At one point I decided my Greenworks Pro electric saw (which is awesome, by the way) was just not cutting it. (Sorry, bad pun.) So I pulled out my trusty Stihl 026, our only remaining gas-powered tool. It is more than thirty years old, but still going strong!
Two peaks with famous views, on a day without views.
As I drove past Mount Cube on NH Route 25A, early this morning, I noted that the cloud deck was low. Very low. Indeed, all the way down to the road! The view of Mount Moosilauke, to which drivers are treated as they round the bend at the height of land on this sector of Route 25A, was simply a wall of white. And the subsequent view of Mount Cube – although it is much closer – was a fuzzy mix of green hillside and puffy white clouds, some of which touched the road in front of me. I was headed for a hike, deeper in the White Mountains, in hopes of summiting two of the peaks on the “52 With a View” list. These steamy morning conditions did not portend well for good views today. Read on to see what happened!
Wildlife and Fourth of July holiday in South Carolina.
We spent a few days in Charleston SC around the Fourth of July holiday. It allowed me to enjoy time with family, swimming and boating on the Ashley River, dining in some excellent restaurants, and photographing wildlife.
David Kotz 