Lyme – David Kotz

Hiking 52 weekends

Every weekend for a year.

Today marks the 52nd consecutive weekend I’ve been out hiking.

I never set out to hike every weekend for an entire year. It was perhaps mid-November when I noticed I had been out for a hike every weekend (and sometimes more) since mid-September, so I decided to keep it up. The resulting quest has been a remarkable forcing function – sometimes pushing me to get outdoors even when I felt too busy or too tired to identify, organize, and execute on a plan. In retrospect, it was always worth the effort. Always.

The trail on Anchor Island was muddy, slippery, and challenging; Dusky Sound, New Zealand.

Lyme hills

Two hikes today.

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.

Early morning fog between the Lyme Pinnacle and Smarts Mountain.

Lyme wildlife – August

My cameras are back in action!

After deploying my five wildlife cameras into a nearby forest, three weeks ago, I went back yesterday to check the cameras and collect the memory cards. Several cameras were askew, hinting that some critters were trying to interfere – and capturing a selfie in the process. You’ll see several of those in this month’s videos! You’ll see bears – lots of bears – deer, coyote, and a new animal I’ve never seen before. Up first: a doe and her fawn. Warning: don’t watch this video unless you can handle massive cuteness!

Clay Brook Trail

A walk in the Lyme Town Forest.

Our little town of Lyme has several beautiful natural areas, many of them conserved and open to the public. The Lyme Town Forest spans a range of forest types and stretches from the Connecticut River up and over some rolling hills in the northwest corner of town. Today I took a walk on some of those trails – far more difficult than I expected – in search of a waterfall.

The ‘waterfall’ is not much to look at, in August. Just a trickle!

Unfortunately, this trail – the Clay Brook Trail – is severely overgrown, its treadway underused and covered with forest litter, and its painted blazes fading. So I spent much of my time pausing, backtracking, and searching for the route. At times it felt more like bushwhacking than hiking. But it was nonetheless a pretty day in a pretty forest. See the photo gallery!

Hike stats: 49th consecutive weekend hike!
Distance: 4.0 miles (6.4km)
Gain: 826 feet (252m)
Time: 1h54m
GaiaGPS track

Familiar terrain

Back to my home stomping grounds.

My calves strained as I hiked up the steep, forested hillside, following a familiar route that has no trail and rarely feels the pressure of human soles. Except mine. For this weekend’s hike I decided to stay close to home and visit a patch of forest that I know very, very well. I have traversed this hillside dozens, nay, hundreds of times, following my whim instead of any formal trails. My senses perk up as I move slowly through the underbrush, looking and listening and sometimes even feeling for animal sign, trying to read the land and determine where I might place my motion-sensor cameras to capture interesting videos of the local wildlife.

Sale, Prestbury, and Lyme Park

A visit to my birthplace.

Fun fact: a bit more than six decades ago, I was born in England. I departed for the United States only three months later… so I have no memory of my birth country. Thus, the opportunity to spend a year living in London, and exploring England, has been especially meaningful. This week we took a roadtrip to the Manchester area to find my birthplace and to visit some of my parents’ friends.

My birthplace (then a maternity hospital) – Sale, Cheshire, England.

2025 Favorites

Favorite photos and videos.

Wow, 2025 was quite the year. With a dozen or more hikes in New Hampshire, and travels to Australia, England, Greenland, Iceland, New Zealand, Colorado, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and South Carolina, I had many opportunities for photography. Check out some of my favorite photos!

Sunrise view from Fryingpan Firetower, in the Blue Ridge of NC.

Lyme wildlife – July (part 2)

The second installment in a two-part post of July/August wildlife videos.

Over the past two years, most of my wildlife videos have been captured by cameras placed on a hill near my home. In this post – my final post of wildlife-camera video until next year – I have some pretty neat stuff to share. Lots of bobcats and black bears! Read on to watch both videos.

bear cub crossing a log right in front of the camera…

Lyme wildlife – July (part 1)

The first of two installments of video from my wildlife cameras.

It felt like we had a slow start to summer here in Lyme, but my wildlife cameras nonetheless captured bears, bobcats, and more. In this post, I’ll share two videos spanning July 1 through August 5.

A yellow carpet

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!