Hikes – Page 18 – David Kotz

Foggy morning

No distant views … leads one to focus closer in.

It was a densely foggy morning, as I climbed to my usual outlook above the streets of Zürich. I was in the fog almost as soon as I left my hotel, at river level, and climbed 212m up through the fog to the Zürichberg viewpoint. Not surprisingly, there was nothing to see today but for the sign illustrating what distant mountains could be seen on a better day (like yesterday).

More of the snow and ice had melted from the pathways, so I took a different route down – through the forest and back to the roadway, at the spot known as Rigiblick. There, I encountered a smiling set of sentries guarding the house beside the path.

Last week’s snow persists high on Zurichberg, where one home assembled a friendly family of snow soldiers.

Directly across the street is the top station for a funicular tram – a pair of trams on a track, attached to a cable, one descending while the other ascends. The sign advertised a departure in 2 minutes, so I hopped aboard and rode in comfort down the steep slope, approximately halfway to my starting point. Below, I look back up the track from the bottom.

This path home is always risky, passing as it does by a Migros grocery store and two wonderful bakeries. I broke down and popped into a bakery for a gipfel (like a croissant) and headed on home, a fine way to spend the morning.

Alpine sunrise

A grand view from a grand spot.

I returned to my morning walking route, climbing through the streets and stairs of Zurich to the viewpoint atop Zurichberg. Today, I arrived not long after sunrise; with fewer clouds, the sun shone through to the Zurich valley. Indeed, it seemed the orange glow of the rising sun was bouncing off the cloud deck above, illuminating the light fog hovering over the lake Zurichsee.

Sunrise view from the Zurichberg viewpoint, Zurich.

Zooming in to the Alps spread across the horizon, we can see the morning sun illuminating the Eiger and its neighbors.

The Eiger is the dark triangle just left of center.

Earlier, I paused along Spyristrasse at a point where I knew one of the multi-story condo buildings hosted an impressive sight: a three-story cat staircase, mounted outside the building, allowing the cat to come and go from its residential balcony. Today, for the first time ever, I saw a cat sitting atop the stairs, surveying its territory and guarding the homestead from all comers.

A cat rests at the top of a three-story cat staircase on the outside of a condo building; Spyristrasse, Zurich.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring.

Hiking in snow

A lovely outing in late-fall conditions.

Today I went out with a friend for a short hike in the hills on the eastern side of Hanover. It was a warm afternoon, but we were surprised to see an inch of fresh snow on the leaf-covered forest floor, with melting snow dripping from the fir trees overhead. It rained hard here last night – down along the Connecticut River – but only a few hundred feet higher it had apparently snowed.

First snow along the trails of the Shumway Forest in eastern Hanover, with views to Moose, Smarts, and Moosilauke.

It was nonetheless a lovely hike through the forest along a set of trails managed by the Hanover Conservancy, culminating in a series of rocky overlooks on the ledges of the ridge that extends south from Moose Mountain.

We wore bright-orange vests, because this weekend is the first big weekend of deer season, and we could frequently hear the report of rifle shots in the valley to the east. The sight of snow – as much as an inch of heavy, wet snow in some areas – reminds me of how quickly winter is coming.

Hike stats:
Distance: 3.94km
Time: 1h12m
Map: see red route below. (The green route refers to my prior visit)

Five cascades

Five for five.

The month of October had five weekends and I visited a different set of cascades each weekend. Here are my favorite images from each; follow the link for a gallery of more photos.

Georgiana Falls (October 2)

Beaver Brook Cascades (October 10)

Beaver Brook Cascades, Appalachian Trail, Mount Moosilauke, NH.

Grant Brook Cascades (October 17)

Cascades and waterfalls along Grant Brook in Lyme, NH.

White Rocks (Bully Brook) (October 23)

Cascades on Bully Brook – White Rocks National Recreation Area – Vermont.

Dummerston Falls (October 31)

Bully Brook Cascades

Incredible foliage and a beautiful cascade – on the same hike!

This week it was time to follow the foliage south, as the season progresses. Lelia and I headed for White Rocks National Recreation Area, a USFS area in southern Vermont. I’d heard it was an impressive place; as we found, it is particularly beautiful in fall foliage. We walked through brilliantly yellow hardwood forests, and reached an overlook with a broad view across the many colors of the rolling hills in this area.

Fall foliage from the viewpoint in the White Rocks National Recreation Area – Vermont.

As the daylight faded and we neared the trailhead, the trail passed along Bully Brook… close to a series of impressive cascades. Here I was, the fourth weekend in a row, with an opportunity to capture waterfalls in foliage season!

Check out the full gallery for more, full-res photos.

Hike stats:
Distance: 6.6km
Time: 3h12 (with many photo stops)
Gain: 372m

Beaver Brook cascades

An incredible photographic journey.

After my visit to Georgiana Falls last week, I realized the tremendous photographic potential of this season. I determined to visit another appealing waterfall this weekend, and selected Beaver Brook cascades. This impressively long sequence of cascades is visible for nearly a kilometer along the Appalachian Trail as it ascends the north side of Mount Moosilauke, the trail often hugging the cascades so closely that the trail is cut into the New Hampshire granite and studded with wooden blocks to enable footing along the water-slickened rock. Read on for a glimpse of one cascade, and visit the gallery for the complete set of full-res photos!

Steep and slippery along the Beaver Brook Trail, Mount Moosilauke, NH.

Trail work

Community effort benefits community.

A longtime friend put out the call by email, earlier in the week. Saturday morning, bring your favorite hand tools, park in the big field behind the house. A dozen or more hardy souls turned up, wielding axes, loppers, pole saws, and more. The dogs played with a stick, chasing each other across the field and through the pond. The hardwoods were showing their true colors, on this warm but cloudy October morning.

We were here to brush a trail from the end of a gravel lane on the west side of Lyme, up through forests and former pastures and over century-old stone walls, to a pretty vista looking out into Vermont. This informal network of trails, criss-crossing low forest hills owned by a patchwork of landowners, is used by walkers, hikers, bikers, horse riders, hunters, skiers, and snowshoers – not to mention deer, coyote, and more. The trails are known only by word of mouth, a generous gift from the landowners to the community. Today, that grateful community turned out to return the favor.

After a round of introductions, with many explaining how their own land connects to this trail network, and how much they enjoy biking or skiing the trails year-round, we set off across the field and into the woods. It was mostly light work, clipping the saplings and brambles accumulated in recent years. The trail weaved its way up and down hillsides, in and out of hardwood and hemlock forests, as the conversation wove through stories of children growing up, grandchildren arriving, careers in transition, and news about neighbors in town. It was clear to me today as it was decades ago – the bonds made while doing physical labor alongside other people, building a community trail, build community bonds far beyond the trail itself.

Georgiana Falls

The place to be on a drizzly day.

Months ago I planned to do some hiking in Franconia Notch with an old friend. When the day arrived, however, it was gray and drizzly, with all the summits deeply ensconced in clouds. So we avoided the trails to the high peaks and chose instead to hike up to one of the area’s hidden gems, Georgiana Falls.

With the fall colors beginning to emerge, and the leaves damp from the rain, it was a great opportunity to experiment with waterfall photography. My favorites are in this gallery, full resolution.

Moose Mountain

Revisiting old friends.

It was another pleasant fall day, with moderate temperatures and intermittent sunshine. I took the opportunity to hike with an old friend, Lelia, and to visit another old friend – the Appalachian Trail on the north side of Moose Mountain.

I remember spending many chilly afternoons in the fall of 1982, scrambling through the Hanover forest with other eager first-year undergraduate students, clearing a new route for the Trail on the steep slopes of Moose Mountain. I learned to fell trees, build sidehill cribbing, and build rock steps from huge boulders using nothing but rock bars, strong arms, and the seemingly limitless enthusiasm of 18-year olds. We were pleased to those steps have held up after nearly 40 years and thousands of thru-hikers.

Hedgehog mountain

A new location for me.

Today was a beautiful fall day, with blue skies and a hint of oranges and reds scattered through the hardwood forests on the slopes of the White Mountains. I had a slow start to my morning but wanted to visit a new place, so I selected Hedgehog Mountain from the list of “52 with a view”. I’m surprised I’d never heard of it before, though it is located in the center of the Whites and is a close neighbor of some of the better-known four-thousand footers.