I’ve spent nearly three months hobbling with a knee injury. It was a triumph for me to cover three miles in an hour on the Nashua River Rail Trail this morning.
It’s bone-dry in my area, as in most of New Hampshire. Even so, buds and blossoms are turning up. A week ago, a few sprigs of grass were poking through the dry leaves at trailside. Today, bluets and violets were blossoming, and there’s much more greenery despite the drought. Rain is forecast for later this week – and a day of that should brighten up the trail in earnest.
What’s new in your area? What’s blossoming in spite of the weather?
New Hampshire’s Piscataquog Rail Trail finally reaches across the Piscataquog River, connecting Manchester with Goffstown. I put off some workday tasks long enough to walk the trail from its east end all the way across the new bridge. With all due respect and gratitude to the many people who made the project happen, I didn’t stay for the ribbon-cutting and speechifyin’. Trails are for walking.
On the Manchester side, looking toward Goffstown, at long last. Ellen Kolb photos.
On the Goffstown side.
I call this right neighborly.
Second Street bridge, near east end of Piscataquog Rail Trail.
The Queen City: Manchester, New Hampshire, seen from the Hands Across the Merrimack bike/ped bridge.
The Singer family is behind many philanthropic efforts in the Manchester area. Their generosity helped to complete the bridge project.
The Andres Institute of Art – “a sculpture park to delight the whole family,” as its website proclaims – occupies much of a hill alongside Route 13 in Brookline, New Hampshire. Over 70 sculptures are scattered around the property, which is laced with walking trails. The property is open dawn to dusk daily, and there’s no fee although donations are welcomed.
I spent an hour here on summer’s final weekend, and took these photos that show a sample of the artwork to be found along the Andres trails.
At the top of the hill, a surprising seat from which to take in the view. (Yes, the seat’s from a bowling alley.)Mount Monadnock, seen from the top of the hill at the Andres Institute.Of all the sculpture along my way, this was by far my favorite:Souls Of Peace by Gerard Montonri.Alignment by Hoa Bich Dao. The path uphill cuts a diagonal line in the background.Mbari House by Geoffery Nwogu.Plenty of trailside asters today.Drawing Sculpture/The Myth, by Satoru Takata.
August 2015: new span will soon link the Goffstown and Piscataquog (Manchester NH) rail trails. Ellen Kolb photo.
I take back every pessimistic word I ever wrote about the difficulties that would have to be overcome in order to link the rail trails in Goffstown and Manchester, New Hampshire.
A month ago, there was a great big empty spot where the old railroad trestle over the Piscataquog River used to be. Now, sooner than I thought possible, a new bridge for pedestrians and bicyclists is in place. It’s not yet open, but I checked out the area today and saw a serious construction effort underway on the approach to the Manchester end.
Workday or not, an 80-degree spring day calls for some trail time. Decked out in business clothes and dress shoes, I spent midday on a tame but worthwhile path: the Rockingham Recreational Trail from its Lake Massabesic trailhead near the Manchester/Auburn town line.
Rockingham Recreational Trail (Portsmouth branch), Auburn NH, east of NH Rt. 121. Ellen Kolb photos.
The trail extends more than twenty miles east to Newfields, which would make an interesting bike ride some other day. Pressed for time today, I walked only about a mile and a half before retracing my steps back to my car. I took my time to enjoy the birds (quite a variety near the lake) and take a few pictures from a boat launch. The trail is unpaved but wide and well-trodden. It was popular this midday: moms with kids, a guy fishing in a trailside pond, lots of dog walkers, even one dirt biker in defiance of the no-motorized-vehicle rule.
View of Lake Massabesic from boat launch just off Rockingham Rec Trail and NH Rt. 121.
I was in Mine Falls Park today, a few days shy of the winter solstice. Leaves are down, everything’s brown. One plowable snowfall at Thanksgiving was heavy enough to bring down some tree limbs that plopped into the canal, and they’re likely to stay there until the Nashua parks department has time to remove them next spring. The faintest skin of ice is forming on the canal now.
Late-fall snow brought down this tree into the Mine Falls canal. Photos by Ellen Kolb.
The path alongside the canal has been cleared of deadfall (pushed into the canal, I expect). I saw fresh white “X”s chalked here and there, marking trees to be cut down or trimmed at some point. Sometimes, Mother Nature gets there first. I walked past one broken-off oak tree with a big white “X” on what’s left of the jagged trunk.
Things were oddly quiet along the path today. This is a busy urban park, but today, the area in which I walked was nearly deserted. Once I crossed the Whipple Street bridge, I didn’t see a living thing until I spied the swans in the cove near the Millyard. It was so quiet that I could hear the traffic on the Everett, nearly a mile away. That’s very different from my visits on summer afternoons, when on nearby Ledge Street, life is lived very much out loud. Late December is a quieter time.
A trail in Mine Falls, with everything brown and bare, awaiting winter.
Granite State Walker 