Alpine Garden

June 7, 2008

Clear at the bottom 50' visibility on top (if that). Mt. Washington--holy smoke! How can you not take great photos here? The drive up the auto road was hairy to say the least. The visibility was nearly 0' even before the fog lines start on the roadway. I was very happy to see the fog lines! Unfortunately, we couldn't see the parking lot for the Alpine Garden on the way up. We got to the top before we figured that out :-)

With the visibility so bad, we actually decided to take a nap in the car at the top waiting for the cloud cover to burn off. Wishful thinking! After an hour we (literally) felt our way to the summit building. Call me paranoid, but I actually got out the GPS and set a waypoint at the car. We literally waled twenty feet and saw nothing in any direction. Pretty scary.

After a brief stay at the top and visiting the museum we headed back down to cut our losses...but not before getting a snap of Muh:

Surprise! We could see the Alpine Garden lot on the way down and quickly turned in and headed down the trail.

Cairns leading up Nelson Crag:

Red-tipped goblet lichen:

Muh checking out the view of Wildcat and its Carter neighbors:

Diapensia aplenty:

Alpine Azalea:

Bearberry Willow:

Deer's-hair Sedge:

Lapland Rosebay:

Adams and Madison with the Auto Road in the foreground:

Wonalancet Range Trail

May 17, 2008

What a downer. Sometimes you're just not into it. The Porta-Potty at the trail head might have been the highlight. It just started off wrong. We're not keen on hiking sideways which is how Wonalancet Range Trail starts off. We turned around just before Short Cut and called it a day. 113A looked a lot different than the last time we were here during/after a foot of snow a couple of months ago! No more 8-10 foot snowbanks...though there still were snowbanks in some shaded areas.









A very cool fungus.



A lone painted trillium.

Lows Bald Spot

May 10, 2008

Oh what a glorious hike this was. My favorite hike...ever. We left the AMC's Joe Dodge Lodge amidst a large flock of spring skiers. It must be nice to be that young. We saw a teenager taking off on his hike up Tuckerman Ravine in jeans. Yikes.

I was afraid that Old Jackson Road would end up being some wide carriage path. Bzzt. I pity the poor folks who used this for a road--if they ever did. Steep. Strewn with large rocks. Beautiful.

Muh's checking out one of many nice cascades and the first load of moose droppings we saw. Once we crossed the auto road onto the Madison Gulf Trail we saw a pile every 5 feet. For us, it was remarkable. (It took a lot of coaxing to get Muh that close! :-)



Muh's usually a good navigator but she was going to go straight here. Another mile or so and we hit a couple hundred yards of snow by the bog bridges...on May 10.



The scramble on Madison Gulf was well-rewarded--as was the decision to continue the final 100 "blind" yards from the "faux" bald spot tot he real McCoy.

Muh-N-Duh enjoying the spectacular view toward Gorham.




360 degree views:
Chocorua



Wildcat



Huntington Ravine



Adams and Madison



Adams made a great backdrop:





A mother and her daughters drove up the Auto Road to the small parking lot where Old Jackson Road intersects and made the 5 minute hike to Lows Bald Spot. Maybe the biggest payoff for a 5 minute hike in US. One of the daughters was kind enough to memorialize our trip with a rare shot of Muh-N-Duh together.



The flowers were just barely starting to poke out. (Trout Lily)

Mt. Major Fire

May 3, 2008

Last week was the big fire on the Boulder Loop Trail. All I can say is, Wow. Something like 30 acres. Honestly, it looked like more.

As with anyone who sees it, this photo will be the lasting image. The fire on the summit left the trail itself alone.



It was so hot that the chunk of rock at the base of this boulder popped right out of the middle.



The downtrail terminus of the damage.















I hope this wasn't the start of something big...



Life on Mt. Major! We saw this guy (or his brother) on our last trip to Mt. Major.

East Rattlesnake Mt.

April 19, 2008

Not wanting to balance on a monorail further north we headed back to Squam Lake. The East Rattlesnake Trail was dry with just a bit of snow still on the summit. The Col Trail was very wet on the descent. We were surprised to see the extent of ice cover on the lake. Traveling by the beach heading back to town we saw kids in bathing suits on the sand as it was quite warm out. Quite a sight.



The girl of a 1000 faces...



Alone Mayflower peeking through.



The wet Col Trail.



Unidentified droppings...



Patients need healing on the trail, too.



The last bit of ice in a shaded area.



Just a bit of snow on the summit.

Piper Mt

April 5, 2008

Ooo, if there ever was an area that needs a new map like the Wonolancet map...this is it. There appears to be an abundance of trails in the area. Unfortunately, it appears that the only place you can pick up area trail maps is the Gilford, NH Library. The Library staff was very attentive when I went in...not for the lack of patrons either as the place was loaded. There are about a dozen maps of the area available. It would be great to get them pieced together on tyvek. All available maps are on paper.

The original plan was to do Belknap Mt. The access road was still closed so we opted to do Piper Mt. instead. Not a real thriller for the last snow romp of the year.

Muh shedding a layer..



Not a bad view from the top.



The best part of the day was discovering a plastic Easter Egg on the trail!