First Half of Winter

Sun Pillar over Vermont, December 30, 2021

 

If you live in the Upper Valley, you must love winter. No ticks or black flies, bright sunny days, and snow and ice to enjoy when not in a car. 

In this blog I show photos taken between December 23, 2021 and February 9, 2022. There are many photos, so I will go light on the text.  I believe most people just look at the photos anyway.

Ice Skating on the Connecticut River

On a beautiful mid-January Sunday, a day before a large snowfall spoiled the spectacular ice on the river, Kali, Stephen, and I skated north on mostly smooth black ice from the East Wilder Boat Launch seen at the right. 

 

 

 

I didn’t count, but I believe over 100 skaters of all stripes were on the river that day. Below are a few of the skaters we saw as we left the boat launch area.

Kali had been a hockey player for four years. It was obvious she was comfortable on the ice.  Stephen and I managed fine but with not nearly the grace and flare.

I took a few photos where I intentionally blurred the skaters (and some that were blurred unintentionally).

Kali used her phone to take the photo below of me that I really like.

Here are six more photos from this wonderful afternoon.

 

APD Trails

I snowshoed and hiked with just boots two days in a row along the very nice trails at the Alice Peck Day Hospital in Lebanon.  We met a few other people enjoying the area, including a person on a bicycle. Here are some of the photos I took.

 

Bridal Veil Falls

Three humans and a dog, Caro, hiked the Coppermine Trail in Franconia to the frozen Bridal Veil Falls.  This was before the major snowstorm in early February, so boots with microspikes instead of snowshoes were the footwear of choice. 

The trail parallels the Coppermine Brook which was mostly snow covered with a few open areas.

We spotted interesting tracks in the snow along the way.

The image below is a blend of eleven photos showing our approach to Bridal View Falls in the far distance. Since Bruce and Caro moved while I shot the photos, I was able to show them twice in one image.

The frozen falls were spectacular with a region of yellow ice and an area of blue ice.

Alex took the two photos below of Bruce, Caro, and me near the falls with his phone.

Below is the view from the falls looking back toward the trail we took up.

The image below of Bridal Veil Falls is composed of 34 photos.  If you would like to see a version of this photo that you can zoom into and pan around, you can click the image below.

Below are seven more photos from Bridal Veil Falls and the Coppermine Trail.

 

Black Mountain

 
Lime Kiln Road, North Haverhill, 8:00 am, -6° F, and we’re heading up the Chippewa Trail toward the summit of Black Mountain in Benton, New Hampshire, as seen through the trees in the distance in the photo above.
 
 
Thirty minutes up the trail, I shed a layer and exchanged my mittens for a pair of gloves.  It is much easier to work my camera with gloves than the bulky mittens I started with.
 
 

We come upon a “tip-up” where a tree with very shallow roots fell.

We entered a beautiful red pine forest. We speculated the trees were planted after the forest was harvested to feed the lime kiln near the base of the mountain.

At our first lookout I make a four-photo panorama.  Below is a cropped portion of the image with three mountains labeled.

At an overlook short of the summit, we spotted a red squirrel on top of a spruce.  At the summit we paused for a snack.

 

The sun was shining bright over Moosilauke on the left side of this photo.

There were snowshoe hare prints in the snow heading downhill, away from the summit.

Looking toward the South, we could see a bit of Mount Kearsarge peaking up to the left of Firescrew and Cardigan.

Here is a view looking Northeast.  Can you ID the peaks in this photo?

Here is a similar photo with the peaks labeled.

The sun was warm but the breeze was cold at the summit, so we headed down.  Sometimes one must go up a bit to go down.

It was a very nice, although tiring, hike.

Below are eight more photos from Black Mountain.

 

Bog Mountain

We again started early, at 8 am when it was still around 5° F.  The sharp drop from Route 4A  in Wilmot to the bridge over Kimpton Brook was icy.

We crossed the bridge before we put on our snowshoes.

 

Although we were on snowshoes instead of boots and spikes, this hike was much easier than Black Mountain.  It was a 5 mile round trip compared with only 3.4 mile up and down Black.  But the Bog hike had only 1037 ft of elevation gain compared with the 1745 ft of “up” on Black Mountain.

 

The low early morning sun was nice in the woods.
 
 
We were following some boot tracks that led us a bit astray. Gerry and I were in the rear.  He asked if I could see any blazes.  We stopped, backtracked, and were soon back on course.
 
 
 
We crossed a frozen stream and reached Dud’s Dell, a nice swimming hole in the right season.
 
 
We jumped from rock to rock over a small stream, crossed Stearns Road, and headed uphill a bit more steeply.
 
 
We reached a viewpoint for Mounts Kearsarge and Black. (This Black Mountain is in Sutton and Warner rather than Benton.) Perhaps I should add this photo to my recently published Kearsarge from Afar page.
 

 

It was a fairly clear, cold winter day.  We could make out Mount Monadnock in the distance, about 45 miles away as the crow or sea eagle flies. It is on the right side of the photo below.
 
 
I had actually reached that viewpoint much before my hiking partners.  I knew where it was and perhaps was spurred to hustle up to be able to take photos without delaying them.  It is difficult photographing when hiking with others because one has to shoot fast, photo-journalist style, to avoid falling far behind or holding them up.  Here they are reaching the lookout spot.
 
 
Eventually we reached the long exposed slope before the summit.
 
 
The morning had warmed up nicely, the sun was bright, there was no wind.  So we lingered on the summit for almost an hour.  While there I managed to photograph a pair of Red-breasted Nuthatches with the relatively  short lens I was carrying.
 
 
 
Eventually we headed down.  Here are Bruce and Gerry leaving the summit.
 
 
It was a great way to spend the morning. Here are a few more photos from Bog Mountain.
 
 
 
Birds
 
We got over one foot of dense heavy snow Friday, February 4.  It snowed lightly to moderately for over 24 hours.
 
 
Birds are photogenic when it is snowing. The afternoon of our snow storm we had over two dozen goldfinch and a pair of cute Pine Siskins.  Then a pair of Purple Finch arrived briefly.
 
Here are the Pine Siskins …
 
 
 
… and the male (red) and female (brown) Purple Finch.
 
 
 
An American Goldfinch and a Black-capped Chickadee shared a perch in the snow.
 
 
Following are eight more photos of American Goldfinch.  Some of them were already getting their yellow breeding colors.
 
 

The Tufted Titmouse is a favorite bird of mine.  A close relative of a chickadee, they are around during the winter. 

 
 
The Tufted Titmouse was almost as prevalent as the Black-capped Chickadee this winter. But I photographed some of our most common year-round birds too. 
 
 
There were certainly Blue Jays around.
 

Mourning Doves are fairly common.  I find them quite beautiful.  Here is one with a snowy background.

Heading home from a walk with Jann, I spotted a Red-tailed Hawk high in a tree before a bright blue sky.  It was close enough that I could photograph it with my short hiking lens.

A beautiful woodpecker paid a visit to our Etna yard. It was only the second time I have seen one here, both very briefly this winter. It looks like is should be named red-headed, but this is a Red-bellied Woodpecker.
 
I’m hoping it will return and I can get a decent photo of him. Until I do, I put an old photo I took of one in a friend’s yard in Etna on the right below.

 
Cherry trees are loaded, but favorite winter birds like Bohemian Waxwing and Pine Grosbeak have been absent.  American Robins have helped eat the cherries.
 
 
And Cedar Waxwings have also done their share.
 
 
 
Hanover
 
Jann and I often take walks around Occom Pond and the Dartmouth campus.  Of course I carry my camera. I took five photos as a skater glided by on Occom Pond and merged them into a single image.
 
 
Here are a dozen more photos from Hanover.
 
 
 
Norwich
 
Jann and I also occasionally walk in Norwich. In early February I carried a camera with a long lens hoping to find some birds to photograph.  No luck, but I did take some photos with my iPhone.
 
 
 

Around Town

Below are ten photos from around the Upper Valley the first half of winter.

 

I close with a photo of Mount Ascutney taken January 3, 2022.  The peak on the right shoulder of Ascutney is Stratton Mountain, 56 miles away.

 
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