Southern New England Outdoor and Nature Site: A Foliage Tale- New Hampshire Thursday

Friday, October 9, 2015

A Foliage Tale- New Hampshire Thursday

Laurie on Sugarloaf. Big George in the background

Laurie and I wanted to do a foliage getaway to New Hampshire. We planned on going last week, but four straight days of rain made us postpone it to this week. That worked out well for us because the leaves were closer to peak. It still didn't work out perfectly, we took off Thursday and Friday from work, but got rained out Friday

We left home at 6 pm on Wednesday. We got up to our campsite in New Hampshire about 9:45. By ten, we had the tent set up and huddled in our sleeping bags for warmth. We got up at 6:45 am surprised by frost on our rainfly.

After a short drive with the heater on high, Laurie and I arrived at the trailhead for the Sugarloafs. The Sugarloafs are a couple of small mountains near Twin Mountain/Bretton Woods. The are very easily summited, however they have million dollar views. We packed our backpacks and set off at a quick pace to warm up. Within an hour we went the 1.3 miles to Middle Sugarloaf. I did this hike over the summer. I was blown away by the view. However, the cloud ceiling was about 5000 feet so I did not get to see the Presidentials, which are the main attraction.

By the time we got to the summit it had warmed up to a very pleasant temperature. My guess is 55-60

degrees. Because it warmed up and we were in no hurry, we loafed around for almost two hours. We saw a total of four other people. On our way down, seventeen others were going up. No doubt, they stayed in bed until the mercury rose. It paid off for us to get an early start, even if it was a bit uncomfortable at first.

After we got down we made a trip to Lincoln, NH. We bought hot soup at the grocery store for lunch. Laurie bought fudge. Then we drove to our next hike along the Kancamangus Highway. The next trip we did was called the Boulder Loop on Dugway Road. Total distance is 3.1 miles. I had never done this hike so I didn't know what to expect. The hike does a loop over some cliffs on Moat Mountain.

It turned out the hike was fairly easy. It is about a mile and a half to the ledges. Unfortunately, the sun was in our face. So our view was washed out a bit. Since we were spoiled by Middle Sugarloaf

Laurie on ledges of Boulder Loop

during the morning, we felt this view was a bit underwhelming. Being honest, we were just being spoiled brats. The view faces south towards Passaconaway and Chocura. Like I said though, the bright sun made it tough to enjoy. The best thing about this loop, it was well named. There were huge boulders the size of houses along the trail. I don't know if they were glacial erratics or broken off the massive cliffs from frost heaves. Either way, they were awe inspiring.

We got down with about two hours of daylight left. We took some pictures of the covered bridge on Dugway Road. Then we did the "tourist thing" and stopped at scenic vistas on the Kanc. We went to Rocky Gorge and Lower Falls. There were a lot of people at both taking pictures of the foliage. As we approached Lincoln again, it was getting dark. We got a pizza at G and H Pizza. It is my favorite pizza place in New Hampshire. We got a chicken finger and pineapple pizza
.

We went to bed to a show of stars. But we woke up at 6:30 to rain falling on the tent. We had hoped the rain would hold off long enough to do a morning hike. We were not so lucky. We drove around for a half hour after we packed the tent looking for animals, but found none. We headed toward home.

Covered Bridge on Dugway Road

I checked the weather for Massachusetts. The area around Plum Island was going to be cloudy but not rainy until 2 pm. I convinced Laurie to go birding for a couple of hours. By far the highlight was seeing a Peregrine Falcon at Sandy Point. We also had some other good birds including Northern Pintail, Green Wing Teal, and a Black Bellied Plover. I'd rather have hiked, but any time spent on Plum Island is not wasted. Many photos below