In late morning on this snowy day my daughter walked down to the riverside, where she found a playful animal – we think it is an American Mink. Watch the video!
Mink in the snow
A local resident plays in the snow.
Author: dfkotz
David Kotz is an outdoor enthusiast, traveller, husband, and father of three.
He is also a Professor of Computer Science at Dartmouth College.
Winter arrives
Finally! Winter has finally arrived, bringing us a snowstorm to paint the barren ground white and dust all the trees in a blanket of fluffy powder. At 7am, when the woodstove was humming with a cozy fire, and the children are all snug in their beds, I went out for a quick look around. I measured the snow depth in the driveway at 9″, and the snow was still falling fast. Two hours later, I went for a long walk, enjoying the swish of my boots through the shin-deep snow and the squeaky crunch of each footstep. On return, at 9am, the snow was now 12″ deep on the driveway – three inches in two hours – and still falling hard.
I don’t have much time to be photographic this morning, but here is a quick gallery of photos. Perhaps my favorite was this little mouse, who I first spotted hopping along the roadside. He seemed to be looking for something – perhaps the entrance to his underground home, now lost under the deep snow. He let me get closer, and eventually he scampered toward me through the deep ruts left by the few intrepid morning drivers. He found shelter between my legs, tucking in his tail, clearly grateful for a moment of peace as my legs blocked the falling snowflakes. We shared this spot, at the center of the road, snow falling quietly all around, until a car came rumbling along. I picked him up and set him beside the road, and we both went back to our day.
Holts Ledge
Sunset traverse of a local favorite.
Another local hike, a repeat of a fall-colors hike I did at the end of October. Today it was chilly, as a cold front blew in and the winds whipped through the leafless trees on the slopes of Holts Ledge as I climbed the Appalachian Trail toward its ledgy summit. There was a dusting of fresh snow on the leaf litter, which crunched slightly under my feet, following the footsteps of a few others who ventured up this trail since last night’s snow flurries.
I always smile when I pass the marker at the roadside, spiked into a small tree by some DOC students a decade or more ago, and slowly becoming one with the tree.
At the top of the ridge – for this is really a ledgy ridge, not a hill with a summit – there were fine views north to Smarts Mountain and southwest to Goose Pond, as the sun nudged close to the horizon around 4pm.
Some older snow clung to the trail along the ridge, maybe an inch or two surviving the recent warm temperatures. Below you can see some snow in the brush to the right and the rocks below.
I descended via the Dartmouth Skiway “papoose” trail, with barely any snow cover, but as I walked past the base lodge I could see and hear the snow-making apparatus busily coating the trails on the Winslow side of the valley, hoping to be ready for skiers around Christmastime.
ONE OTHER THING. I’ve been for three walks lately on trails in Hanover or Lyme, and every one of them – every one – has presented me with a disgusting and surprising trailside treat: a modern ‘doggie bag’. Today, it was hanging on a trailside twig; other times it is propped carefully on a tree stump. What is it with dog owners, who think it’s better to leave a plastic-wrapped pile of dogshit in the woods instead of just letting their dog shit in the woods? I mean, what do they think the animals do in the woods? We’re not in a city park here, and there’s not a park staff who might come along and remove this trash. sheesh.
Balch Hill
My outing for today was to re-visit Balch Hill, a bald round-topped hill in the middle of Hanover. I’d been there only once before, when the kids and I followed the mysterious Valley Quest instructions to find a hidden quest box near the summit. Today, a blustery and gray November day, I was the only person on the hill, it seemed. The lone maple tree that proudly guards the hill-top meadow seemed silent in its leafless state, awaiting a proper blanket of snow. Although I ascended by the Maple Trail (1.0 mile from car to summit) I found a map and decided to loop down via the Hemlock Trail and some residential streets. The summit kiosk mentioned a huge old oak tree to be seen along that path, and how they’d left in place the massive branch that “lost its battle with gravity”.
Indeed, the trail now passes under the natural arch formed by this decaying branch, adding a little novelty to today’s walk in the woods.
Boston Lot
Still life with ice.
One of the upsides of the current situation is that I’ve tended to look closer to home for outdoor opportunities, and that means I’m returning to some of the local gems I’ve not visited in a decade or more. Yesterday I took a walk around Boston Lot Lake, a small pond in West Lebanon not far from the river at Wilder Dam. Its network of walking and biking trails are popular with local runners and bikers, even on this gray Saturday morning.
The lake was skimmed with ice., though the temperatures were beginning to rise above freezing, so it would not last long.
In one spot, some kids had been clearly been tossing rocks at the ice – some of which went through, and some of which were trapped in the ice.
An interesting still life with rocks and ice.
Winter wonderland
An early winter outing.
I had a chance to walk to a prominent outlook in Vershire VT, with two of my oldest and bestest friends. While we’re still suffering from a near-total lack of snow down here in the river valley, Vershire’s hills were covered in several fluffy inches of the freshest snow Vermont can make.
With the sun now setting shortly after 4pm, as the days tick closer to Solstice, the late-afternoon clouds added a bit of color to the quiet woodlands through which we walked.
The long-distance views from this hill – merely a hill, but with a clearcut view to the northeast – presented a fine opportunity to pause while our conversation wound around the topics of the day.
Indeed, though it was lovely to hike through some of the season’s first good snow, the real treat was the time it offered to catch up with good friends. Looking forward to more such outings to come…
Gingerbread express
Another masterpiece from the Hanover Inn.
Every year, the creative chefs at Dartmouth’s Hanover Inn painstakingly construct a massive gingerbread-and-fondant creation, each year on a different theme. It’s always a marvelous sight, on display in their lobby throughout December. This year, the theme is The Polar Express.
It’s about ten feet long, with incredible attention to detail. It involves a massive number of ingredients!
Christmas tree
An annual ritual.
Every year we visit a nearby Christmas-tree lot run by a Lyme family to choose and cut a tree for our home. So, on Sunday, we found ourselves out in a field dusted with fresh snow, searching for the perfect tree. We quickly found one we liked, and the boys cut it down even faster by using two saws at once.
When we set it up at home, we discovered a small birds-nest tucked into the higher branches.
Finally, we have it all decorated!
Self-protecting tracker
Last night it was extremely windy, with large gusts barreling down the river valley. The forecast was for 2-6″ of snow, but we ended up with only a dusting as the nor’easter storm held mostly to the south. Our solar tracker, however, decided it was better to spend the gusty night horizontally.
The panel has an anemometer on the upper-right corner – seen here in the right-most corner, on a gimbal so it stays upright regardless of the panels’ angle – and when it detects high winds or strong gusts, moves the panels into a horizontal position to protect itself. It spent the night this way.
Normally, it spends the night in a vertical position, to avoid accumulating snow, ice, or dust. This morning, the winds are calm; when the sun rose , though invisible behind the clouds, the tracker steered into its normal sun-tracking mode.
Black Mountain
Grand views for a short hike.
Yesterday was a brilliant sunny day – a nice late-fall day when it should be an early winter day – so it seemed like another great opportunity to get outside. A short drive brought me to the small town of Benton, just west of Moosilauke, and the steep climb to the rocky ridge known as Black Mountain. From its granite ridgeline there is an expansive view across a nearly roadless wilderness to Mount Moosilauke. In the photo below, Moosilauke’s extended north-south ridge is at center, with the Kinsman range at far left and Mount Lafayette’s white-capped peak peeking out behind the Kinsmans.
You’ll see it far better in a full-screen version, in the photo gallery… where I include three or four more photos.
Hike stats:
distance: 5.6 km
gain: 473m
time: 2h 0m
David Kotz 