The Watcher in the Water

   Few bikes out on the northern corridor of U.S. Route 3 today...in fact--judging from the wide berths and looks I got as I labored up the the lower ramparts of prospect mountain--I may have been the one. Winter excersize is a topic of extremes; either to hot and sweaty (dangerous) or wind chill thrashes your core and it becomes survival. Today I was blessed with a perfect balance, acquired by tuning to senses..
    Ernest Shackleton and the 20-odd survivors of the shipwreck, HMS Endurance certainly didn't wear deoderant, and for serious outdoor enthusiasts I might suggest it is an afterthought if even a care. The body sends information along many paths, but as I rode today it was the first time I got a chemical message to slow down...from my arm pit! I was torquing up to Week's State Park from Lancaster, NH and I caught the sudden scent of me. Normally, I do not notice and it is my hope that others are similarly oblivious, but the smell was sharp, and kind of intruded on my rhythm. At the same instant another sense, hearing this time, beckoned me toward a delightful crinkling, splashing sound away to my right. Intincts and senses are interwoven and the dounble punch found me turning through and over the black-burg roadside crust and skittering accross a crunchy plain to the source of the sound:

Watcher in the Water

 From this gurgling cascade I found sound to ease my mind, and discovered quite a rapidly diminishing heart rate along with the peace. It was not until I got home that I saw the almost Orc-like face peering back at me from place no man could lay. I v-logged some very cold thoughts (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIYUswLwhgo) , overcame a decidedly imbalanced urge to jump in and got back on the road. (More to come...)

Lid Frost

If you are like me you hear a forecast high temperature of 7 or 8 degrees below 0 and your mind screams: "Hike!" So it was yesterday, that such a forecast was predicted, and I heard the call. It was easy to dismiss as bravado--who would know? But, after an hour where nothing else seemed able to compensate for the urge, I got ready.
Nothing is worse than to sweat in arctic conditions--the chill that seeks these moistened areas can shudder your core temp and cut a good time short--so I layered with care, alternating cotton, blend and full synthetic, I would regret a poly-cotton denim  jeans choice for my legs, but only a bit. Army issue arctic flap cap in olive drab and high top moccasins laced tight, over fleece and blended socks. Gorilla glove liners under a cheap pair of fleece gloves, a water bottle and I was off; a fact noted in my wife's raised eyebrow as I set forth.
Sub zero air hits the throat like a continuous menthol cough drop, and takes a while to find the right rate. Over the bunker, past the fox hole and I was on the Heritage  Trail in Lancaster NH, less than a thousand feet from my new home. Turning east, and setting a good pace brought a flush, so I quickly loosened the cap a scarf and tried to equalize pace with energy. The result was lid frost:


At the beaver dam, I snapped this (amazing what the suns light will reflect off of!), and continued for another half hour into the lower Kilkenny Range. The trails were groomed for snow machines and after so much easy pack, I plunged into a beckoning, but ill-used, side trail.
It was about twenty minutes into a morass of criss-crossing trails and steady elevation that I realized my phone battery/GPS was down to 1% power, for having pinged itself dead looking for a tower. No big deal, under normal conditions, but I was starting to feel a bite in various places--including my brain.

I stopped at a junction, guaged the sun and just wasn't sure...
It was like my inner compass wouldn't communicate with my 'commiter'. Discretion being the ever better part of valor, I turned onto a bearing that would have to cross my path...not even a hundred feet and I hit the snow machine trail and was heading home. A great hike, one breath of wind would have changed all that, though. The glory of sun on snow through frost-blurred glasses, put a glow on everything I saw on the way.

Tenney Hill Stroll

Found myself in the Dunbarton, New Hampshire back-country on snowshoes today, man, I've got to get out more. After summiting the 1/2 mile low slope,(http://store.usgs.gov/b2c_usgs/usgs/maplocator/(xcm=r3standardpitrex_prd&layout=6_1_61_48&uiarea=2&ctype=areaDetails&carea=%24ROOT)/.do) I meandered north and caught sight of a lonely, be-towered and unknown peak off to the east-north-east, I will guess it to be Nottingham Mtn. Tenney Hill summits just off the thousand foot wide swath cut by the powerline that saws through the three-town region (Bow, Dunbarton, Weare). These man-made views are a treble-edged pike: We need power, straight line plotting is economically prudent, and we would never get these vistas without them. Makes you wonder if the native peoples ever caught a glimpse of the terrain.

Enjoying the fresh powder under shoe, I poked down a ravine on my return circuit and came upon an unusual scene. A series of springs have created a flood plain of sorts in the area of the northeast slope of Tenney Hill, and here at the bottom I found a masonry turret base built up to about 7 feet and maybe 9 feet in diameter. It has two narrow windows framed (but missing) and a doorway. In the center stands a very old two stroke engine on a decaying metal stand. Below this a well hole has been dug and square-framed. I forgot my camera, but am curious about the story of this garrison quality turret-base or well house, planted on an open spring.

Accross the plain stands a 12 x 10 cabin with a bubble skylight and one single sash window. A rotted birch has stove in the left side wall and nature is the only recent occupant. As I peered in, some small woodland creature stirred and sought refuge deep under the single bedframe with its gnawed and matted mattress. A delapidated and partially collapsed woodstove in the near right corner sits opposite what may be an old writing desk. No other signs of man's presence were revealled. It all goes to show what can come of a stroll in the New Hampshire woods. As I picked my way to the road I was amazed at the diversity and sheer volume of tracks, urine and droppings throughout the basin, this must truly be and intersection in the wild.