"if you don't like the weather in new england now...

just wait a few minutes." so spoke mark twain, or samuel clemens if you prefer, and as true now as it was back then. i have been riding to the grade school this week and last. while i am pretty bundled up to get there by 9:00, i have been coming home at 3:00-ish with no hat or gloves. a couple of trips last week, even my jacket was too warm and once the legs got working hard, it was practically shorts weather.



jacket, hat, and gloves were welcome up on the top of cardigan for the moonrise-sunset hike yesterday. the temperature was low twenties and the wind was fairly stiff between 10 and 20mph. i noticed that every one of the windmills over toward plymouth were spinning. that seems rare. moc goes up every month give or take one day around the full moon. most of the winter i am the only one who shows, but tonight five students, one mother, two boisterous and energetic black labs, and sawyer--an alum--made the trek.






my ski buddy skip and his best friend (and wife) linda were coming down as we went up. we passed just above lunch rock. they had watched the moon rise and were heading down before the sun actually set, considering the huge cloud bank to the west, that would not take too long. we continued on and took some pictures, measured the wind speed, and hung out a bit before following.

it struck soy and i that cardigan mountain is about as wonderful a mtn to have in your back yard as could be. the top few hundred feet are above tree line--a fire scorched the top back in 1855--allowing for a 360 view to write home about. at least that is the case when it is not in the clouds and snowing or raining. while it can look and feel like the sub-alpine zone up in the whites, it has very few of the typical species in a krummholz. true or not, you get a big bang for you buck when you summit. having spent a good amount of time on summits both in the whites and on cardigan, conditions can be remarkably similar. while i have never measured winds higher than 50-60mph up top cardigan, speeds that high on a 'little mtn.' can play big.

speaking of playing big, or maybe i should say wet, the two labs had a heck of a hike, hitting every puddle--iced or melted--and stream within a hundred yards of the trail. sliding and splashing around like otters, they entertained each other as well as us--both up and down.