Connect, slowly

November 10, 2014January 28, 2026 / Ellen Kolb / 6 Comments

I live in a textured place. Nothing dramatic or showy, but interesting. Hills here, watercourses there, ledge all over the place: it adds up to very few straight roads and not nearly enough bridges for convenience. The Nashua River in southern New Hampshire could use a few more bridges, and if you don’t believe me, try driving through Nashua during rush hour. Hollis, the next town upstream, is a much quieter place. It gets by quite comfortably with one bridge over the river, connecting a small quiet town with a much busier one. There’s something about this bridge, though, that speaks to me less about connection than about rest and pause. I wouldn’t be surprised if someday I saw a sign here saying Don’t be in such a hurry to get from here to there. Stop awhile.

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

First day of Spring on a foot of new snow

March 20, 2013May 23, 2014 / Ellen Kolb

Flexible work hours meant I could take a quick late-afternoon trip today to Beaver Brook Association in Hollis. I had the place to myself, as far as I could tell. I haven’t had nearly as much time to go hiking this winter as I would have liked. Winter went out yesterday with about a foot of snow in this area, and Spring began today with sunshine and temps in the 30s. Wonderful.

Location: Beaver Brook Association, Hollis, New Hampshire. See www.beaverbrook.org . The trailhead I chose is on NH Rt. 130. 0.8 mile west of NH Rt. 122. Parking lot (unpaved) is on the south side of the road.