NH fire towers: always worth a hike

November 18, 2014November 18, 2014 / Ellen Kolb

The architecture of fire towers is pretty simple, stark and functional. With the exception of the glorious stone tower at Weeks State Park, they all look pretty much the same, distinguished only by the number of antennae and dishes attached. But oh, the wonderful hikes I’ve had to each one of these towers … with more to come.

Loveliest fire tower to be found anywhere, in my opinion. Weeks State Park, Lancaster NH.

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

Pitcher Mountain tower

This tower at Pawtuckaway State Park is being re-built in 2016.

Mt. Kearsarge, Winslow & Rollins State Parks. Probably the prizewinner for number of communication dishes on a NH fire tower.

Fall, now muted

November 16, 2014November 16, 2014 / Ellen Kolb

Is it mysterious, or just poorly focused?

November, Naticook Lake

I walked to Naticook Lake again this week – a familiar place to me in summer, but I’d never really noticed it in autumn before, so every recent walk there has been a little journey of re-discovery. I came across it in the oddest light late in the day. I saw the last of the colorful leaves floating on the lake, so out came the camera phone for a quick shot. When I reviewed the photo later, there was this muted hazy look. The camera itself was fine; other shots taken that day were sharp as could be. Somehow, I had caught the light on the lake at just the right time for this almost-smudgy look. I used a high-resolution setting, with Auto exposure and no adjustments to white balance. Had there been a macro setting, the shot would probably be clearer, but less interesting IMHO. I deleted a photo of the same scene taken on the “Cloudy” setting, because it imposed an unnatural shade of yellow on everything.

The park has grown quiet with the athletic field no longer humming with youth football, now wrapped up for the season. Too cold for tennis, I guess, since the courts have been empty on my recent visits. I share the lakeshore with only a couple of people at a time, all of us just passing by on our walks, shedding our workdays one step at a time.

A photo that worked

November 12, 2014August 12, 2020 / Ellen Kolb / 2 Comments

Photo by Ellen Kolb, taken at Beaver Brook Wayside, Colebrook NH

I always have a camera with me when I’m hiking, but that doesn’t make me a photographer. I’m just a hiker who likes to document my trips. Most of my photographs fall to the Delete button: badly framed, or out-of-focus, or just-didn’t-work.

This one DID work – and it came about by accident. I was at a lovely little roadside area upstate, setting up to photograph a waterfall. I glanced down, and right in front of me was a stunning butterfly on a stunning flower. I changed gears immediately and went to work with the macro setting on my camera. I probably couldn’t have come up with a better shot if I’d spent a week planning it.

This was an accidental success. What I’d like to learn is how to be successful on purpose. I’m a point-and-shoot kind of hiker, but I know better photos aren’t going to happen unless I put some thought into the process. How can I frame the big scenic shots? How can I control depth of field? Will I ever make the leap from pre-set buttons to manual control?

(And what kind of butterfly did I capture, anyway?)

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.

All to myself

November 7, 2014November 7, 2014 / Ellen Kolb

Once upon a time, my first stop on a multi-day hike was at the shore of Clarksville Pond. I had a “reservation” for a spot to pitch my tent, meaning I had phoned the landowner and asked permission to stay on her property. She insisted that I take one of her cabins instead – “the weather can be nasty.” When I saw the shoreline spot she had set aside for me, it was like I’d won the lottery. I never got to thank her in person; all our dealings were by phone. Solitude at its finest: just me and a loon and the sound of a little boat bumping gently against the dock as the wind picked up. No lullaby needed.

Close to Home

November 3, 2014November 3, 2014 / Ellen Kolb / 3 Comments

A few short weeks ago, this was the view of Blueberry Island from a park near my house. Fall was coming. I knew that within days I’d be wearing a sweater and raking the lawn (and I was right), but on this particular afternoon, something drew me to this dock, a three-mile walk from my house. It’s on the town beach at a modest-size lake. I used to take my kids here for swimming lessons every summer. This is where my son got a trophy at the cardboard boat race the library used to sponsor. In this park is the hill – or the accursed hill, as I sometimes called it – that I used for uphill intervals as I trained for my first half-marathon. Near the beach is the community tennis court where my mother-in-law liked to take her grandchildren.

We lived in town when this property was acquired. A family that had operated a summer camp on the site for many years offered the land for a ridiculously low price, and at town meeting (which we still had back then), residents voted to accept the offer. I didn’t know then how much time I’d be spending at the park and its trails and its little beach.

On this day, camera in hand, I simply stood on the dock and breathed in the early-fall air at the end of a workday. The place, the view, the sheer delight of not having to be anywhere else: I was home.