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Going Home. October 9, 2011

Posted by littlebangtheory in Art and Nature.
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So the rain never stopped, the pall never lifted, and I spent the better part of Sunday limping home with wrinkled finger tips, chillblained knuckles and two pair of soggy boots.

Along the way I kept pulling over for Yet Another Try, with a roll of paper towels tucked into my raincoat to keep my dripping hands from swamping my precious camera gear.  As often as not I got the works in place only to see that the desired results were not to be forthcoming, packed it all back up and pulled back out into the home-bound traffic.

C’est la guerre, n’est ce pas?

But I did manage to get a few images.  “Perseverance perseveres,” as I like to say.  And here they are.

Along the Kankamagus Highway, the Swift river rages from days of rain:

Tributaries swell their banks, flushing tannic acid from the decomposing forest duff:

The colors were pretty good here:

And with the mountains still obscured by clouds, I got yet more river shots:

With everything I had with me saturated to the point of near-uselessness, I wandered up over Kankamagus Pass, stopping only to photograph this freshet erupting from a roadcut:

Then I packed it in and headed for home.

There are a couple more weekends of color left in the season, and hence a chance that I’ll get another shot at capturing it.  But for now, that’s what there is.

Road Trip, Part III – The Road Home. June 26, 2011

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So after we both had stupendous omelets at a breakfast place in North Conway, Lizz went off to scout Autumn foliage shoots for some friends who would be coming by in October, and I set about noodling my way home.

Being in North Conway, and having frittered away the better part of my youth rock climbing there, I was drawn to the two big ledges looming over town.  I started with Cathedral Ledge:

…four hundred feet of splitter cracks and corners, providing some of the most satisfying climbing in the East.  There were plenty of Young Bucks (and Does, presumably) engaged in The Frittering this day, including a party on The Prow, a steep line up the tallest feature on the cliff:

I did this route too many years ago to recall much besides the weight of the load in my pants and the exhilaration of flowing upwards with the trees below looking like moss.  The top-out was a mixture of relief and disappointment, with the last step signalling both safety and the end of the adventure:

But on this day I was only an observer.  I took the photo and moved on, driving to the top with clean shorts and a diminished appreciation for life.

A short hike took me to a view of White Horse Ledge, another of my old haunts.  It’s totally different in character, slabby rather than steep, but lacking anything like positive holds and requiring delicate balance and precise footwork:

I’ve found the climbing here to be much more Zen-like, with the finality of a misstep mitigated by the focused flow of upward motion.  No thoughts about the terminal road-rash of 800 feet of Dynamic Retreat are allowed as one balances upward on unseen bits of friction.

But then it was time to head out and begin the Southward trek.  I headed down past Conway, where the Swift River flows into the Saco:

…beneath a scenic covered bridge:

…where butterflies played on hawkweed:

…and dragonflies warmed their wings in the cool summer sun:

… then headed up the Kancamagus Highway through the Pemigewasset Wilderness toward home:

The trip was short but sweet, with good company, great memories and the rejuvenating essence of Nature all around.

Then it was back to the Real World of work and home.

And that’s OK too.  😉

 

 

 

Last Weekend In New Hampshire. January 20, 2010

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On a day trip with my friend Lizz.

She drove, I slept.  It was pretty cush.

We struck a glancing blow to a sunrise in Portsmouth, then headed on up to The Kank(amagus Highway) and the trailhead for Champney Falls, a cool spot where, on a good year,  there are some radical ice climbs.

The weather was great for hiking, and my lame ankle held up well for the hour-or-so approach.  The trail was well packed and the walking was easy, though at times icy.  I focused on my footwork to avoid tweaking my damaged joints.

We got to The Falls in time to find a small group of guys top-roping thick ice at the left end of things:

It looked like great ice, thick and steep, but it wasn’t the thin stuff the place was known for.

We dropped our packs and broke out the cameras and started playing with the light.

Now, Lizz and I met each other as ice climbers, and we both have decades of mindful experience under our belts.  So it’s hard for us to stand around and watch  people climb, especially when they’re sketchin’ and looking insecure.

And these guys were.   It’s probably not evident in this photo to a non-climber:

…but Lizz and I were fairly crawling out of our skins watching them, and we made a tacit agreement to put our points back on and polish up our Mad Skillz so we might be of some use as role models in these situations in the future.

Anyway, here are a few more shots from the day.

Ice on a blue sky wall:

Dendritic icicles in the stream bed:

Frau B. setting up a shot:

…and what she saw:

…a distant Mount Tripyramid (we think. There are a ton of tightly-packed peaks in The Whites.)

We ended the day down at the Swift River:

…well-frozen, that.

Then we stopped at Rocky Gorge Scenic Area.   The footbridge over the river:

Not the best light, but it was what it was.

All in all, a great day, topped off with a quick dinner at a brew pub/smoke house, and a nice nap on the ride home.

Thanks, Lizz.  😉