dfkotz

Mount Moriah

Summer hiking season begins!

Every year I am always a bit disappointed when winter-hiking season comes to an end, wishing I’d managed to find more opportunities to get out. But then, summer hiking season begins and it’s always exciting to see again just how beautiful the White Mountains can be in summer. This weekend – Memorial Day weekend – is sort of the unofficial start of summer for hiking, biking, boating, and more. So I set out to find a peak to climb: something I’d not visited in a long while, and hopefully not attracting hordes of Memorial Day tourists. I settled on Mount Moriah, in the Carter-Moriah range just across the valley from the Presidential Range. The last time I’d been over this peak was (gasp) the fall of 1983, nearly forty-one years earlier. Today, I took a different route and experienced one of the most beautiful trails of the Whites. Read on!

View from the ledges of the Carter-Moriah trail.

Curious bear

Momma bear deconstructs my camera…

A couple months ago I circumnavigated the forest property where I keep my wildlife cameras, re-discovering a steep ledgy hillside that I’d seen a few years earlier. The landowner had told me that this area was “bear country”; seeing these granite outcrops, with their many dark nooks and crannies, and jagged fallen boulders, made me understand why. This rugged terrain, with plenty of surrounding forest and nearby sources of water, virtually cried out to as home for bear, coyote, and bobcat. So at the end of April I brought two of my cameras over to that side of the hill. I found a promising game trail and strapped my camera to a tree. Little did I know what would come by, only hours later! Read on to find out.

photo of my wildlife camera strapped to a tree, next to a game trail and a rocky hillside.

Wildlife camera – April

Momma bear returns… with cubs!

April was a month of transition for my local patch of forest, here in Lyme New Hampshire. Although we had a big snowstorm early in the month, all of the interesting wildlife videos I have to share this month show the bare ground and leafless branches of early spring. In this month’s video highlights, you’ll see a familiar cast of characters – turkey, deer, raccoon, porcupine, skunk, and even a busy little mouse. I caught the raccoon red-handed (twice!) inspecting that hole in the tree – highlighted in a recent post – but as far as I can tell, the hole is still unoccupied.

The raccoon climbed the tree and inspected the nesting hole.

Perhaps most excitingly, the big black bear is back – last seen on Christmas Day – and now has two little cubs in tow! The appearance of this bear family reminded me of a comment made by a local – that the other side of the hill is “bear country” – so I moved a couple cameras over there. Two weeks later: Wow! I got more than I expected. I’ll share that experience soon. (Subscribe, so you won’t miss it!)

Wildflower season

Spring has arrived.

I took an extended walk through my backyard patch of forest, today, roaming over the hills and through the empty forests. The snow has disappeared, exposing dry, brown leaves from the fall, a litter of twigs and branches snapped from the trees by the winter’s wind and snow. Here and there, though, the colors of Spring have begun to appear.

red trillium (not a great photo, you can see only two of three petals!)

hillside with rocky outcrop and new green plant growth — A steep, rocky outcrop with a carpet of green emerging…

Wildlife camera – owl in the tree

Finally, a visitor to the hole in the tree.

Back in February I noticed some tracks and signs in the snow beneath a big ol’ tree. Looking up, I could see a big hole in the tree, about 25′ up; it sure looked like a nice place to build a nest. So I set up two cameras there: one at the base of the tree – which has led to some pretty cool videos of fisher, coyote, bobcat, and more – and another high in a neighboring tree so I could record any activity in that high-up hole. The picture below is the view from that camera. I’ve gotten a lot of video from that camera, but all of it was simply from the wind blowing the trees back and forth. Until now! Read on.

Hole in a tree, where I pointed a wildlife camera.

Wildlife camera – March

Fox, deer, turkey, skunk, mouse, more!

March was unusually warm – and my patch of woods lost all their snow even before the month began. But snow fell again, at least twice, and so my wildlife videos include some scenes with snow, and some without. Two new critters appear this month for the first time – a tiny (but very busy!) mouse, and a chipmunk. (Both on the same log! I share only a little video of each.)

This month’s video (less than four minutes) ends in a cliffhanger: does the fox crawl into the skunk’s burrow? and if so, what happened next?

deer looking at my wildlife camera — Wildlife camera captures from March 2024, in the forests of Lyme NH.

Solar eclipse 2024

Mud-season eclipse…

We were fortunate to be able to spend the afternoon today visiting some colleagues at a lakeside home in northeastern Vermont – where the skies were clear, the sun was warm, and last week’s snow was quickly thinning. Shortly after 2pm we settled into lawn chairs, pulled out our solar-eclipse safety glasses, and enjoyed watching the moon take over the sun… read on!

Our group gets ready for the solar eclipse in northeastern Vermont.

Moosilauke – winter or spring?

Winter on the summit – spring at the base.

I had already started putting away my winter gear – assuming that, it being April, my winter adventures were at an end. I should know better, because New Hampshire often plays tricks with spring. Three days ago, in the week of April Fools, New England was hit with a powerful nor’easter storm that brought us 40 hours of snowfall. Here at home the snow was wet spring snow – delivering a lot of moisture but melting so quickly that we never accumulated more than 3-6″ of depth. In the three warm days hence, much of that snow has melted, or will be gone soon.

I knew the story would be very different at altitude: in the higher peaks of the White Mountains the rain would have turned to snow sooner, stayed as snow longer, and fallen as dry, fluffy powder. With the weather clearing today, I just had to get up there, up high, to play in this new powder. I was not disappointed. Read on, and check out the gallery of this winter wonderland!

The “Balcony” along the Gorge Brook Trail, Mount Moosilauke.
Normally a rough and rocky traverse, today the trail was smooth and featureless.

Spring snowstorm

Wet and sticky.

We’ve just concluded a spring snowstorm – in April. It was unusually large and long, lasting over 40 hours and dumping 3-6″ in our area… but possibly several feet at higher elevation. These spring storms can often bring the greatest snowfall because they result from the collision of warm, moist air arriving from the south, and cold, dry air from the north. They bring sticky, wet snow, which coats everything beautifully with fat snowflakes – but can also bring down trees and branches, causing power outages. We lost power this morning, and I went out to photograph the beauty; see the gallery!

Northern Lights

Two brilliant nights, above the Arctic Circle.

As noted in the prior post, we spent four nights in Saariselkä, near the northern tip of Finland. We stayed at the “Northern Lights Village,” which we all hoped was eponymously named! Guests are housed in individual little cabins, called “aurora cabins,” which have glass across half their roof, and a special in-room tablet computer that rings a gentle alarm whenever the Northern Lights are visible. We were all hopeful to see the aurora borealis, at least once. We did! Read on, and check out the photo gallery!