Hiking Mt. Cardigan South Ridge Trail on September 24, 2022

The foliage was not at peak yet, but it was still colorful. I decided to hike Mt. Cardigan again but take the South Ridge Trail for some different views.

This trail offers a nice view of Newfound Lake.

Hikers can also see the Groton wind farm from the south ridge trail.

The final leg of the trail to the summit is quite steep but you get some great views.

Lots of people in the region complain about the wind farms. I have been near oil refineries (like Texas City near Galveston, Texas) and wind farms. Oil refineries are far more ugly.

I’m getting closer to the summit.

The last leg of the Clark Trail is very steep!

But you get some cool photos that illustrate the angle that we have to climb to get to the summit.

When I got to the summit the wind was strong and cold. I put every layer of clothing that I had in my backpack on. You can see the ripples from the wind on the rain puddle behind the fire tower.

I was surprised to see a squirrel stuck on one of the brackets on the side of the fire tower. The way the wind was blowing it’s no wonder it was scared to jump and get it self off of the tower.

Foliage Hike at Holt’s Ledge on the Appalachian Trail on October 8, 2022

I knew the foliage would peak around Indigenous Peoples day this year. The weather forecast for Saturday, October 8 was for a mostly sunny day with highs in the mid 50’s. In other words, a quintessential fall day. The top of Holt’s Ledge at the Dartmouth Ski-way in Lyme, NH is perfect for a foliage hike since it is high enough for great views of the color on the surrounding mountains, yet low enough so that you can still see individual trees in the valley below.

Top of Holt’s Ledge with Mt. Cube in the distance.

Top of Holt’s Ledge with Smart’s Mt. in the distance.

Zoom shot of Mt. Cube in Orford, NH

Panorama of Winslow Mt.

Vertical panorama of Winslow Mt and valley between Winslow and Holt’s Ledge.

View south towards Goose Pond and Clark Pond.

Valley of Fire Photography Tour: The White Domes Trail Hike

For our hiking part of the tour we went to White Domes Trail. The americansouthwest.com site tells us it’s a 1.1 mile hike and is, “probably the most popular hike in Valley of Fire State Park since it is easy, a loop rather than one-way, and passes a good variety of scenery including many colorful rock formations of Aztec sandstone, and a short though pretty section of slot canyon”

The Alltrails website has a great page about the trail and hike. They say it’s, “Generally considered an easy route, it takes an average of 30 min to complete.”

The trailhead was not far from the parking lot.

We were all excited about the hike.

I was looking forward to seeing some amazing rock formations and colors.

The trail took us through a narrow canyon.

I even saw some wildlife. 🙂

I was excited to see an arch formation.

Of course, I had to climb up for a closer look and photograph.

I made a point to take some photo series that I could combine into a larger panorama using Adobe Lightroom.

I really liked this last colorful rock formation just before we got back to the parking lot.

It was an easy hike and well worth the time.

Hiking Mt. Sunapee on October 17, 2021

On October 17th I lead an meetup.com group hike to the summit of Mt. Sunapee. It’s one of my favorite hikes and ski resorts because of the fantastic view of Lake Sunapee from the summit and ski trails.

My goal for the hike was to get some late season foliage photos that I could turn into Panorama photos using Adobe Lightroom. The two panorama photos below are from the top of the Skyway Ledges ski trail. I like to stop here for a few minutes and enjoy the view in the winter when I am skiing.

The panorama photos below are from the the top of the Wing Ding trail on the Sun Bowl side of the mountain.

The panorama photo below was shot by turning the camera on its side for a series of portrait photos that I “stitched” together in Lightroom to make a huge panorama photo. I was able to capture both the foliage on the lower slopes of the mountain and entire lake.

Hiking Mt. Moosilauke on September 19, 2021

On Sunday September 19th I joined a meetup.com group and hiked Mt. Moosilauke (See the Alltrails Page) in New Hampshire. It’s one of the 4000+ footers in New Hampshire and an awesome hike.

This is a panorama shot of the view from the Gorge Brook Trail once you start to get above the treeline.

We got a little higher and I got my 300mm lens out and zoomed in on Mt. Lafayette over on the Franconia Ridge.

It was cold at the top (down in the 40’s with the wind chill) so most people at the summit were hanging out behind wind breaks.

The views towards Franconia Ridge were fantastic even though a few clouds moved in.

This photo is looking towards Lake Tarleton, Lake Armington and Lake Katherine in Piermont, NH

This photo is of Black Mountain to the right and North Haverhill, NH down in the Connecticut River Valley.

This is one of my favorite 4000+ mountains to climb it’s the closest one to where I live. Starting from the Dartmouth base lodge is very cool. my next favorite trail is the Beaver Brook Trail from route 112 in North Woodstock, NH.

Winter hike to Artist Bluff in Franconia Notch

I had some staycation days to use at the end of February 2020 so I planned some skiing and hiking trips. My goal for Friday was to find a short hike with majestic views. So I went over to Artist Bluff in Franconia Notch near Cannon Mt. Ski Resort. It’s a short hike, but from the top you get a fantastic view of Franconia Notch and Eagle Lake,Cannon Mt and Mt. Layafette.

Winter hike up Mt. Cube in Orford, NH

I had some vacation time to use before the end of February so I planned a few “staycation” activities like skiing and winter hiking. On Wednesday, February 24, 2021 I planned a hike with my friend Sandra up Mt. Cube on the Rivendell Trail in Orford, NH. The weather forecast was for partly cloudy with temperatures in the mid 30’s, which is warm for a winter day.

One of my favorite sections of the Rivendell trail is the stand of Red Pines. In addition to the tall pines there is an under story “layer” of pines that look beautiful when covered in snow.

A spot on the trail where we always seem to stop is called the Sunday Mountain Lookout since you get a wonderful view of Sunday Mountain (it’s more of a hill rather than a mountain) in Orford, NH and west into Vermont.

We finally hit the part of the trail where the trees pretty much turn to all pines. The trail is especially beautiful after it had been snowing.

Another lookout on the Rivendell trail has a fantastic view west into Vermont. Using my 300mm lens I can get a great view of Killington Ski Resort. According to Google Maps this is 60 miles away.

As we got above the treeline the small pines alongside the trail were half encased in ice.

We finally made it to the top of South Peak but did not stay long due to the wind chill.

I did take a series of photos looking towards Groton Wind Farm and Plymouth, NH. The distant view was nice but I really liked the snow covered pines around the summit.

We decided not to go to North Peak since the trail did not look packed down and we did not have snow shoes with us.

Green Mt. Hiking Trip April 25, 2020

I went hiking with a small group of people from the meetup.com group that I’m in to Green Mt. in Claremont, NH. It was my first time there and I did not even know about the trail before the hike. I discovered its the mountain right next to the City of Claremont with the cell phone towers at the top. It’s so close to the city that I got some great photos from the top using my 300mm lens. As you can see from the old brick buildings, Claremont is an old mill town. Wikipedia tells us, “The water power harnessed from the Sugar River brought the town prosperity during the Industrial Revolution. Large brick factories were built along the stream, including the Sunapee Mills, Monadnock Mills, Claremont Machine Works, Home Mills, Sanford & Rossiter, and Claremont Manufacturing Company. Principal products were cotton and woolen textiles, lathes and planers, and paper.”

I was also able to get some panorama shots from the ledges near the top.

I really enjoyed the view of Mt. Ascutney on the right to Okemo Mt. and ski resort off in the distance on the left.

I zoomed in with the 300mm lens for a better view of Okemo Ski Resort, which is over in Ludlow, Vermont.

Hike to AMC Lonesome Lake Hut

On February 23, 2019 I joined a meetup.com group to take my first hike to the AMC Lonesome Lake hut in Franconia Notch in Franconia, NH.

Although the trail was only 1.6 miles from Lafayette Place Campground,  it was a steep stair climber hike!

Even though it was steep climb, the view of Franconia Ridge was well worth it.

The Lonesome Lake Hut was a fantastic place to rest and relax. Hikers and overnight guests can buy a hot drink and snacks.

The wood stove, the small book shelf filled with books and board games made the hut an awesome place to relax, unwind and warm up.

The good thing about hiking to the hut in the winter is that we could walk across the lake rather than around it.

This places is definitely on my list of place to visit again!

Hiking Mt. Sunapee in Newbury, NH

Although I have been skiing at Mt. Sunapee for years I had not been on any of the hiking trails until this year.

I had Friday, October 26th off from work and decided to go hiking. Although the foliage had peaked the weather was perfect for hiking. One of my goals for the day was to scout the Summit Trail so that I could return later with people from one of the local Meetup.com groups that I belong to.

The Summit Trail is just one of several trails to the summit. I could get to the trail either from the Mt. Sunappe base lodge or the trailhead on Old Province Rd. I chose to start at the Old Province Rd. trailhead for this hike.

I made a couple wrong turns (and ended up on the ski trails) but eventually made it to the summit. As usual the view of Lake Sunapee was fantastic. When skiing I usually don’t have my good DLSR camera so this was an opportunity to get some better photos than I can get with a phone camera.

The photo below was taken from the top of the Skyway Ledges ski trail.

I also made a panorama photos from the top of the Wingding trail.

I switched to my 300mm lens and was able to get some shot of the White Mountains in the distance. The photo below is looking past the wind farm in Groton, NH towards an area of the White Mountains known as the Pemigewasset Wilderness.

Below is a photo looking past Mt. Cardigan (the first range on the left had side of the photo) with the snow covered mountains of Franconia Notch in the background.

It took a little longer than I expected to go back to Mt. Sunapee with the Meetup group. I was not able to schedule a hike until November 17th. By that time we had some early winter storms and had 5 inches of snow at the bottom and 7 to 8 inches at the summit. It was also cold and windy so I only took a few photos before getting out of the wind and heading back down the mountain. Although there was heavy cloud cover over the lake during my first few photos, I was lucky to catch a moment when the sun broke through to shine on Great Island down on the lake.