National Parks: an anniversary to celebrate

August 25, 2016 / Ellen Kolb

I’m told that today is the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service. Huzzah! I treasure my trips to the gems of the park system. This is my little thank-you note to the NPS team.

Acadia National Park, Maine.

I love Acadia, and I love it even more in the off-season. Best trip there I ever had was on a blustery, showery October weekend when I had the carriage trails practically to myself.

Acadia’s carriage trails get heavy use in the summertime, but October finds them quiet and inviting.

When I visited Yellowstone, bison greeted me as soon as I crossed into the park on Route 20. My one trip was during a week before Memorial Day – a shoulder season, post-winter and pre-summer, with no traffic jams. A week is too short a visit; there’s so much to see, and choices must be made. I felt the same way after seeing Yosemite.

Geysers are all well and good, but be sure to get away from Old Faithful to find the Yellowstone River.

A springtime visit means seeing the bison calves – from a distance. I was safely in a car when taking this photo.

Grand Geyser is more impressive than Old Faithful and draws smaller crowds. I loved it.

It wouldn’t have occurred to me to visit Grand Teton National Park if I hadn’t gone to Yellowstone. On a map, Grand Teton looks like an afterthought compared to its imposing neighbor to the north. It’s a marvel in its own right.

The Teton range from across Colter Bay Village. The summits were in cloud throughout my trip.

Another side of Grand Teton NP: looking east from Signal Mountain.

I like my local hikes just fine. They’re affordable, for one thing, while a trip to any national park farther away than Acadia is a bit of a reach for me. I’m glad I’ve done some reaching, though. We have treasures out there.

Hike safe card: yes, I’m in

December 29, 2014 / Ellen Kolb

New Hampshire Fish & Game is selling a Hike Safe card beginning on New Year’s Day, in an effort to boost the search-and-rescue fund. Given the amount of time I spend on trails, and with my boneheaded decisions from a day on Monadnock more than a year ago still fresh in my memory, I’m going to plunk down the $25. Hunters and boaters have helped fund Fish and Game’s rescue work for years by means of a surcharge on their annual licenses. It’s about time hikers like me got into the act.

Hikers with a Hike Safe card will not be responsible for repaying any rescue costs incurred due to the hiker’s negligence. Reckless or intentional behavior is not covered. In other words, Don’t Be Stupid.

FAQs about the program are answered on the Fish and Game web site. The card is available for online purchase only.

Pack Monadnock via Raymond Trail

August 21, 2014August 24, 2016 / Ellen Kolb

The view from Pack Monadnock’s summit was a treat even on this cloudy day. I hiked up via the Raymond Trail for the first time. The score is Ledge 1, Hiker 0 after a slight slip on the way down, and I keep a first aid kit in my pack for just such occasions. The hike was otherwise uneventful. Rocky stretches, but not as ledgy as the Wapack Trail up the mountain. Unlike the Wapack and Marion Davis trails, Raymond Trail doesn’t start from the Miller State Park parking lot. It goes up the west side of the mountain from a trailhead on East Mountain Road that has parking for three cars (maybe four in a pinch).

The Wapack Range stretches to the south, with the ridge of Temple Mountain in foreground.

View to North Pack Monadnock.

An auto road reaches the tower site at Miller State Park (Pack Monadnock).

View to Mount Monadnock.

The white addition to the trail sign is an invitation to come to the Pack Monadnock summit for September’s raptor watch.

Coming from Manchester via NH 101: drive west through Milford, Wilton, and Temple. Take a right at Mountain Road, about 0.2 mile past the Miller State Park entrance. Mountain Road becomes East Mountain Road. The trailhead is on the right, about a mile off of 101.

Hollis: Buffalo, Tough Cookie & Beaver Brook

February 2, 2014July 22, 2014 / Ellen Kolb

Dan Szczesny, readying his slide show

cover of B&TC’s book

I got to shake hands today with a pair of hikers I’ve been wanting to meet. Dan Szczesny and his hiking partner Janelle are better known in the blogosphere as Buffalo and Tough Cookie. They were at the Hollis, New Hampshire library today with a slide show about their book, The Adventures of Buffalo and Tough Cookie, recounting their year-long quest of New Hampshire’s “52 with a View.”

And just what might 52-with-a-view mean? I had never heard of such a list before discovering Dan’s blog. The only New Hampshire hiking list I had heard of was the 48 4000-footers. 52-with-a-view is a creation of the Over The Hill Hikers of Sandwich, New Hampshire who compiled a list of fifty-two peaks under 4000′, each featuring good views.

The audience in Hollis today consisted of an energetic group of kids who knew more about basketball than hiking. Dan didn’t worry about getting through the whole slide show as planned, cheerfully adapting his presentation to the everyone’s questions and comments. If he and Tough Cookie come through your area for a book signing or slide show, make a point of stopping by. You’ll enjoy the conversation and the wonderful photography.

I was very pleased when Dan told me their next hiking project and book are in the planning stages now: a trip on the Cohos Trail. Followers of this blog know how much I love the northern part of that trail.

Following the slide show, I took a short drive to the trailhead on Rt. 130 for Beaver Brook and spent an hour in the woods. It was a day for YakTrax on my boots, with thin snow cover melted-and-refrozen in many spots. I saw one couple on cross-country skis having a rough time of it. The temperature in the upper thirties felt positively balmy after the bitterly-cold month just ended (although bear in mind I’m a bit of a weather wimp).

There’s logging going on in Beaver Brook this winter, although no equipment was in use today. I appreciated the quiet. There are orange arrows spray-painted into the snow as traffic-control marks for the trucks, and signs affixed to some trees with an explanation to passersby of how forest management – which includes careful logging – has been part of Beaver Brook Association ever since it was established.

Showing those loggers where to go

looking north from Bouchard Bridge on Beaver Brook

Memorial Day in Boston

May 28, 2013January 28, 2026 / Ellen Kolb

I try to manage my infrequent trips to Boston so as to catch good weather, since so much of the city is a treat for pedestrians like me. Yesterday was Memorial Day, perfectly clear, with a high temp of around 70. Perhaps ten days a year have conditions so perfect for pounding the pavement as a camera-toting tourist.

“That’s not a trail,” you’re sniffing. My reply: “Is, too.” I haven’t been to every part of the city, but as someone who Will Not Drive In Boston, I assure you it’s an urban walker’s dream.

Yesterday’s trip was inspired by two things. The memory of the atrocity of the bombings at the Boston Marathon last month is still fresh. I wanted to make my own quiet, private statement that no terrorist is going to bomb me into being scared of the city. Prompted in part by gratitude for the overwhelming support for the city expressed by people from everywhere since the bombings, and no doubt partly to say that the city is very much still open to tourism, the Museum of Fine Arts offered three days of free admission over the holiday weekend. That clinched it. I plunked down $22 to Boston Express for a bus ride to South Station.

Ironically, when I got to the Museum, I found a line outside about 200 yards long of people waiting to get in. That’s a great testament to both to the Museum and to the city’s low fear-factor. I wasn’t in town to wait in line, though, so I moved on.

Yesterday was Memorial Day, and Boston honored Massachusetts’ war dead with a simple but moving display of over 30,000 American flags on Boston Common. That’s one flag f

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