Frank Baker led a group of nine hearty SRK Greenway hikers on a bushwhack in Andover, NH north of Elbow Pond Sunday February 21. We hiked over both bare ground and snow. We saw animal tracks and sign, a huge white oak, and some large glacial erratics. This post has mostly photos with only a few words.
Our first landmark was a huge white oak. Since white oaks grow very slowly this one is clearly hundreds of years old. That is Frank with the tree.
We saw animal sign like the bear clawed beech (left) and the moose browsed striped maple (right).
We crossed Mountain Brook and just upstream of our crossing I got a photo of a waterfall as others scurried up the trail without me — except Gerry held back, perhaps to be sure I didn’t fall in.
I thought some of the branches in the snow made nice simple compositions.
We saw numerous animal tracks. Here are some, in order: Racoon Tracks, Porcupine Tracks, Coyote Track, and Fisher Tracks.
We climbed over a notch and dropped down to have lunch near a huge glacial erratic.
We came across a moose bed. Perhaps you can see the moose hair in this photo.
Nearby were impressive piles of moose droppings. And after a long downhill I photographed a Hemlock Varnish Shelf polyphor.
Near the end of our hike we paused for a group photo. This is a composite of two photos taken by Gerry Gold and me.
Here are a few more photos I took during our surprisingly strenuous bushwhack. I felt great until the next day. Must have been all that downhill on slippery snow with my microspikes safely stowed in my backpack. Thank you, Frank. See you next year.
If you have read this far you might be interested in reading the story of a special and unique outdoor adventure. If so you can click HERE.