Adventure blog with a real job
Heavy rain over the past couple of days inspired me to make the most of the drier but colder day of the weekend. Rain on Spring trails makes mud, and when you add hikers to that mix you end up with accelerated trail erosion, so I decided to keep to the old logging road that doubles as a winter cross country ski highway and a 3-season hiking trail.
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I’ll get this out of the way upfront: I’m not a big fan of snowshoes. They’re awkward to wear, cumbersome to carry, and my natural gait places one foot in front of the other, so the side by side snowshoe waddle feels particularly awkward and trip-prone. Nonetheless, I set out with my snowshoes for a hike up Smart’s Brook, and was glad to have them!
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It doesn’t take an epic hike to visit outdoor splendors. On recent cold, clear days I’ve taken some shorter walks to replenish my vitamin D, get some fresh air, and admire the woods and waters.
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The Covid-19 pandemic has upended a lot of cherished traditions in 2020, but I’m happy to report that this year I was able to keep my longstanding tradition of not participating in Black Friday shopping. Taking a page from REI, I spent the day after Thanksgiving on a hike up and back down Sabbaday Brook trail.
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The leaves have fallen, the days are short, and frost on the ridge lines is keeping casual hikers at home. I’ll refrain from the quip about cold shoulders, because temperatures have been wild this year.
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After a few cold nights and a prolonged dry spell, fall foliage has arrived seemingly overnight. Even as I write this, enterprising neighborhood children are selling cider and doughnuts from a roadside stand. I have a hazy, juicy IPA in one hand and a new pair of hiking boots on my feet. This is Peak New England, right now.
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The history of the White Mountain National Forest is intimately linked with the logging industry that dominated the region from the mid nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It’s easy to spot the legacy of the logging companies in railroad grades and road cuts that cross the forest, and in the artifacts left behind in the woods. Knowing that most of the forest I see is second or third growth, I always wonder what the mature, old growth forest would look like. This weekend’s mission was to find out.
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I’ve written before about my love of ridgeline hikes, so it should come as no surprise that I love Franconia Ridge trail. Unfortunately this is a trail in danger of being loved to death. It’s one of the more spectacular sections of the AT, part of the increasingly popular pemi loop, and frequently featured on lists of the best hiking trails in the state/nation/world. In good weather and on weekends I avoid it, because the last thing I want when I venture into the mountains is to join a conga line of other hikers, but on a weekday with clouds flowing through Franconia notch, I took my chance.
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While my favorite trail feature is a ridge line with dramatic valleys to either side, open ledges or exposed slab come in a close second. My beloved Welch-Dickey loop crosses two summits with spectacular views, but what makes it special to me is that so much of the hike is over bare granite slabs- where I can geek out over the exposed geology of the mountain.
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This weekend found me backpacking in the Carter-Moriah range in the northern part of the White Mountain National Forest, following the Appalachian Trail most of the way.
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