It was a great summer. A few very hot days, a few weeks of rainy weather, but overall very pleasant. It was one of the most enjoyable summers in memory, but remembering a few recent months is a lot easier than recalling past years.
One of these mornings
You gonna rise up singin’
Yes, you’ll spread your wings
And you’ll take to the sky
— Ella Fitzgerald, “Summertime”
Here are a some of my personal memories and photos from the second, and hopefully last, summer of the pandemic. Please enjoy the images.
I have included many links to previous blogs. It you click them you will be able to see more photos from each spot.
I cheated and put two photos above from a spectacular rainbow that happened in June but before summer officially started.
Another event just before the start of summer was the arrival of the Lake Queen to Sunapee. A web site had said it was scheduled to launch July 1, but so far nothing visible has happened.
I wandered around the towns on the east side of the Upper Valley late the first week of summer. This photo is from Washington, NH.
There were some dramatic and colorful sunsets this summer. Here is one from July 28.
And another July 4. Amazingly the two photos below were taken one minute apart looking in different directions by about 90 degrees.
Below is a sunrise on July 7.
I did quite a bit of hiking this summer. The first was up the Newbury Trail to Lake Solitude on Mount Sunapee just after a rain on a foggy morning. We could barely see the lake from a few yards away, but the area near it was beautiful in the soft light. And the name “solitude” was appropriate; no one else was there.
On July 15, a friend and I did a very challenging hike up the Caps Ridge Trail on Mount Jefferson. Here are two of the photos I took. The first shows Mount Washington from the Potholes area.
I did the first of two hikes up Mount Kearsarge on July 22. I took the “Roots and Rock” Trail up, officially known as the Winslow Trail.
Along the way I found a neat area of Amanita muscaria mushrooms, the Fly Agaric.
I hiked Mount Cardigan on July 24. I forgot my hiking poles so I had to make do with a pair of sticks.
From the summit I photographed a portion of the Presidentials and labeled them.
Driving away I found a cooperative Broad-winged Hawk.
Three of us hiked the beautiful Welch-Dickey Loop in Thornton and Waterville Valley on a hazy morning. After reaching the summits of Mounts Welch and Dickey, we descended the southwest shoulder of Dickey seen in the photo below taken from the Welch summit.
The haze made for very nice soft light in the woods, as seen in this photo of Canadian Bunchberries in Reindeer Lichen.
During an August 1 hike with Jann, we found a curious Hermit Thrust that I was able to photograph with my relatively short walk-around lens.
I took advantage of a huge rainstorm to photograph Kidder Brook in Springfield, NH…
… and Kimpton Brook in Wilmot.
Here is a Black Swallowtail in Sutton.
Our cat enjoyed being with me as I photographed a sunset.
On August 4, an amazing 22 degree halo around the sun persisted for over seven hours. I travelled around photographing it. Here it is with the gazebo in Sunapee Harbor.
At Muster Field Farm in Sutton, I found it well-positioned above the Pillsbury Barn.
The three lighthouses on Lake Sunapee are not meant as swimming platforms, but sometimes kids use them anyway.
I photographed Ruby-throated Hummingbirds that visited our plants.
Lake Sunapee was very calm the morning of August 12. The peaks on the left in the distance are Kearsarge and Black.
That day ended with a dramatic sunset.
While canoeing with Jann, I photographed a Great Blue Heron flying.
And an immature Common Loon.
Our grandson, Julian, from the Midwest visited us for a week. This gave me six days to hike with him.
We climbed Kearsarge, Cardigan, Firescrew, Bog, Welch, Dickey, and Little Mount Washington.
One day a flock of birds paid a brief visit. I photographed seven species in seven minutes from on or near our side porch. Below is a Black-throated Green Warbler, one of the three warbler species in the small flock.
There were some dramatic sunrises and sunsets late in August.
On the last day of August, three of us hiked to the summit of Hedgehog Mountain along the Kancamagus Highway. We are working on the “52 With a View”. The peak on the right of the photo below, which was taken from near the summit of Hedgehog, is Mount Passaconaway.
On the first day of September, another 22 degree halo appeared briefly over Burkehaven Harbor in Sunapee. It was not as dramatic or long-lasting as the earlier one this summer.
I photographed the Milky Way in early September.
I liked the textures and patterns I was seeing along the road while hiking with Jann in Etna. The photo below contains a large black dog.
Here is the dog, photographed with a longer lens from the same spot.
One of the birds I photographed on a bird walk in Norwich was a Common Yellowthroat. This warbler species loves to skulk around in low bushes.
I visited Mascoma Lakeside Park in Enfield on September 19. Enfield has created a beautiful small park near a spot where a motel once stood before it was turned into a construction site for the Shaker Bridge renewal.
I then visited some of my favorite spots for early fall foliage along Route 4A.
I found a rafter of about a dozen turkeys along Route 4A. It was hard to isolate a single bird, but I managed.
On September 20, three of us hiked the spectacular Mount Chocorua. Along the way we stopped at Champney Falls.
Nearby Pitcher Falls, which plunge into a canyon, reminded me of hikes in the Grand Canyon.
Because we started very early, we only saw two people before reaching the summit of Chocorua. But we passed perhaps 50 people while descending. I wanted to send Jann a photo from the summit so I snapped this one with my iPhone.
Below the summit we stopped for a snack before the long descent. Looking back at the summit in the photo below, you might be able to spot three tiny people at the top.
Chocorua is certainly one of the prime hiking mountains in NH — truly a beautiful and dramatic mountain.
Future blogs will cover Hedgehog and Chocorua. Please check back if you are interested. Alternately, if you subscribe to this blog you will get an email whenever a new blog is posted.
I tried for a sunrise from Lakeside Park on the last day of summer, but it did not inspire me to take even one photo. Thirty minutes later I found this spot along George Hill Road in Enfield.
Back at Lakeside Park, I photographed a young woman holding her child while photographing the scene with her phone.
These were the sailboats she found interesting. I did too.
Autumn has started. Many photographers find it the most exciting season, especially in New England. But if you live in this area you learn to appreciate each season for what it offers. I certainly do.
So goodbye Summer. Hello rest of my life.