Dancing on the mountain

Last Sunday Dianne Eno and Fusion Danceworks performed their 25th Anniversary Celebration of Dance on the summit of Mount Monadnock.  The preceding week was miserable--rain, fog, damp, clouds, dark. The dance was postponed from Saturday because of the threat of rain.

As we drove to the mountain, we saw that the summit was covered by clouds.  Rain wasn't in the forecast, though, so we weren't too worried about it.  We parked at the headquarters and fought our way through the black flies along the White Dot trail almost to tree line.  With my extra camera gear and both a mid-weight jacket and a rain jacket, I was definitely slow on the uphill sections (which, of course, is virtually the whole trail). The two boys left the two adults in the dust--er, mist. We had some nice views over the countryside, just about until we got to the treeline which is where the cloud cover was hovering.

At the top, the performance had just gotten underway maybe 10 minutes earlier.  We expected to be much later, as we didn't get on the road anywhere close to the time we planned, and the hike went a little slower too, but there had been some technical issues with the sound equipment and the attempts to fix it meant we missed less than we otherwise would have.  In the end, the sound system was inoperable, so virtually only the dancers and the sound man got to hear much.

It was pretty cool on the top, and I was definitely glad I brought the jacket. The hike up was hot and sweaty, but on top there was a cool breeze, temperatures probably in the 50's. It would have been very uncomfortable to stay any length of time without the jacket.

The dancing was marvelous as always!  Magical, in a way, as on this occasion the dances were taking place in fog.  And not just your run-of-the-mill fog!  The fog was blowing in and out so that one moment everything around the dancers was nice and clear, and the next you could barely see them.  Literally, the visibility was less than 200 feet (60 meters) at times. The clearest that it got probably was less than 1/4 mile (400 m).

I managed to get some photos and a few videos. The contrast was at times almost non-existent--a middle-gray scene surrounded by zones 4 and 5 1/2. The brightness level changed only slightly with the fog blowing in and out, from gray to murky.  In the end when developing the photos, I wasn't sure how bright I wanted to make things. Should I leave things how it really felt--dark, dreary--or make the sky lighter and let more color through? For most shots, I opted for the lighter optimization. The videos were short--I had to take still photos, after all--and the wind noise occasionally gets in the way. But not too bad nonetheless.

Going down the mountain, the two boys again were way ahead of us adults. I kept the jacket on the whole way down, but probably should have taken it off. We followed the White Cross trail down the mountain. It was quite wet and muddy in spots (as was the White Dot trail on the way up). We adults definitely felt the exercise and were getting pretty beat well before we reached the bottom. Of course, the college boy who had been on the crew team was ready to go up again as soon as we reached the bottom. (When I was a couple of years younger than he, I had camped for a week at the mountain and typically did two hikes up and down a day. One day, we did it three times.  We snickered a little at the fellow near the start of the trail who told us we'd never be able to get to the top at the pace we had set!)

Tired and sticky, we made it back to the car and were ready to head home--after a stop at Kimball Farm just outside Jaffrey.

Wachusett Meadow Audubon Society Reservation--Brown Hill Loop

The weekend was turning out a bit better than predicted--the rains were going to hold off until Sunday afternoon instead of Saturday afternoon, so we went out on Saturday. One of us did not want to goto Mt. Wachusett, so we decided to head for another nearby location with hills, Wachusett Meadow, a property held by the Massachusetts Audubon Society. 

We have a membership, so we just signed in and checked the map fo rthe route we wanted to take, and off we went.  On the way in, we noted that the Meadow was holding a "Bird and Breakfast" event, so I was concerned that it would be very crowded, but this was already afternoon, so it wasn't too bad.  We had barely gotten started though, when we ran into old friends who had stopped to look for a yellow warbler that they had heard.We spent a few minutes in conversation, then we went our separate ways.

The Brown Hill Loop is reached at the upper reaches of a meadow. We considered starting up the Birch Trail to cut off some of the hike, but after going along it for a short distance we were unsure that it was going where we wanted. A quick look at the map revealed our problem: We had grabbed a Mt. Wachusett map by mistake and couldn't confirm how the Birch Trail went.  So we backtracked a hundred yards or so to take the more certain route.

The day was mostly cloudy, but not too dark. The leaves were still coming out on the trees, so the canopy was thin and the leaves themselves were a light green. This gave the hike thorugh the woods a lighter feeling than we would have in the middle of summer. The black flies, unfortunately, were getting to be quite annoying.

The trail undulates up and down, left and right as it slowly makes its way around Brown Hill. While we did pass a few small groups of fellow hikers, it was generally pretty quiet. Quiet enough that I kept reminding my fellow hikers to keep the noise down.  That advice paid off--suddenly, a deer burst out from very close in front of us! It ran into the woods to our left not too far away so we could still make it out.  Frances and Gary stopped to get photos while I continued on. The trail swung a bit to the left, bringing me closer to the deer, who was now watching me intently.

Deer along the Brown Hill Loop trail at Wachusett Meadow. (Click to enlarge.)

The deer watched as my route turned back to the right and went away from it. Then Frances and Gary started to follow the trail, and the deer became nervous, bounding off farther into the woods. It was then that I saw the second deer, ahead of the one we initially spotted. By watching carefully, we could see the two of them making their way more slowly through the woods and up the hill.  While we thought we'd get to see them later, it turned out that we didn't.

We passed the eastern junction of the trail up to the Brown Hill Summit and enjoyed the walk around it, until we got to the western junction of the summit trail. Here, we waited as a group we had passed earlier came down from the summit, and headed up, ourselves.

Right around now, Gary found a collection of dog ticks on his socks.  Frances quickly picked them off and threw them away from the trail while Gary barely was able to keep from panicking--or pretending to nearly panick as a pre-teen can do.

After a quick look around from the top of Brown Hill, where the black flies were least bothersome, we turned back the way we can, went by the Glacial Boulder, and finally through the meadow. Gary managed to pick up one more tick along the way. We gave each other a tick check, then headed home. (We managed to find one more tick, on Frances, after we got home. It had found itself a comfortable spot and was starting to attach itself, but hadn't quite gotten there yet.)

Monadnock--The Marlboro Trail

On Saturday, we got a late start but managed to get to Mt. Monadnock's Marlboro Trail head in New Hampshire at about 2:00 PM.  The day had been pretty variable--beautfully clear in the morning, then increasing clouds. It was supposed to clear again, but it looked a bit threatening as we started the hike.

This was my first time on the Marlboro Trail in perhaps four years. A couple of years of various physical issues interfered drastically with the weekly hikes I used to make. But Saturday was going to be the first time for the year, and maybe we'd be able to do some fairly frequent hikes later on.

I should have re-read my own description of the trail. The foot of the trail was steeper than I had recalled it. Not terribly steep, mind you, but certainly it went up a lot more than I thought it would. And depsite the hiking I've been doing on Mt. Wachusett, I was still struggling here.  (My friends Richard and Beverly had commiserated with me a couple of hours early about how much slower we had gotten in the past few years.)

The weather cleared as we continued up the trail, which on the lower slopes had a number of soggy and muddy areas. There were a few small sets of stairs here and there that Jim had managed to install. Generally, the trail was in good shape. Cairns were common even at the lower elevations, although the painted square trail blaze wasn't the capital M I expected until we got up to the first rocky clearing. 

We stopped to rest there--the other two seemed to be more tired than me at that point, although I was breathing hard when I caught up to them there.  We looked around a bit and enjoyed the views. Gary wanted to see Mt. Wachusett, but we couldn't quite pick it out from this spot. (On the way down, we saw that it was just at the shoulder of the mountain to the south.)

We continued up, taking a few minutes at the junction with the Marian Trail, just a little more than half way to the top.  We were all starting to get pretty beat by this point, but oped to continue up a little farther.

After leaving the deciduous trees behind, we were in all evergreen forest. A steep part was ahead of us, and lots of evergreens. The other two were looking like they had had enough, even though they said they'd go all the way if I did. Check the time: An hour and a half to this point,with at least half an hour to go--and probably more like 45 minutes. And then back down.  We decided not to push it, so we caught our breath, and a few photos, and turned around.  Half an hour later we were in the car and heading home, with a commitment to climb Mt. Wachusett again midweek, and to come back to Monadnock on the next weekend to head for the top.

The view to the northwest from the Marlboro Trail.

See the information about the trails on Mt. Monadnock.