The Trail Treasure contest is still open, and I'm already working on the next hunt. I plan to wind down the first one in another week or so… so if you've been meaning to get out and explore the Arched Bridge Conservation area, do it soon!
 
So far, 21 people have found the treasure chest and entered [...]

Getting out and playing in the dirt makes people happy. I’d never doubted it, but a study published earlier this year proves it.
The very title of the original study — "Identification of an immune-responsive mesolimbocortical serotonergic system: potential role in regulation of emotional behavior" — is impenetrable, but this article in Discovery gives a good summary of [...]

Beaver Brook is my favorite place to go run in south-central New Hampshire, and I’ve long thought it would be a great place for a trail race.

(This is an old post, I’m bumping it up because it’s coming right on up Sunday…)
Sure enough, there’s a 5K race scheduled there in late July, part of the "Loco Moose" series, in which runners [...]

The first Trail Treasure hunters have been quick to share news of their find (see earlier posts if you don't know about this contest), along with reminiscences about the area.
If anyone tried to e-mail, and it bounced back, please try again. I neglected to clean out my 'sent' folder before this contest started, so my inbox [...]

The Arched Bridge Conservation Area lies just over the state line, in Dunstable, Mass. The area is named for an old railroad bridge crossing Salmon Brook, a spectacular example of 19th-century engineering.
(Read on to the end for directions to the Treasure Chest)….
 
Locally-quarried granite blocks were laid without mortar in an arch spanning the brook, and the [...]

Getting out into the great outdoors is its own reward.
Within a short ride, run or drive from any southern New Hampshire neighborhood, you can enjoy the tranquility of birdsong and a fresh breeze through the trees, the beauty of an open vista over rolling hills or perhaps the scent of a tiny wild flower.
It’s all good [...]

It hardly comes as a shock to hear that wearing your iPod outdoors during a thunderstorm is a bad idea.
 
 

A study to that effect, however, was published in the current New England Journal of Medicine and got a great deal of attention in the news. The gist is people should consider not wearing metal devices, particularly those [...]

A recent motorcycle outing (see last post) took me out Route 123 and through Alstead, where the scars from last year's flooding remain raw.
The Cold River doesn't look all that threatening, most of the time, but when a river rises it can etch its fury into the landscape. The view brought to mind a recent e-mail from my [...]

We saw them coming as we left Bellows Falls after lunch on Friday; a great gray wall of them marching at double time from the west.
The advance scouts took a few shots at us in Walpole, but their aim was poor and their rounds weak. We detoured from our planned route, keeping to 12 to [...]

The weather looked a bit dicey today, so Michelle and I decided that a hike would be a better bet than a motorcycle trip. We headed out west, for the Metacomet-Monadnock Trail.
 
Don’t feel badly if you’ve never heard of it. I’d seen signs for it, but forgotten all about it and never knowingly set foot [...]