Mount Cube with a dusting of snow.
It has been a warm week, complete with rain, sleet, and drizzle. Bleah – much of the beautiful snow we had last week has compacted, and the frozen ponds and rivers are looking rather soft. Nonetheless I was eager to get out on the trail, so I headed for an old standby, Mount Cube. The sky was cloudy but I was rewarded with views both close and distant. Read on!
It has finally snowed – two or three good dumps of snow, over the past two weeks. Although it rained on the snow last week, it stayed cold all this week, so last week’s snow was compressed and hardened by the rain, and this week’s snow formed a wonderfully fluffy powder on top of that base. Today I had a chance to get out skiing, for the first time this season. A friend here in Lyme provides an incredible community service – he grooms several kilometers of trails for nordic skiing, classic style. These trails are a short drive from my house, and they wander through the farm fields and timber forests of central Lyme. I made a quick couple of loops in the lower fields this afternoon… just me and the breeze and a light falling snow. Deer tracks criss-crossed the field, and a barred owl soared silently over the meadow.
I hadn’t been out hiking for a month, so I was itching to get back out in the woods. It snowed (a lot!) last weekend, but this week’s rain compacted and froze most of that snow into a hardpack. Nonetheless, Tim and I headed out this morning for a quick hike. An overnight snow squall had dusted the forest with a fresh, thin layer of snow, which made for pretty scenery. We chose Sunday Mountain, a forested bump of about 1800′ elevation up in Orford, NH, along the Rivendell Trail.
The core part of hunting season ended in early December, and the Lyme forest settled in for a long winter. Or so one might think; the weather has been so warm, and largely snowless, that it hardly seems like winter yet. I left two cameras deployed – one at the trail over the summit, as it has been since late October, and the other in two locations, first at a trail intersection and later at a vernal pool. December’s video includes many captures of deer, as you might expect. Most exciting was a short clip of two coyotes trotting over the summit just before midnight, in early December, and a bear scampering past the summit on Christmas Day. (Isn’t he supposed to be asleep for the winter?)
It’s hard to pick just twelve.
I enjoyed photography in 2023 and decided to share my pick of favorites. It was not easy! 12 photos for 12 months – not one per month, but just the twelve that I felt were especially beautiful or interesting. See the full gallery – where I recommend clicking the “play” button to see them as a slideshow – and read on for some commentary about each one.
My wildlife cameras show a lot of activity in the forest during hunting season.
Snow fell overnight, just a little. It seemed like a fine way to mark the end of hunting season. I headed out in the early morning light, striding uphill through the woods, eager to check on my wildlife cameras. A month ago, just before hunting season, I placed the cameras in promising locations after obtaining permission from the landowner. Deer season – specifically, rifle season, when most hunters are out in the woods – ended last night. I dressed in bright orange clothing, just in case, and full of hope for what my own ‘hunt’ may have captured. Read on to find out!
A day for “inner views.”
It had been two weeks since I had a chance to get out hiking. The weather forecast was not promising – morning fog, clouds all day – but it’s always nice to get outside. I picked Black Mountain, a place I’ve been many times because it has a great view of Mount Moosilauke. Not today!
A beautiful late-fall day for a hike.
As I drove north in the early twilight, the few clouds slowly became tinged pink, then bright orange. I turned onto NH Route 25A and headed due east, the road ahead was illuminated in a brilliant orange display as the sun rose into the clouds. A broad smile spread on my face as I realized I had made the right choice; the forecast had indicated a slight chance of snow or (later) rain, but things were looking awfully darn good for an early-morning late-fall hike. Did it hold? read on.
Smarts Mountain – from the north and from the the south.
An obscure entrance to the Appalachian Trail offers quick access to the trail where it crosses Jacobs Brook, and climbs Eastman Ledges on its way up Mount Cube. It’s a short walk, perhaps a quarter mile along the brook and then a half mile up the A.T. to the ledges. I had not been along this section of trail since I backpacked this segment in 2012, and had not driven to this access point since before the turn of the century. I’d been eager to return, so today I visited at the end of fall foliage and the beginning of deer season. I got some great photos of the cascades along Jacobs Brook and had a nice view of Smarts Mountain.
Then I drove back to Lyme and hopped up to one of its favorite viewpoints to look back at the same mountain. Read on!
Continue reading “Viewpoints on Smarts Mountain”Winter is here?
At daybreak today we woke to our first proper snowfall – with an inch of fresh snow on the ground by 7am. We’d seen snow flurries once or twice in the past week, but now we can confidently say that fall has ended and we’re entering stick season. It appears raspberry season has ended, as well!
