The Flume in Franconia Notch

  One of the attractions in New Hampshire is a canyon in Franconia Notch named The Flume Gorge.  Like Storyland. Santa's Village, and all of the other attractions there is a fee to enter. It costs $18 for an adult. I have wanted to go to The Flume Gorge for years. I went as a kid but I don't remember my experience. However, I find it very difficult to pay $18 to see nature when I've seen hundreds of miles of trails and been on top of over sixty peaks for free.

   Last year when Laurie and I went up to New Hampshire for Thanksgiving we stopped at The Flue Gorge parking lot. It turns out, you can walk the trails after the season ends for free and at your own risk. The Parks Dept does dismantle some of the boardwalk through the heart of the gorge for the winter. The reason, I suspect, is two fold. The first is so people can't actually get to walk the hundred yards through the most impressive scenery without paying. The other reason is more considerate. With all of the moisture from the waterfalls and the river, it is very wet. Below freezing temps the canyon walls, and the boardwalk ice up. I'm sure many people would try to walk on the icy boardwalk and get injured and need rescue if they were allowed to be stupid.

   We went back up for Thanksgiving again this year. We stayed at a Quality Inn just a mile from The Flume Gorge parking lot. We had a great time. We spent Tuesday night making food to eat for Thanksgiving Eve and Thanksgiving. Highlighted by the best apple pie Laurie has made. The motel has a pool and a hot tub and we took advantage. 

   The weather was far better than expected. Last week the long range forecast was for snow all three days from Wed to our ride home early Friday morning ( I had to be at work at noon for  Black Friday). When we left Mass on Wed morning it was drizzling but a balmy sixty degrees. By the time we got into the mountains it was only forty but that is plenty warm for late November. We puttered around Lincoln for a bit and went to look at The Flume parking lot. There was enough snow and packed slippery snow/ice that I could tell the walk might be unsafe. As much as I wanted to walk through the woods I decided it prudent not to. 

   While we were sleeping on Wednesday night it rained a lot. When we woke up Thanksgiving, it was partly to mostly sunny. We expected it to be raining all day. So after breakfast and a little television, I talked  Laurie into going back to try the walk. 

   I could tell the rain washed away most of the snow so we tried to walk the trail. If things got dicey we would just turn around. Happily, our two mile walk was safe and we finished the circuit. A quarter mile from the car is a huge boulder and a trail junction. Right will bring you to the gorge quickly. Straight takes the long way through some interesting scenery. We chose to go straight to the gorge. The logic being if we couldn't do the whole loop due to ice, hopefully we could at least see it. 

   After a long downhill, our first interesting feature was a red covered bridge. 

Then we had another short uphill and came to this huge flat granite slide in the river

We followed the river for a bit and came to the entrance of The Flume Gorge. As I said, the trail through was closed so we couldn't walk all the way through. I hopped the closed for the season sign to get a little closer. I made it to where the boardwalk was taken out. Experienced ice climbers are allowed to climb the canyon walls beyond the sign with the proper equipment.  We were far enough in that we could see the natural beauty.

Since we couldn't walk through, we had to walk the Rim Trail on top of the gorge. This lead us to a little rain shelter called "Top of the Gorge". This is where the boardwalk would have came out. As with the other side, you can walk down to the canyon but it is blocked and more boardwalk pieces are missing. The good news is, the boardwalk does go down to a beautiful waterfall. We stood right next to it for fifteen minutes. Thanks to the rain the night before, it was gushing.

After leaving the gorge. the trail goes downhill for a long way and we were glad we went in the direction we did. I'd much rather get the climbing over while I'm still fresh. I though the rest of the walk would be fairly boring woods hiking but there was still plenty to see. This cave is at Top of the Gorge. I should have put something in it for perspective because it is about fifteen feet from top to bottom

After the long downhill we came to another spectacular area. There is a river with a sheer cliff that rises eighty feet above the water. The river makes a huge pool below. It is obvious the water is really deep. All I could think about was how many wild brook trout must be in the pool that no one can access. Again, the photo does it no justice. The trees on top are at least eighty feet above the river.

Above the pool is another covered bridge we had to cross to get back to the car.

A view from the covered bridge

A view from a bench. Mt Liberty in the foreground, Mt Flume in the back. I've been on top of Liberty three times and Mt Flume once.

The sun broke through just enough to light up the summit of Mt Liberty for a minute.

I was surprised that there is a species of fern that is still green despite winter weather.

We saw many trees that look like they are growing right out of rocks along the way.

Our starting and ending point

If I could use one word to describe the scenery, I'd say it was gorge-ous. Get it?

Skate America

   

Madison Chock and Evan Bates

   As you can see from my last post Laurie and I went to Lake Placid to watch a skating competition. The event known as Skate America is part of the Grand Prix series. There are six events throughout the world (USA, Canada, Finland, France, Japan, China). The best athletes get two assignments while skaters with zero chance to win get one assignment. The top six point getters go to the Grand Prix final. These events give athletes a chance to get some international experience. It also gives them somethings to work on if they get scored low for a particular skill or jump.

   I often get asked why I go to figure skating with Laurie. Well, she does watch football with me. Also, it is her favorite sport and she knows all of the competitor's from around the world. I watch enough skating with her to have my favorites, also so I enjoy any good sporting event.

 

Pairs medalists
L-R, Georgia, Japan, Canada

   But for the point of this post, lets look at the Skate America competition through Laurie's eyes...She is a super fan. Remember those kids in school that knew that stat of every player's baseball or football card? Laurie knows who can do what jumps, who is best at different spins, and what each skater's routine looks like. She will rewatch routines almost every night from events as far back as the 1976 Olympics to live events we watched/ recorded over the past weekend.

    For all of it's faults, social media does have its advantages. Laurie can follow her favorite athletes on Instagram and Twitter.  When they post training videos, podcasts, or even video of their dog, you get a better sense of who they are and you root for those people that much more to do well. 

   Because of the easier travel, the Skate America competition had some very good athletes from the USA and Canada including women's champion Alyssa Lui. However, the pairs world champion's from Japan were there as was the team that will probably finish second in the Olympics. 

 

French dance team Loicia and Theo 
remembering their trip to Lake Placid

     Okay, now that I have set the stage on why you can see why Laurie would be so excited to go....Thursday was a practice day open to the public. As part of our ticket package we could go. Practice started at 10 am but we missed some of it due to a three hundred mile drive starting at 6 am. When we got to the Herb Brooks Arena there was barely a hundred people watching practice. I knew this would be the most laid back day with the least rules. So I brought in my 300 mm camera lens and took photos of the athletes. Most of my photos suck but I got some half decent ones. Most of the athletes were not in full comp uniforms and went through run throughs during their allotted time. 

  A French skater named Kevin Amos is very inconsistent but when we is "on" he is great. When he is bad he completely bombs. He had a great practice and after landing a series of jumps as he skated by me I yelled over the boards "that was great Kevin". He turned around and smiled.

Kevin Amos

 Friday was the Pairs and Men's short program. It didn't start until 7 pm so we hung around Lake Placid during the day. Of all the athletes in the whole event I most wanted to see, the ones I looked forward to the most were the Japanese pairs. They are far and away the best team. They are about the only world class skaters we have never seen live.  When we got there we had what you'd consider "end zone seats". Our seats were at a far corner twelve rows up. I was squished and could not enjoy myself. Luckily the arena was about 1/4 full so we moved around and found better seats. The Japanese team had the lead after the short. During the Men's a Japanese man that is not one of their best had the skate of his life and had the lead ahead of the favorite Mikhail Shaidrov from Kazakhstan

   Saturday was the busiest day of the comp. The finals for the Men's and Pairs was one session and another session was the Rhythm Dance and the Women's short. Knowing we were not going to sit in our assigned seats, we went way up to the bleachers and sat in "the nosebleeds". We watched the first group of pairs from there. I was scouting for open seats the whole time.  The arena was still only half full with most of the people sitting across from the judges in the middle (fifty yard line in football stadium terms)

 

We ended up watching from these
seats the last two days. That is the
NBC broadcast booth

We ended up getting seats near the NBC broadcast crew. We were about twenty feet away from former Olympians Tara Lipinski (gold medalist), Johnny Weir, and longtime sports commentator Terry Gannon. Behind us was the international feed announced by Ted Barton

  Both events in the first session were terrible. The Japanese team won gold but made the same mistake they made Friday. The second and third place teams (from Georgia and Germany) imploded and only medaled because of the leads they built up on Friday. None the less, we were happy with our new seats and hoped to get them during the second session. 

    We had to leave the arena between sessions so they could check tickets again. The Rhythm Dance went well and as expected USA's Chock and Bates were in first. In the ladies, a Japanese girl named Rinka Watanabe was ahead of Alysa Liu because she landed a clean triple axle. 

   We ha to pack up Sunday before we left the motel and killed some time before the 2 pm start. We got the same seats as Saturday and the arena had less people. I suspect because Lake Placid is so hard to get to that many had to use Sunday as a travel day. So we moved around at leisure again. Alysa ended up winning the Ladies because Rinka slipped on a combo. Chock and Bates easily won the dance comp. 

   Now as I said, put yourself in Laurie's shoes. As a superfan here is what it was like for her. On day one we watched practice from the front row. We were feet from her favorite athletes. As I said, Kevin turned around when I said "good job". 

   

Terry, Tara, Johnny

 Friday through Sunday, the arena was only 1/4 at most if you took away the two sections across from the judges. Everywhere you walked you'd walk by either an athlete competing, a coach (who usually were ex-skaters). We walked by announcers and podcasters. On the practice day, I got a photo with the Japanese pairs team though I was blinking when the photo was snapped (damn it!). Overall, we counted twenty athletes/broadcasters/coaches we either talked to, said hi to, got a photo of or with (not including while they were on the ice but when we asked if we could take their photo). 

 

Ted Barton and Jackie Wong

 When the French dance teams were done, they sat in our row to cheer on the French ladies, We were right next to them. We ended up taking a photo of them as we were leaving but somehow my phone did not save the picture (damn it!)

   I actually had a conversation with NBC broadcaster Johnny Weir in the bathroom while we were both washing our hands. He was a nice guy. Despite being extremely flamboyant he was surprisingly down to earth. Laurie took photos of her favorite podcaster and the broadcaster for the world feed. 

   Now imagine if this were a a football game an your most rabid football fan friend were there. Imagine going to the game and sitting anywhere you wanted. Players are warming up in the concourse. Players and coaches are sitting in the stands right next to you watching the game. Players are more than happy to taka photo with you. Imagine walking into the bathroom an having a conversation with Al Michaels or Tony Romo like I did with Johnny. Do you believe in miracles? because none of that would never happen at a football game but Laurie got to live it at Skate America. 

Japanese pairs team and blinky
(damn it!)

Lake Placid, NY

 

   Laurie and I went to Lake Placid over the weekend for an international skating competition known as Skate America. Competitors from all over the world compete in the four disciplines. Thursday was a practice day. Friday through Sunday there was competition.

  We had some down time each day. We drove up on Thursday morning and watched practice most of the day. However, competition didn't start on Friday until 7 pm so we had the day to explore Lake Placid. 

Obviously Lake Placid's claim to fame is hosting the 1980 Winter Olympics. This is the site where Al Michaels exclaimed "Do you believe in miracles?" after the USA hockey team shocked the Russian hockey team.

  What surprised me most was that at the heart of it, Lake Placid is really a ski and outdoors town. It is in the heart of the Adirondacks with many mountains over 4000 feet surrounding it. There are hundreds of miles of hiking trails within an hour drive. Not only that, Whiteface Mountain is a ski area that can be seen within sight of town. I read that Whiteface has the longest vertical drop in the east. It is where the skiing events were held during the Olympics.

   Between paying tribute to its Olympic past and relying on outdoor adventure to keep the economy going, it felt very much like Lincoln, NH to me but with a very large Olympic skating venue.

Memories from the USA vs Russia
hockey game

 

   In the photo above- The front stick is from a Russian hockey player

The goalie stick, blue bag, goalie pads were all worn by Jim Craig

The white elbow pads on the wall are Mike Eruzione's

The red "fence" in the front of the photo is a goalie net from the game

  The one thing we planned on doing was go to the Olympic Museum. We spent over two hours there. There is a lot of memorabilia but also a lot of reading. Many of the artifacts are from athletes that competed. By far, the coolest artifacts were from the hockey team. Jim Craig's pads and stick were there. Mike Eruzione's elbow pads were on display as was the net from the game. Jim Craig stopped and amazing 36/39 shots on goal. 

  The other thing I found extremely interesting was Eric Heiden winning all five medals in speed skating. Most athletes are either sprinters or do distance. For Heiden to win everything from five hundred to ten thousand meters is mind blowing.

   Besides the Olympic Museum we walked around town. The weather sucked and the only day that didn't snow on us was Saturday. Luckily the snow did not stick on the sidewalks or roads on Thursday or Friday so walking was still fairly pleasant. 

We tried to look at views of the surrounding area but the low clouds, fog, and snow made looking at mountains virtually impossible. Right next to the down town area where the Herb Brooks Arena and the restaurants and shops are is a lake. You would think it would be Lake Placid but it was a pond known as Mirror Lake. Lake Placid is just up the road a quarter mile or so out of town. We stopped at Lake Placid on Saturay and had a short break in the clouds. The water was crystal clear and I would be drooling over Smallmouth Bass if it was a month earlier and twenty degrees warmer.

Lake Placid

   Back in town we had to get lunch two days. The prices are what you would expect from a ski town. We got a pizza one day that was good. The other day we got a sandwich at a sub shop called Big Mountain Deli and Creperie. ( There are 46 mountains over 4000 feet in the Adirondacks. There are 46 sandwiches to choose from. Each sandwich is named after a mountain)

There is a walkway around Mirror Lake, though some of it is on street walking. The views would be beautiful if it were clearer outside. During warmer weather you can rent canoes and kayaks. There is a toboggan ramp that is right next to the lake. It looks like when the lake is frozen over you zoom off of the ramp onto the ice. 

Mirror Lake looking toward the town of Lake Placid

Outside of town is a ski jump, the one used at the Olympics. You can see it from the Olympic Center . There is a gondola up that people can get tickets for. However, it closed for the season before we arrived. 

Obviously, we went up for the skating but had a nice time in town. The Olympic Museum was great. The sandwich was a little small for my appetite but amazingly delicious.  Those mountains got me interested in hiking them and I may go back.

    There was a legit snowstorm during the skating on Sunday. When we got out of the rink there was an inch of snow being blown by 40 mph winds. We had to deal with thirty mile/hour driving on roads with a speed limit of fifty five for an hour. Luckily, when we got to lower elevations in the Lake Champlain valley it stopped snowing for the rest of the five hour ride home.

Toboggan slide

My first lifer of 2025, Cave Swallow

 

 All week Cave Swallows and a  Pacific Loon were seen in  Rhode Island. Both birds would be lifers for me. I had to wait until Friday until I had a day off. Both species were seen on Thursday so I knew when I went to bed that night I'd have a shot at two species. I was going down to South County anyway to fish but knew I had to bird first.

   Cave Swallows are a bird of the southwest. During specific wind patterns in the fall they get blown all the way from Texas into Ontario on south to southwest winds. When the wind changes to a northwest, they get pushed from Ontario to the east coast. It is a very dependable pattern and you can count on seeing the Cave Swallows if you follow the weather  pattern.  I've never had days off from work to be in the right place at the right time. I've tried on a whim many times to see them but never got lucky. 

   As for Pacific Loon they are very rare and show up randomly. It has become my nemesis bird. I've missed it multiple times. Starting six years ago, even if one was seen, it was always gone by the time I got there. On the other hand, if one was seen on a day I was working, it would be around all day and all of my friends would see it. Though rare, Pacific Loon is the easiest bird  I have not seen in Rhode Island. 

   I started Friday out looking for Cave Swallows at Scarborough Beach. I searched for ninety minutes without any luck. So I went to Blue Shutters and looked for the reported  Pacific Loon. Dipped again. So at noon I went to Charlestown and fish for stripers. I tried in moving water, the mouth, and the beach. Stripers-1 Nick-0. 

   So I went back to Narragansett and tried the beach again. After half an hour just sitting in my car I noticed a swallow fly by. I got my binoculars on it and saw enough color to know it was a Cave. Another guy was sitting in his car with binoculars and I screamed that if he was looking for it it was in front of us. He informed me he had already seen it. 

  This guy happened to be my friend Dave C's brother who I had met once or twice. He got out of the car and looked with me. I had my camera and it was a lifer for him also. I'm sure he wanted me to get a photo for proof that he too had seen it.

   I won't bore you with play by play of the next hour. But I got much better looks at it. Dave's brother left and two other birders came by. One of the swallows kept making passes by us from the jetty to the pavilion. I took dozens of blurry photos and a couple that could be considered bad but passable proof shots. Enough to confirm on ebird. The Cave Swallow is my 349th Rhode Island bird. One more for 350!

Postscript- I caught three stripers before dark. 3 pm-5pm was the best two hours I've had in nature in a long time.