Ah, spring, and an old man's thoughts turn... well, let's not go there. 

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The aforementioned Sunapee-Ragged-Kearsage Greenway trail guide is out and available locally at Toadstool Books in Milford, or by mail order, the SRKG Coalition announced today.

 

 

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There's this guy up in Franklin who makes recumbent quad-cycles for riding on otherwise unused railroad lines (don't try that on the Amtrack lines, or even Guilford). I gather there is one such 11-mile line up in the Wolfboro area. He also makes a pretty cool pea shooter.

Maps are good. Trail guides are even better.

 

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Sunday was a good day for a hike. See for yourself; I took my new camera along. 

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I'm not even sure how to pronounce "Nussdorfer," and couldn't have found the Nussdorfer Nature Area on a map before this morning. It's in central New Ipswich, and anyone up for a short, group snowshoe hike could check it out this Sunday.
   

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We’d originally planned to follow the Webster Cliff over Mount Jackson and Webster, but around Eisenhower we began to consider bailing out at the Mizpah Springs cutoff. That became our solemn plan as the afternoon wore on, and we were greatly cheered by a sign indicating that we would reach Route 302 in just 2.6 miles. 

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Mount Washington was a bit of a letdown. The biggest mountain in New England, and people had to put a tourist trap on top. It must have been  spectacular before some busybodies went and built a hotel, cut a road and laid tracks up the side.

 

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We planned to hit every summit on the range, but by the time we topped Jefferson we realized that we were going slower than we’d expected.

 

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I’d always thought it would be cool be on the top of a mountain in time to see the sunrise. I was right.

 

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We used headlamps at the start, heading up the Daniel Webster Scout trail, which winds up Mount Madison from the campground. It got pretty steep pretty quickly, and I soon started shedding layers.

About an hour or so into the hike, we passed a sign warning that we should turn back if the weather was bad and we wanted to live to run another day. We saw no cause to reconsider.

 

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I got lost on the way up Mount Madison, and so learned an early, important but ultimately painless lesson: if you can’t see a blaze ahead, make sure you can still find one behind you.

Madison was the first peak along our Presidential Traverse. The trip was my friend Michelle’s idea, and I’d rank it among her best. It was the most rewarding hike I’ve ever done, and I recommend it to anyone fit to handle such treks. We reckon our north-to-south route wound about 22 miles, and it took us about 14 hours. Though we did it way back on Aug. 26, it’s still clear in my memory and epic enough that I thought it worth writing about. Besides, I haven’t done anything half so cool of late.

 

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