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.

Following the slide show, I took a short drive to a 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.

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.