First Good Snow

A two-inch snowfall last week was enough to get the roads salted, but for recreation, yesterday's 8" was much better. I brought my snowshoes to Horse Hill in Merrimack this afternoon. A number of my neighbors apparently got there earlier, though, and there was a well-beaten path that rendered snowshoes pointless. No problem. An hour's walk in boots was a good way to end my workday.

Yesterday's powder was followed by just enough rain to settle the fluff a bit. This afternoon, there was a light crust over the powder, and breaking trail up to Blodgett Hill was easy. Breezy, 30s, partly cloudy: very pleasant.

Veteran's Day in Rindge

I wanted to remind my 16-year-old son that Veteran's Day is more than just a day off from school, especially since his 26-year-old brother is over in Iraq with the US Army. We headed out to Cathedral of the Pines in Rindge, which has special ceremonies every November 11. (Why so far? Because my 16-year-old is working on getting his driver's license, and this road trip let him log 2 hours of supervised driving.)

From the Cathedral's web site: "The Cathedral of the Pines’ educational programs and public events honor service to the Nation by promoting peace, interfaith understanding, and respect for the natural environment." Symbols of the various branches of the military are displayed on the grounds, and there's a special memorial to women in the armed services. We spent time (not nearly enough) walking over this serene place.

The altar pictured above, dedicated to our nation's war dead, is made from stones gathered from every state in the Union. As you can see, Mt. Monadnock is just a few miles away. It's a fitting place to honor veterans from every era. Long drive for a short walk, and worth it.

A Short Stroll in New Boston

On my way home from Concord yesterday, I took the scenic route. Hooray for the Everett Turnpike, but Rt. 13 has all the charm. About 45 minutes and four historic markers after leaving Concord, I was in New Boston.

Just a couple of minutes by car from the town center is the Skofield Conservation area. Its little trail, the Briar Hill Loop, is as pleasant a workday walk as I've ever had. I didn't have much time to spare since I was already taking the long way home, but it took me less than half an hour to savor the trail. I'd have finished sooner if I hadn't brought my camera with me.

I owe thanks to the Piscataquog Watershed Association for listing this area in their wonderful guide book, which I found at Toadstool Bookshop in Milford. I never would have found the trail on my own.

Go pick some blueberries!

I headed to Temple Mountain on this sunny Sunday to enjoy a couple of hours along the Wapack. I packed a lunch, but I needn't have bothered: there were enough blueberries on the bushes to feed me & anyone else who might happen along. I stopped to eat at the Berry Pasture, with a fresh breeze in my face and Monadnock dominating the view to the west. Can't beat that.

Not that I'm encouraging anyone to bail out of work this week, but I highly recommend a berry-picking trip to a hill or mountain near you -- and soon.

Trail Expo in Milford, May 17

I raved about Charles Martin's recent book on rail trails. Mr. Martin will be speaking at a Trail Expo this Sunday, May 17, at the Hampshire Hills Sports & Fitness Center in Milford. Mr. Martin will be speaking at 1 p.m.; the whole event runs noon to 5 p.m. The Milford Conservation Commission is sponsoring this event, which sounds like a good way to gather information from a number of southern NH trail maintainers & agencies. For more information: http://conservation.milfordnh.info/

Blackflies 1, nhflatlander 0

I am nursing itchy welts from about 75 blackfly bites. Serves me right for wearing short sleeves last weekend out at Windblown x-c ski area, helping clear brush off the trails. Yes, I brought DEET, but it proved pitifully inadequate to the task. New Ipswich blackflies are tough ones. (I have since purchased a much stronger DEET formula. To heck with concerns over systemic toxins.)

The Jenks family, owners of Windblown, have put out the word that their trails are open to hikers, now that the ice storm's damage is somewhat cleared. Friends of the Wapack took care of the section of the Wapack trail that runs through Windblown, and the Jenks family did the heavy work on the rest of the property's trails. I spent some time each of the past two weekends with a crew doing cleanup by tossing cut brush off to the trailsides.

My boots got extremely muddy, I was nibbled to distraction by the blackflies, and I had a great time. Call it a slow hike uphill through the woods on Barrett Mountain, with some light weight work thrown in as I tossed brush: low weights, high reps. I'm sure that fits some kind of workout plan.

My thanks to the Jenks family for letting me help with this!

Recovery!

The ice storm four months ago has become a reference point for all my observations of southern NH trails this spring, and if you wonder why, one look around the Miller State Park parking lot at the base of Pack Monadnock will settle the question.

I can't begin to speculate on how many people it has taken to return trails around here to usable condition. The auto road, still gated to keep cars out, is clear all the way to the summit. The road sports a new edging of wood chips and sawdust from all the overhangs and broken limbs cleared from ice-damaged trees.

Here's what the low end of the road looked like last Saturday, at the base of the mountain where hardwoods predominate. The destruction must have been overwhelming to the first people who came by to check it out in December. The cleared road testifies to a lot of effort since then. Even so, I was stunned for a few minutes when I got out of my car and had my first look around.

I got there at of 8:15 in the morning The few other cars in the lot belonged to members of a trail-clearing party of Friends of the Wapack. The group's web site says that there will be a work party somewhere along the trail every weekend this season, and this must have been Pack Monadnock's turn. I heard a chainsaw being used in the woods off to my left as I descended from the summit later in the morning.

I decided to walk up the auto road, wondering just how blocked the Wapack and Marion Davis trails must be. I brought my camera in the hope of seeing some wildflowers growing low to the ground, but there has been way too much cleanup activity along the road to allow anything to sprout along the edges. I don't doubt that there are plenty of flowers farther from the road and along the trails. I did see lots of buds on trees and shrubs, reminders that the forest will recover as it always does after one of Nature's big events. One tree had lost its two main limbs and looked pretty sorry, but that didn't stop a bird from working on a good-sized nest in it.

The road's a mile & a quarter long, I think, and it rises 700 feet. Towards the top, where evergreens take over from the oaks & maples & birches, there is much less tree damage. The evergreens seem to have shrugged off the ice and bounced right back. The last few hundred yards of the road have blue blazes on nearby trees, and that made me wonder if the Marion Davis trail has been re-routed for a distance.

The summit, without the summer crowds, was a fine place to be. The view of Monadnock always pleases me, even on a hazy day. The cool morning was giving way to an 80+ degree afternoon, with a brisk breeze up on the landing of the fire tower. I later perched on a picnic table with my water bottle, looking over towards North Pack in its shades of green & grey. Close up, the woods show damage. From a distance, they look like they'll be around long after I'm gone, which of course is exactly the case.

On my last visit, in September, NH Audubon had volunteers at its raptor observatory near the summit, identifying birds in the fall migration. I was lucky enough to catch sight of a golden eagle that day, or so I was assured by one of the volunteers. Very different this weekend – not the migration season, and there wasn't so much as a turkey vulture soaring overhead. I settled for chickadees in the woods.

One Subaru – or more precisely, one Subaru's driver – drove around the closed gate to the auto road, surprising me on my way up. Aside from that, I had very little company: a half dozen dog walkers, one intrepid bicyclist, a runner (prepping for the race up Pack in late May?). I was therefore unprepared for the sight in the parking lot when I finally got back down a little past 11: more than 40 cars, with more coming in by the minute. That tells me that the Wapack Trail up the mountain is in fine shape, since all the people from those cars had to be somewhere, and they weren't on the auto road!

A Country Road and a Fine New Book

After an all-day hard rain yesterday that delayed the Red Sox opener and left my local trails even muddier than before, I decided to take my walk on a road this morning. After doing some business in Amherst, I parked on Chestnut Hill Road, in the little pull-off that connects to the Joe English Reservation's Highland Trail. One glance at the trail confirmed my guess that it was not a day for slogging through the woods in my sneakers. I headed up the road towards New Boston.

It's a treat to have an hour in the middle of a weekday to spend on a country road in early spring. Next to no traffic passed me. The trees haven't leafed out yet, so I got a good look at all the songbirds making music. Overcast was lifting, giving me a different view on the way back than I got on the way out of the Uncanoonucs in Goffstown and the hills out past Milford. Forsythia is about a week away from bloom, and daylily shoots are popping up all along the roadside.

Tree damage was obvious in the woods. I expect some of the houses & yards I passed needed quick action the week after the ice storm, but they look fine.

I gave a halfhearted effort at making this a workout, to compensate for my sluggish winter, but I abandoned that plan about five minutes into the walk. It was uphill, and that's workout enough. I turned around at the New Boston town line & enjoyed going downhill on my way back to the car. Not a bad way to spend an hour -- closer to 50 minutes, actually. I went back to the day's "serious" work in a good frame of mind.

To change the subject, I found a great new book while I was browsing the table from Bondcliff Bookstore (Littleton, NH) at the recent Made In NH Expo. New Hampshire Rail Trails (there's an easy title to remember) is by Charles F. Martin, and it's published by Branch Line Press in Pepperell, MA. It's going right on my shelf full of guidebooks, and will probably be in my backpack on several trips this year. He covers trails all over the state, offering the history of the various rail lines and the prospects for development of more trails. It's not an encyclopedia, but he manages to cover quite a bit in 300 pages, including maps and a long list of organizations supporting these trails. Development of some trails is proceeding so quickly that even some of Martin's 2008 information is outdated, but that's hardly bad news and Martin notes which trails are likely to see extension or upgrading in the near future.

I'm delighted with this book. I've already made note of a trail he describes up in Bethlehem. I have a racewalk in that pleasant town next weekend, and I'll head for the trail as soon as the race is over.

Help out Fish & Game this spring

NH Fish & Game is looking for volunteers this spring for its Reptile and Amphibian Reporting Program (RAARP). Walkers everywhere, check it out: http://www.wildnh.com/Wildlife/Nongame/reptiles_amphibians.htm

Spring in Mine Falls Park

I shared the Mine Falls trails this afternoon with dozens of other folks eager to enjoy spring's first weekend. No crowds yet. Conditions reflect transition: trails have some patches of very slick ice, the ball fields are just emerging from the snow, and the low trail along the river is muddy enough for me to wear boots. I didn't care, and neither did the runners and dog-walkers out there with me. There was tree damage over the winter, but the mess is all off the trails.

No Porta-Johns out yet. Be patient.

I should have brought binoculars and an Audubon guide book. With no bugs out yet, it would have been a fine day to pick a spot in the woods and just sit for awhile to spot the birds. On my walk today, I saw swans in the cove where I usually see herons. The blackbirds were making noise down at the culvert near the millyard. Mallards were poking along the canal shore along an ice-free stretch. A woodpecker -- smallish; not sure what variety -- was busy near the newest bridge. Of course, I saw robins. One of them seemed to be posing for a delighted three-year-old near the ball fields.

road & trail work

I am overdue in giving thanks to all the people who were busy this winter cleaning up roads and trails after the ice storm. I've done very little trail maintenance myself, and anything I can do locally that doesn't require bushwhacking is thanks to someone else's efforts. To all of you, and you know who you are, thank you.

It's good to read on the state park web site that Monadnock SP's trails are slowly opening back up to authorized use after storm cleanup. I hope the new campground at Gilson Pond wasn't completely trashed! I'd been looking forward to staying there this summer, its first scheduled season.

Here in Merrimack, Horse Hill is in good shape, and it pleases me that it's been getting so much use. I'm glad the town acquired the land when it did. In the current economy, I don't think a land acquisition of that size would pass.

I drove down Rt. 31 from Wilton to Greenville the other day and was shocked at all the downed trees along the roadside. I thought the crews in my town had a big job after the ice storm. We actually had it easy. I remember driving through Dunbarton in January and seeing how bad the tree damage was. That's what Rt. 31 looked like last weekend -- two months later. It's spring now, the snow is receding, and I'm sure there will be enough work to last all summer for anyone who knows how to wield a chain saw.

I see that the Friends of the Wapack are planning their annual end-to-end hike for next month instead of the fall. I wonder how much of the day will be spent flagging spots for future work.

Mud season will actually be an interesting time this spring, as I discover how more of my favorite trails fared over the winter. I'm half inclined to carry a small folding saw in my backpack for the spring hikes. I suppose the more sensible approach would be to note any difficult spots and then bring them to the attention of the land managers, who probably have trail crews who actually know what they're doing. I probably shouldn't go out armed with only a saw and good intentions.

New year, and I'm back outside

The P'Nut Chip 5k in Temple this morning was the perfect way for me to put months of inactivity behind me. Several things falling under the category of "medical issues" turned me into a slug, and I and my plantar fasciitis are ready to hit the roads and trails again to make up for lost time.

Our whole region endured a severe ice storm a few weeks ago, and I'm sure I'll be seeing the aftermath for months to come. I was heartened by the look of Temple today; that town took an even harder hit than my own. Broken branches lined the roadsides today, but no roads were blocked by fallen trees. I must have seen half a dozen utility trucks (and on a federal holiday, too) making their way through town. A road race couldn't have been very high on the priority list for town officials & residents as they cleaned up the mess from the storm, but everything today went smoothly.

Walking the course before the race began was a real pleasure. I haven't been outside much over the past few weeks as that whole "slug" thing took over. Clearly, I've been wasting time. As cold as the weather was today (11 degrees at the start of the race), I had the right clothing, so there was no problem on that score. My regular walking shoes handled the packed snow just fine -- no boots for me when I'm timing myself on a course. And never mind what my time was. Think "slow", which was all the better for enjoying the sunshine and the rural roads along with all those cheerful, energetic people who were much faster than I.

I'm not forgetting that the trails around here, unlike the roads, are still a mess. I needed today's outing to restore my optimism for the pace of recovery from the ice storm. Monadnock State Park is still closed. The Friends of the Wapack have posted a message on the group's web site warning against hiking the trail for the time being, since the tree damage has rendered the trail "very hard" to follow. My favorite cross-country ski area, Windblown in New Ipswich, was shut down by the storm, and the owners are doing heroic work to arrange for the extensive logging and cleanup necessary to restore at least a few kilometers to skiable (and hikable) condition.

Today proved, as if any proof were needed, that things are looking up.