Platt Road Promenade

Happy New Year!  Eleven of us with 4 dogs, walked on Platt Rd which was very icy.  One of us
fell down and several had close calls so we turned around and ended up walking on Thrasher Rd which was well cleared.  I call it a promenade since this road has many Cornish colony homes which were built in the late 1800s, early 1900s and are very large and remind me of places where people stroll.

The weather was mighty cold, it was 3 degrees when we started out and only 10 a little over an hour later. Only one of us wore yak traks, what were the rest of us thinking?

Well we ended the year as a hardy bunch and a larger group, it may be more common to have 15 of us on a walk.

No cameras. Seven of us went out for coffee after to warm up and enjoy each others company. That is the brief report to end the year.  More snow coming so snowshoeing again next week

Whitaker Walk

This Thursday we walked from the town garage, down Penniman Road and then up Whitaker Rd, the big hill and on to its end at RT 120.  We go by a former dairy farm  and on the way back see views of Killington and Pica Peaks.  However it was snowing so no views to share.  There were 7 of us walking the day after Christmas and three dogs.  Poor Jake, a black lab, had walked earlier and he was quite lame but he is a brave soul!  We probably walked a little less than 4 miles total as we retraced our steps once we arrived at Rt 120.

I'm adding 2 photos of us, one of Cathy catching up as she was a bit late for the prompt walkers and one of the group bundled up in the snow.

Snowshoe Shuffle

An exciting time this week.  We received 12 inches of nice powdery snow so we set out on snowshoes and made great trails for others to use since the leaders were breaking  the trail.  There were 13 of us and 3 dogs. We walked  at Hawkride Farm on Jenney Rd in Meriden which has beautiful views.  I need to go back and take a few photos to post as I didn't have a camera with me and neither did anyone else.

After very low temperatures on Tuesday of -17 we had warmer weather. It was about 10 degrees at 9:30 and it was very sunny so we warmed up fast.  We need to come back in the Spring to see the wildflowers and birds. But the views are at their best this time of year.

We snowshoed for an hour, then  warmed up in Myra's kitchen with a wood stove and great coffee or tea.

What a way to celebrate the holiday season!  Now it is raining so back to roads until we get more snow.

Cookie Swap Season

Today there were 15 of us I think and no dogs.  Twelve of us walked the Moulton Trail from High Street to the Meriden Bird Sanctuary and back.  It is a nice up and down woods trail and though it was sunny it was also cold!  We walked about 1 hour and fifteen minutes.

Then we went to Penny's house on High Street for coffee, tea and lots of choices of cookies that we all brought and mostly baked ourselves.

We are walking throughout the Christmas season but not on Wednesdays.

No photos today.  No exciting sightings either.  Just lots of talking while hiking and after while eating!

Lynn Freeman's Land

Ten of us walked land off of Grantham Mountain Road this morning, a day earlier because of Thanksgiving and a lousy weather forecast.  There were also two dogs.  The walker who went to Thailand was back with us after a wonderful trip.  Her next trip is to Ireland.

The trails are wide and good for snowshoeing and also for horses.  We walked from there to Bean Rd and then back on slightly different trails, not completely backtracking. .  Penny knew the way and it turned out to be a great walk! No one brought  cameras  today so no pictures.  There was a Buddha statue or shrine that I wished we could have photographed, maybe I'll go back.  Nearly everyone came back to my house for cranberry orange bread and coffee.

Great way to start off the Thanksgiving season.  Less than an inch of snow on the ground so it looked wintry and it was very cloudy.  I walked and talked and didn't pay too much attention to the woods today!  Thus, no interesting reports.

Pine Park

We walked in Hanover today following the Pine Park trail and then walked around Occum Pond. This is an easy walk and only about three miles but pretty as it follows a brook and then follows the Connecticut River for a ways.  Then back up to the golf course where it starts.  Great this time of year as you don't have to worry about golf balls.  The course is very popular in golfing season.  Also this land is owned by Dartmouth College so we didn't have to worry about hunters.

As the name implies we do walk through an old growth pine forest.   The deep ravine by the brook surpasses some we saw the last two weeks in Norwich.  However this brook was dry!  I took a few photos and Kate and Penny took photos of the walking crew.  There were 12 of us and 4 dogs.  A great turnout for a late November walk and even a sunny day!

Pictures of us. First one missing Kate. Second one missing Penny! Also pictures of the river and brook,

"Grand Canyon" of Norwich- Not so Grandiose!

Nine of us ventured out to find the "Grand Canyon" of Norwich!  We were not impressed with the hype in the name but a nice walk on a cold day.  It was 17 earlier and in the low 20s when we started out but once you go up and down the various brooks in these woodlands you warm up fast!  Many smaller brook crossings but the trail is a continuation of the one we did last week so it follows the brown brook and the road so you can't get lost.  Not sure if we took all the right trails but it didn't matter  as the woods were so peaceful and open this time of year.  Myra, our tree hugger hiker knows her trees and is teaching us how to identify trees in winter.  The grand canyon is a ravine or gorge of modest proportions!

The trail signs are identified by minutes or hours to them, not miles.  Looking for a map to figure out where we did go today.  We started at parking lot 5 off of School House Lane but never found a cross trail that was suppose to be 1.3 hours in.

Here is a photo of us taken by Kate.

Here is the canyon

Next week Pine Park Trail in Hanover. Rifle hunting season so off the major wood trails for 3 weeks!

Ballard Trail Trek

This week there were 7 of us walking and no dogs!  It was a beautiful November day and warmer
than we thought.  We took the Bill Ballard Trail to School House Lane.  This is about an hour hike up and another hour down following the Charles Brown Brook.  From there you can hike to the "Grand Canyon" of Norwich which we plan to do next week from Parcel 5, a different parking lot 1.4 miles further than the swimming hole turnoff.

The swimming hole is no more thanks to Hurricane Irene. The dam and waterfall further up was damaged and is yet to be fixed.    I took a picture of 7 of us and also of the waterfall.   Further up we had to cross a side brook and I ended up getting one foot in the brook.  Fortunately I had an extra pair of socks with me.

5 of us had a wonderful lunch at King Arthur Flour after but next week we will bring a lunch with us so we can explore more of the trails.   Need Orange hats and vests and hiking poles.   The week after is shot gun season for deer so we will walk along the Connecticut in Hanover where there is no hunting, yet we can be in the woods.

Norwich Next

The group didn't walk today but I walked with a friend in Norwich, Vermont.  There is a great hike near the swimming hole called the Ballard trail.  It is steep in places so you need hiking poles but it is a great and scenic hike in the woods,  ravines, waterfalls and a well marked trail.  About 2 hours round trip to a service road.  Probably should classify this is a moderate hike, not long but steps and a rope in one area.

Hope the group can do this hike in a few weeks.

Paradise Park

There were 13 of us and 4 dogs to walk in Paradise Park in Windsor, VT.  We went by Lake Runnamede and walked around the second pond,  into the town of Windsor and back and then around the Lake and spent time at the gazebo before going back to our cars.  This was an easy walk of about an hour until we stopped to chat in the gazebo.  The park is noted for bird watching and is a great place to snowshoe in the winter.  There are lots of trails we didn't explore up to the hospital and over to the Juniper Hill Inn so we will return at a future date.

The park is part of the estate of the William Maxwell Evarts who was a former attorney general of the US in the late 1800s.  Windsor is the site of the signing of the Vermont Constitution and the first capital of Vermont so the lake is named for the location where the famous Magna Carta was signed in 1215.  Writing this blog, I learn a lot of local history.

We have two walkers leaving for Nepal this week and one going to Australia and Thailand the week after so quite the world travelers. One walker just returned from Southern Spain.  I seem to be one of the mundane US traveler!

Here we are walking down the beginning of the path. Several with orange hats since hunting season for birds has started.

Waiting at the start point for the whole crew to arrive!

Thanks to Barb for taking the photos.  Several of us went to Boston Dreams for coffee after to start routing for the Boston Red Sox in the World Series.  Their  general manager Ben Cherington is a  local home town hero for those of us who live in Meriden.  Go Bosox!!

Cornish Forest Fiasco

Well I said my next post would be about the hike in Windsor tomorrow but today five of us hiked in the forest, it was the second time for me and others had been more. However this time we got lost so a 1 1/2 hour hike turned into a 2 1/2 hour hike.  Once the leaves are down it is hard to track the trail and we got off the trail going up briefly but the mistake we made was taking the wrong trail down from the summit. We realized it was different, then it dawned on us that we were going in the wrong direction so we turned around and then followed a maintenance road for awhile and realized this wasn't right either.  So back up to the summit we went to go down the right way.  So two summit trips in one hike!  Going down was fine except it is a bit tricky towards the end, luckily all of us had hiking poles.

Tomorrows walk will be better!  Lessons learned!  Bring water and some food, a compass, a cell phone, and maybe extra socks or a blanket.  It was drizzling on the way down and if we got soaked that would have made it much worse. Oh yes, there were maps at the start and they would have made a hike less adventurous.

September/Mid-October Summary

I was away all of September to go on a cross country trip to Glacier and Yellowstone and see states I'd never been in before mainly North Dakota, Montana, Idaho and Washington.  If you haven't been to Montana, go, it is beautiful once you arrive in the mountains.

The group hiked MT Ascutney in VT and MT Cube in Orford, NH  and went on some other hikes where
I had never been including the "Top of the World" hike in Cornish, NH.

We went to the "Boston Lot" in mid-October which is in Lebanon and we hiked up to the reservoir and then around it.  I think there were 13 of us and a few dogs.  The trees were near peak and with the blue skies quite stunning.

I am only adding new walks as we do them from now on.  If we repeat a walk, it won't be added but this week we are going to Paradise Park in Windsor so I'll add the details and photos on Wed or Thurs of this week.

So we are back in business!!

Boston Lot photo - October is so nice

Orange NH Outing

Today we hiked Mount Cardigan again, the west side trail.  We took an hour to go up and an hour to go down and spent an hour relaxing and eating lunch at the top.  The weather was perfect on the top, sunny but enough haze not to be too hot and a nice breeze so no bugs.  It was over 80 by the time we got down from the summit so we were enjoying the cool breeze.  The panoramic views were hazy but cleared up as the hour went by.  At the beginning you could barely see a few windmills but as we relaxed, more and more came into view. These were off in the distance on the smaller hills or mountains. I get disoriented on the top and I'm never sure which direction I am viewing. Cardigan is at 3100 feet and has great views.

This is a popular hike in the summer and we saw families and groups of young people and a few couples more our age (one from Lincoln, MA and one from Toronto, Canada). We overheard three young men talking about hang gliding -not something I'd attempt! There were quite a few cars in the parking lot of the state park but we didn't see many of them as there are many spots to linger at the top and more trails from the summit.  During the week in August you find many tourists but there will be more in the Fall.

We watched two broad-winged hawks soaring above us near the summit

There were only five of us and one small dog, Casey who is a nice jack russell terrier dog and very friendly.!

Pictures coming soon for this hike and the one last week

Views etc.

Cornish Forest Climb

This week we had a crowd, 10 people and 4 dogs.  The weather was perfect for a climb. We started
at 9 AM and were back down a little before 11 AM and the weather was mostly in the 60s and very
sunny and some wind which kept the bugs away.

The climb begins steeply and since I fell, I can attest to agreeing that the rocks were quite slippery with moss and wet from the rain the day before.  Luckily it evens out after about 10 minutes and the hike is much easier going and boy are you rewarded at the top!  There are great views into Vermont and especially of Mount Ascutney.  We stayed at the top for about 10 minutes to soak in the view and relax.  The descent was fine until the last 10 minutes when we had to be very careful under foot once again.  This was my first time doing this walk and it is definitely a keeper! if a bit treacherous at the beginning

There were lots of mushrooms growing in all kinds of colors, the usual white and brown, plus reddish and many yellows. I only took pictures at the top. Will load them later today.

Next week, Mt Cardigan again, this time I can guarantee there will be no snow!


views!

Two Wednesday Walks

Last week I forgot my camera so I decided to post two walks at once.  Last Wednesday there were six walkers and one dog. We went to Claremont and walked on their wide rail trail which meanders along the Sugar River on the way to Newport, NH.  Its flat and you can go far in a short period of time. We stop at a bridge about 45 to 50 minutes in and then turnaround.  I had my cell phone but I am cell phone challenged since it doesn't work at my home so I never got the photos off the phone.  Four went on to downtown to eat a tasty lunch at New Socials.  Two of us went off to do other not so interesting things.

This week we walked from the Plainfield School to the ledges in about 45 minutes, its a bit of a hike up but worth the trip as you will see from the photos. We started at 8:30 and made it up before it got real sunny so the pictures aren't as good as I'd like.  A professional photographer showed up and took a photo of the six of us.  There were no dogs :(.  The Indian pipe fungi were out so I took a photo of them.

Here is a picture of the hikers relaxing on the top. We took a nice long break before heading down.

Here are some views of school and community

There were Indian Pipes everywhere it seemed

Town Garage Travels

Boy did we luck out today. The weather looked promising as it is suppose to cool off today so we embarked on a five mile loop starting at the town garage.  But about four miles in the clouds looked threatening and we did get a small amount of rain but only a mile away the skies really opened up and we would have been drenched. With the nine inches of rain already this month it is amazing we have been able to walk each Wednesday.

Today there were nine of us and one dog.  The route starts at the town garage on Stage rd, then we turn on Penniman until we reach the blow-me-down brook bridge where we turn on Underhill rd, then we walk on Rt 120 for about a mile before we turn left onto Whitaker rd.  This road has nice views of Pica and Killington mountains in Vermont.  The dairy farm is no more but the silos remain. At the end of Whitaker we turn right onto Penniman and work our way back to the garage. It's a nice walk as we go up and down hills and aren't on a busy road too long, also parts of it are in shade in the morning. Walking down Whitaker we had a nice breeze but maybe because the rain was coming!!

A few pictures to follow of flowers and the crew. I'm going back to take a few more photos.

Porter Road at a Good Pace

Another hot and humid day! At least it hasn't been raining every day. We started at 8:30 and walked
a four mile loop from the end of Porter Rd to Ladieu and then Hauser Lane and back to Porter.

There were twelve of us and two dogs which is a great turn out considering the weather.  We went to Barbs house after to cool off on her deck and enjoy the scenery (Ascutney Mt in the distance) and see her new screened in porch.  The iced tea and lemonade  drinks were very refreshing. No one wanted coffee.

Stop back for pictures of the crew and the alpacas.  These animals  are obviously bored and we provide excitement.

Porter is a dead end road so there isn't a lot of  traffic usually. The alpacas (there are three) were in their shelter most of the time, too hot in the sun even for them!

On Hauser Lane one of the houses had a rooster crowing loudly and I took some photos of the lovely gardens at this place. These dwellers also own the alpacas I believe. They reside across the street from the chickens.

The gardens

the alpacas!

the walkers

Blow me Down Brook Bridge

Another Wednesday and yet again more rain. It started out as a drizzle and then proceeded to a more steady rain and then thankfully pretty much stopped.  There were twelve of us and four dogs.  The walk was shorter due to the desire not to get soaked and overheated with the humidity!  This walk starts at Mill Rd in Plainfield, proceeds through the covered bridge to Squag City Rd in Cornish and then down Platt Rd and back once we reach 12A.  Platt Road contains many Cornish Colony houses and the famous home of Clark Rockefeller at one time.

Photos of the waterfall follow.  This gorge on the brook is quite spectacular after 6+ inches of rain this month.

Here are pictures of the walkers and the dogs

Here is a picture of one of the older colony houses.

and finally pictures of the covered bridge between Plainfield and Cornish by the waterfall

Bean Road and Back

Welcome to July!  We have received well over 4 inches of rain already this month and it is only day 3.  Thus we cancelled the planned walk which was a trail parallel to the Mascoma River which has overflowed its banks.  There are also road closures, flooded basements and many damaged roads from flash flooding.

Six of us and two dogs decided to walk Bean Rd in Meriden this morning after more downpours around
7 AM. We walked from 9-10:30 and it was very humid and getting hot.  I only hope we don't get more rain today as the ground is more than saturated. Most of us are not Florida lovers and so we prefer dryer and cooler air but we are all walkers!

The walk starts at the Meriden Library and goes up a hill before turning to the right and becoming a dirt road. Looking behind us at this point, there is a nice view of the KUA (Kimball Union Academy)
campus.  The road continues going up and dead-ends by a beautiful estate with a huge barn and guest house. The barn is upscale, not used for animals. On the way up  we pass the Noda Blueberry Farm and Christmas Tree Farm.  Best place ever to pick blueberries in a few weeks! We didn't continue on a path that leads to Corbin Park. Many of our roads dead end near this game park.  Coming down on a hot day was more fun as there was a slight breeze.


Barb took the photos with her iPhone.  I forgot my camera.

First one is of Cathy and me.  Wearing my hat as the deer flies are out now .

 

Next one shows 5 of us. I am hiding and Pam is taking off her long pants (shorts under) as it was getting too hot! The dogs seemed happy.

This is a small stream that is almost always dry.

Ferns are very happy this year!

Camp Road Circuit

We are in a lousy weather pattern as it is very humid and we are getting rain every day and if it
turns sunny it is HOT. Today was in the 70s and cloudy when we walked.  There was a window of dry weather from 9-12 so we lucked out.  There were 8 adults, 2 children and one dog.

We walked from the Meriden Library down Camp Rd which becomes Burr Rd in Cornish. The walk
is five miles and the halfway point is at a beautiful stone house with views (we think!). It was very hazy!

Here are the photos.

First: Helen's grandkids, Ava and Emily, great kids!



6 of the walkers coming towards me on the road. Again Cathy is hiding!

The lovely stone house

The children who live in the stone house

Mount Tom Musings

Yesterday six of us went to the Hartland/Woodstock, Vermont area to view several interesting
sites. First we went to the Eshqua Bog in Hartland which has a loop trail with boardwalks to view
the marshy areas. Technically this is not really a bog despite its name. It is a fen which has more sedge plants and mosses and is actually more diverse in vegetation than a bog.  A fen is alkaline, while a bog is acidic so the pH level is important for certain orchids to bloom. Eshqua is an unusual name and it may be Abernaki, origin unknown for sure.

The reason we came was to see the Showy Lady's Slipper and the White Bog Orchid, both in bloom
and on a beautiful almost summer day, they did not disappoint as you can see by the pictures.  We also saw many dragonflies, mostly the common whitetail I believe, though I wasn't focusing on the insects as you will understand when you look at the pictures below!  These plants are not common and are protected it this area. If you pick them, you'll be sorry as they give off a chemical that can cause severe dermatitis to hands and face. First three photos are the showy lady's slipper.

Now the white bog orchid

Next we went to Woodstock to climb Mt Tom. We choose the carriage road approach so we could
also go to the pogue.  If you are wondering what a pogue is, it is a 14 acre man-made pond on the
Rockefeller Historical Site which was constructed in the 1880s.  The name pogue either comes from the Scottish or it is Abenaki, no one seems to know but it is a lovely pond.  We saw many dragonflies again and often you see ducks and turtles. The water was very clear so we could see many fish, not sure if they were trout or not. On our way up the road we met a couple from Yorkshire, England coming down. They had enjoyed watching the turtles but by the time we had detoured off the road to Mt Tom, ate lunch  on the top and come back down to the pond,  the turtles were gone. We did take the nice loop trail  around the pond.
There are many trails from the pond loop we want to try at a later date.  This area is spectacular when Fall foliage is at its peak.

The Pogue

Mt Tom overlooks the village of Woodstock.  All these pictures are credited to Kathy.  I'll add a few more later.

Another view of the pond

Another view from the top