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.
On my first outing, I checked all the wildlife cameras I deployed in nearby forests last month. I like to check them every two weeks, or so, and decided to relocate one to align with an obvious game trail – one I know has been frequented by bears. After tending to my cameras I was heading home for breakfast, thinking about whether I had any photos to share in the blog today. I looked up, and noticed a bobcat slinking through the ferns about 30m ahead of me. Wow! Although my wildlife cameras have captured clips of bobcats before, I’d never encountered one in the wild. I paused. He paused. I looked at him. He looked at me. I zoomed my iPhone into 9x and captured this fuzzy video (click to watch video):
After breakfast I headed to the northeastern corner of Lyme to climb a local favorite, the Lyme Pinnacle. It is a short hike with wonderful views west into Vermont and east toward Smarts Mountain and the Dartmouth Skiway (as in the photo at top). My family was first introduced to this lovely natural area by Valley Quest, and for the past decade or more I’ve been the caretaker of the Quest Box at the summit of the Pinnacle. My goal today was to resupply the box with a new logbook and pencils.
One perk of summiting the Lyme Pinnacle in early fall is the wild apples, ripe and tasty, bursting from this antique orchard that once surrounded a hilltop farm, now a meadow filled with wildflowers.
See more in the photo gallery.
Hike stats: 51st consecutive weekend hike
Distance: 1.45 miles + 2.62 miles = 4.07 miles = 6.6km
Time: 58min + 57min = ~2 hours
Gain: 366′ + 383′ = 749′ = 228m
David Kotz 