Northeast Mountains and Lakes

  Summer has come and gone, and as usual it was spent doing lots of great stuff.  I'm lucky to have two full months off, Gail took off the last three weeks of August that allowed us to take a trip to the mountains and lakes of NY, VT and NH.
  Our first stop was in Piseco to see her brother, Geoff, and his family, Kristi and her parents, Chips and Ann, and our nephews, Harper and Dusty.  We hadn't been able to do that in a few years.  The boys are growing fast and it was wonderful to spend a few days with them.  They are really into birding and it was amazing to see how much they've learned about the world around them.

  Speaking of birds, the bald eagles have nested on the island of Piseco Lake again.  The adults aren't around much this time of year but the juvenile hangs out and cries for food all day.

  Gail had a nice sunrise swim around the island, I went along in one of the canoes.

  I also got a chance for a solo hike up Pillsbury Mountain and another fire tower.  It was near Snowy Mountain which Gail, Geoff and Kristu and I hiked together a few years back.  That's Snowy in the distance, I had to mess with the color to make it more distinct.

Northeast Mountains and Lakes

  Much of what we do these days revolves around Gail's love of swimming, and why shouldn't it?  When she mentioned a series of swims in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom and her desire to participate in one, I was on board as her support kayaker. Of the eight swims, she chose a three-mile event in Caspian Lake.  It was a beautiful day with little wind and lots of sun.  The swimmers went to a rock in the lake and had to touch it before swimming back to the start, many climbed out and jumped in.  The kayakers just cruised along enjoying the day, some with a dog on the bow.

  The day before her swim, by a lucky coincidence, Gail was a support kayaker for a friend, Mary, during her five-mile swim of Lake Willoughby.  Willoughby is flanked on each side by Mt. Pisgah and Hor, with dramatic 1000' cliffs dropping to the lake.  I planned to hike each of them while the ladies were in and on the water.  I did in fact hike, but once I'd climbed a few hundred feet I was completely socked in by clouds and had no views of the lake or cliffs.  This ended up being OK as I decided to hike a different trail north back down to Willoughby and maybe time it so I'd see Gail and her friend going by.  Worked like a charm, and the trail was one of my favorites of the entire trip.

  Another nice lake swim took place in Crystal Lake, just the two of us and perfect conditions again.

  Gail bought an underwater camera, it captured some cool shots like this one in Crystal Lake.

  I got into the swimming act on many occasions, but more to cool off and not for any kind of exercise.  The top photo is from the last day of the trip when we went out on Lake George in the Adirondacks with our friends, Glenn and Mary Ann, on their boat and docked on Sara Island for the morning.  A daily feature of our stay in Peacham was a swim in the pond.  Only in New Hampshire did we not have access to good swimming, but there was a brook that we got in to cool off and rinse off when needed. 

Northeast Mountains and Lakes

  Once we left NY behind we headed for Vermont to stay in a lovely old farmhouse an Ithaca friend lived in and still owns.  It was the kind of place that makes one wish to be with a dozen friends, and we did invite some, but they couldn't make it so we had to stick it out alone.  We survived.

  The first full day there we did our only hike of the trip that involved raincoats.  Near the house was Spruce Mountain with a fire tower on top.  It gave us nice views of the surrounding mountains in the Groton State Forest.  On the way back to the house we passed the Martin Covered Bridge, a rarity in VT in that it was constructed by a private farmer.  This made it unique in several ways, most notably by the height of the opening which was greater than most because they used it to bring wagons piled high with hay from the fields to their barns.  Also unique is that it survived the flood of 1927 that washed away some 1200 bridges.

  Lake Willoughby is a bit to the north of Peacham.  We got a fantastic view of it and the cliffs of Pisgah Mountain from Wheeler Mountain.  Near the end of my hike while Gail kayaked I got a closer look at the same cliffs from Mount Hor.
  The closest body of water to the house we stayed at is Joe's Pond, but we neither swam nor kayaked in/on it.  Next time.
 

Northeast Mountains and Lakes

  Our last activity in Vermont was a trip to Bread and Puppet.  Gail had been there in the 90's, I'd only heard about it and seen its influence at various events over the years.  I didn't know they still do performances, but every Sunday afternoon in the summer the show goes on.  We got there pretty early to explore the museum in the barn and catch a little of the guided tour before the show.

  They still take on the injustices of the world, something they've been doing since the 60's.  This show featured acts on immigration and family separations, as well as releasing tigers on a Supreme Court that erodes women's rights.

  In the woods where there used to be sideshows there is now a collection of memorials for deceased members.  One of the founders was a Jewish immigrant who had been separated from his parents in Europe by the Nazis.  I wonder how many similar letters are being written today?

Northeast Mountains and Lakes

  When we got to NH we stayed at a lodge owned by other Ithaca friends who also generously offered its use to us.  A boys camp built at the base of Mount Waumbek in 1947-8, their family bought it in 1969.  We slept in a remaining cabin but did all our "living" in the lodge, mostly on the porch.  When they bought it the trees hadn't grown up around it and there were clear views of the Presidentials.  Today only Cherry Mountain, due south and some peaks of 4000' mountains beyond are visible.  I climbed the white pine over the cabin to check out the view.  Gail was taken by the Royal Couple dishtowels.

  The view of Cherry Mountain from the porch.  Hard to stop looking, but we tore ourselves away occasionally when the mountains called. The first day there we climbed Owl's Head Mountain, one of the peaks on Cherry, Martha is the other.  We didn't realize we'd be staring at it for the better part of a week.  Owl's Head is the rounded bump in the second picture highlighted by the cloud behind it.  Far in the distance are the summits of North and South Twin which we would hike at the end of the week.

  I made a point of getting up at first light each day to go out on Moose Watch.  Never saw one, but there was a turkey in the tree above the cabin one morning, and the sunrises were top notch each day.  We saw a bear as we drove away the last morning.

  I don't know how often the Presidentials are in the clear, but I bet seeing them five out of six mornings of a visit is rare.  I hesitated before trespassing during my walks to get some of these views, but I couldn't resist.

  Some of the sunsets weren't bad either.  I think this is the picture I took when I climbed the tree, but there was a similar view from a spot on the road.  That's Madison on the left and Adams is the pointy peak on the right, more about them in a post below.

  Near the lodge is Pondicherry Wildlife Refuge where we walked on the rail trail one morning.  The views were great, though we didn't see much wildlife.  The top photo is of Starr King and Waumbek Mountains so the lodge would be near the bottom, obscured by the trees.  The bottom picture is of Gail and me, same mountains in the back.





 

Norhteast Mountains and Lakes

  There's no end to the variety of trails or hues that adorn them.

  Most descriptions in the guidebooks we used were spot on, that wasn't always the case with signs.  It's a little sad to see how much work has gone into preventing erosion but then people still take the "easy" way and walk to the side of rocks instead of on them, so stepping stones that were carefully embedded deep in the ground end up sticking out like sore thumbs.

  Gail and I did our part in correcting that by placing a few during a hike up Starr King and Waumbek.  No need to take our backpacks off, it only took a few minutes.

  The real trail crew.  They spent the whole summer working on this one trail, and the improvements were greatly appreciated.  They'd put in about a dozen water bars that doubled as steps and cut as many blowdowns that blocked the trail.  We offered them a dry kitchen to prepare dinner that night as heavy rain was forecast, but they informed us it was their last day and would be packing out.  Glad we got the chance to thank them and see the set-up of a high line, a cable to use as a zip line for transporting boulders from the woods to use on the trail.  I was doubly fortunate to run into a few of them on the trail the next day and chat some more.

  Some stairs on Mt. Adams.  Some of these remain from the trail building heyday in the late 1800's.

  A part of the Gulfside Trail that goes six miles from Mt. Washington to Madison Hut by skipping the peaks along the way, constructed in the 1890's by J. Raynor Edmands and his "imported" labor as it said on a poster in the Madison Hut.  They used to drive carriages over this path.  Truly a work of art.