with pam and MOC! i have been home nearly a month now and have enjoyed getting to see the end of peek foliage...
a week of teaching physics and chemistry for my dear friend ann--despite a cold...
and a couple other weeks of the usual tech support work: plugging in computers; blowing dust out of cpu's; resetting memory sticks; futzing with smart boards--including plugging them in; giving students email addresses; reconnecting chromebooks to wifi--basically plugging them in; all sorts of various and sundry low-tech tasks.
thank goodness for 'mountains'--it is harder to use that term after spending time out west. the sunday after 'that tuesday' pam and i were both hike ready. given a scheduled MOC event, we stayed local. we went over to wolfboro road and hiked up the back way to the AT between the north and south peaks of moose mountain. it was a lovely mild day with plenty of sun and no wind to speak of. about half a mile from where we parked, a tractor of some sort had come over from the hanover side and scraped, making a bit of a mess. i had not been up on wolfboro in ages--the last time was on skis over feet of snow. this grading was fresh, maybe just done, pushing aside a foot of leaves. it had been such a dry summer, maybe they thought they could avoid the usual mud. turned out, even in very dry weather, wet trails don't ever drain completely.
while i was dreaming of a deep snow smoothing it all out, i sunk--a wee bit over my crocs--into a mud pit, hidden by a deep layer of leaves. at the height of land, we crossed the AT and turned off headed for the south peak. the trail was leafy but not 'graded' so there was no mud or loose rocks. i don't think pam had ever been up there so she was quite pleased with that section. we stopped at the top for pictures and lunch.
from our lunch rocks, there was a good view to the south beyond the high school and mud pond and to the east past goose pond and cardigan. if you knew where to look, you could just make out our upper field over on west side of town hill.
when we came back down we crossed right over the road going toward the north peak. pam wanted to see the shelter about a quarter mile up. the view from there was not nearly as grand, more what they call 'local!' the shelter though is sturdy and i started dreaming of snow again, thinking about coming up in a storm, laying in while it built up, then skiing out in trackless powder.
back down to the road i pointed out a few spots where i remembered skiing and even biking once. we avoided the mud hole and had a very pleasant descent especially when the trail paralleled closely the brook draining the area we just hiked through. new england may not have the mountains the west has, but the woods here are places of wonder. and a late fall day was a perfect time to take a hike.
a late-fall evening, with a super moon rising at about the same time the sun is setting would be just as perfect. i have been trying to do a hike--once a month--for a good number of years now to get above treeline and catch the moon and sun doing their thing. it started when i took some folks i was teaching with at sead up cardigan, aptly dubbed the moonrise-sunset hike. when mascoma started that year, i kept promoting the hikes with MOC and it got somewhat popular--depending on the weather.
the weather was still really fine and though there was some wind coming up, it was dead clear. i got up to the cardigan parking lot where a couple of students were waiting. before we started hiking, three more showed up. not the biggest crowd, but they were enthusiastic.
and they hiked quite fast. we made it to the top in about 30 minutes--young legs. that gave us a bit of wait time, but it was so beautiful out, nobody complained. there were a couple of other groups up there and two MOC parents showed up just as the super moon crept above the horizon. it was indeed super and doubly rare to see it directly at the horizon.
after snapping a picture of the crew with the moon, we moved over to the west side and got a shot of the sun sinking into the green mountains.
as we gathered our packs to head down, one hiker from another group announced, "i'm freezing! i was not prepared for this." i was glad our group had the equipment needed to stay warm. we made it back to the parking lot just about as it got dark enough to warrant a head lamp.
in the words of wallace and gromit,
it was a grand day out!
or as MOC says,
go outside and play!
a week of teaching physics and chemistry for my dear friend ann--despite a cold...
and a couple other weeks of the usual tech support work: plugging in computers; blowing dust out of cpu's; resetting memory sticks; futzing with smart boards--including plugging them in; giving students email addresses; reconnecting chromebooks to wifi--basically plugging them in; all sorts of various and sundry low-tech tasks.
thank goodness for 'mountains'--it is harder to use that term after spending time out west. the sunday after 'that tuesday' pam and i were both hike ready. given a scheduled MOC event, we stayed local. we went over to wolfboro road and hiked up the back way to the AT between the north and south peaks of moose mountain. it was a lovely mild day with plenty of sun and no wind to speak of. about half a mile from where we parked, a tractor of some sort had come over from the hanover side and scraped, making a bit of a mess. i had not been up on wolfboro in ages--the last time was on skis over feet of snow. this grading was fresh, maybe just done, pushing aside a foot of leaves. it had been such a dry summer, maybe they thought they could avoid the usual mud. turned out, even in very dry weather, wet trails don't ever drain completely.
while i was dreaming of a deep snow smoothing it all out, i sunk--a wee bit over my crocs--into a mud pit, hidden by a deep layer of leaves. at the height of land, we crossed the AT and turned off headed for the south peak. the trail was leafy but not 'graded' so there was no mud or loose rocks. i don't think pam had ever been up there so she was quite pleased with that section. we stopped at the top for pictures and lunch.
from our lunch rocks, there was a good view to the south beyond the high school and mud pond and to the east past goose pond and cardigan. if you knew where to look, you could just make out our upper field over on west side of town hill.
when we came back down we crossed right over the road going toward the north peak. pam wanted to see the shelter about a quarter mile up. the view from there was not nearly as grand, more what they call 'local!' the shelter though is sturdy and i started dreaming of snow again, thinking about coming up in a storm, laying in while it built up, then skiing out in trackless powder.
back down to the road i pointed out a few spots where i remembered skiing and even biking once. we avoided the mud hole and had a very pleasant descent especially when the trail paralleled closely the brook draining the area we just hiked through. new england may not have the mountains the west has, but the woods here are places of wonder. and a late fall day was a perfect time to take a hike.
a late-fall evening, with a super moon rising at about the same time the sun is setting would be just as perfect. i have been trying to do a hike--once a month--for a good number of years now to get above treeline and catch the moon and sun doing their thing. it started when i took some folks i was teaching with at sead up cardigan, aptly dubbed the moonrise-sunset hike. when mascoma started that year, i kept promoting the hikes with MOC and it got somewhat popular--depending on the weather.
the weather was still really fine and though there was some wind coming up, it was dead clear. i got up to the cardigan parking lot where a couple of students were waiting. before we started hiking, three more showed up. not the biggest crowd, but they were enthusiastic.
and they hiked quite fast. we made it to the top in about 30 minutes--young legs. that gave us a bit of wait time, but it was so beautiful out, nobody complained. there were a couple of other groups up there and two MOC parents showed up just as the super moon crept above the horizon. it was indeed super and doubly rare to see it directly at the horizon.
after snapping a picture of the crew with the moon, we moved over to the west side and got a shot of the sun sinking into the green mountains.
as we gathered our packs to head down, one hiker from another group announced, "i'm freezing! i was not prepared for this." i was glad our group had the equipment needed to stay warm. we made it back to the parking lot just about as it got dark enough to warrant a head lamp.
in the words of wallace and gromit,
it was a grand day out!
or as MOC says,
go outside and play!
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