Hello everybody!  This is Dickens the hiking Welsh terrier coming to you direct from Connecticut.  It's hard to ignore a day in late November that's predicted to be sunny and 66 degrees.  That's why the parking lot for the Mattabesset trail over Mt Higby CT was full of 25 cars when we arrived at 11:20 AM.

     What a difference between this mild weather and home in Newfane VT where the ground is all covered with icy snow.  We met lots of hikers from CT along the trail and a large number of other dogs.  The first dog we met was Baxter, who is the same age as me.  One person we met was a policeman hiking here from the nearby Police Academy. 

     This is a 5 mile hike if you go to the end of the ridge and back.  What we did today was to hike to the waterfalls, have lunch, and then head east for a while to explore Preston Notch.  There are two spring ponds up here.  One sends a stream west and over the falls.  The other sends a stream east down towards a lake.  We were hoping to see the lake through the trees but it is too far off towards the north.

     After that we headed back.  The sun reflected off New Haven harbor to the south, making it glow in the distance.  It's the only part of Long Island Sound that you can see, because a series of hills block the view of the rest of it.  We were back out at 1:58 PM.   

(Guest blog by Bruce)

     This was a 12 mile hike (round trip) up the Smarts Brook trail to the ridge between Sandwich Mtn and Jennings Peak, and then over to Jennings Peak for some great views of the Waterville Valley region.  

     I started at 9:25 AM when it was still a little chilly, but it warmed up to about 75 degrees and was delightfully sunny all day.  By 10:05 AM I reached the lower waterfall and swimming hole in Smarts Brook, which is really very attractive.  A great place to cool off on those 90 degree summer days.  As the trail ascends the valley and follows the brook, you can see many other waterfalls but they are not easily accessible due to dense foliage. 

     Once I reached the middle courses of the brook, I could see the cliffs on Sachem Peak across the valley.  Unfortunately there are no trails to these cliffs.   The map in my guidebook had several errors in it.  It showed the brook as being on your right hand as you ascend the trail, when actually it is on your left.  It also showed a ridge that you could use to bushwhack down to Sachem Peak, but actually there is no ridge leading to it.

     By 1:09 PM I reached the top of the ridge.  To get to Jennings Peak the trail goes downhill gradually and then ascends steeply.  The map shows it as being more or less flat but this is wrong.  Jennings  Peak has  a  number of interesting lookouts.  I had great views of Mt Washington, Tripyramid, Sandwich, Osceola, Carrigain, and other noteable mountains.  I reached Jennings Peak at 1:35 PM and left at 2:00 PM, not wanting to linger too long because I wanted to get back before it started getting dark.

     On the way down I met a pretty young lady from Ashland NH who was coming down off Sandwich Mtn and was going to take the Drake Brook trail back.  Further downhill, I met a young man coming uphill who told me he had just seen a bull moose with a full set of antlers.  As I descended I looked for the moose but he had left.  However, I did see a series of moose prints.

     When I was near the end of the hike I met a charming young lady carrying her three year old daughter on her back in a kind of rider.  She had two well behaved Springer Spaniels and she was hiking to the lower falls to give them a chance to frolic in the water there. 

     By 5:52 PM I was back out at the car.  It was a pretty hike.  Not too many people use this route to ascend Sandwich because it has the most vertical ascent of all the possible routes, because it starts pretty far down.  One of the reasons the trail is fun is because it is not over used.  If you don't want to go all the way to Sandwich (3980') you can go to Jennings Peak (3460') as I did.  I've already climbed Sandwich twice, once with Dickens and Fenster, and I had also climbed Jennings once before.  Going to Jennings in the fall is definitely recommended because it gets very buggy in the spring and early summer, but now it was fine.

     Hi, this is Dickens again, getting back into hiking on another easy trail.  This time we climbed Gap Mtn, an 1833 foot high mountain south of Mt. Monadnock.  We started at 1:00 PM heading south from the north parking area.  The weather was sunny and mild, perfect for hiking. 

     On the way up we met two dogs:  Athena, a friendly Yorkie who was walking near the parking area, and Baxter, a large but friendly dog.  We passed by a scenic small waterfall.  When we were near the top two hikers warned us that there were dogs on the top who weren't too friendly.  We arrived on the top at 1:55 PM.  There are several nice boulder areas to sit on.  At the highest of these we saw a man and woman and two dogs.  One of their dogs was a mean looking Siberian husky, who looked as if he would attack had he not been tied down.  People who have aggressive dogs should NOT be bringing them on public trails, even if they are leashed.   

     We had lunch on a different boulder area.  There was a great view of Mt Monadnock.  We could also see Mt Snow and Stratton Mtn.  Some birds came by but it was hard to see them.  The summit has a lot of ceanothus, but only a little of it was still flowering.  There are also areas of juniper which is found on a few mountains but not most of them. 

     AT 2:30 PM we started back down.  On the way down we saw and took pictures of a Ravenal's stinkhorn, which is  a kind of mushroom that is not often seen. Coming down we met two friendly dogs, Pal, boxer,  and Pennuchi, a Brittany Spaniel.  We also spoke with two hikers who live on Cape Cod.  We were back out at 3:30 PM.  On the drive home, not far south of the Route 30 bridge over the Rock River, a large black bear crossed the road ahead of us. 

     Gap Mtn is a very enjoyable easy hike.  There were lots of hikers on it.  It seems perfect for children just starting to hike.  Also, the parking lot here (which is free) can be used and one can then hike the Metacomet Monadnock trail up to the summit of Mt Monadnock.  However dogs are not allowed on Monadnock because it gets crowded up there.    

     Hello again, everybody!  This is your favorite Welsh Terrier and mine, Dickens, back on the trail again after a long recovery from surgery last July. 

    For those of you who might not have followed Hurricane Irene in the news, our town, Newfane, suffered incredible destruction.  We had 22 hours of heavy rain, at least 11 inches I am sure, falling on our town after a pretty wet summer.  Our steep and scenic valley of the Rock River flooded badly, taking out houses, bridges and roads.  Many other areas of Vermont were devastated by this terrible storm, which caused worse flooding than the infamous Hurricane of 1927. 

     Six days later, Bruce and I went to the Newfane Town Forest to see how the trails fared in the storm, and in fact they weathered it very well.  We took our favorite loop of the White trail to the Mushroom Road, to the Fox Link, past the waterfalls, to the Yellow trail, to Laura's Lookout, to the Link, and then the Blue trail back to the start.

     It appeared that we were the first ones out on the trail since the hurricane.  We took countless fallen branches out of the trail.  When we got to the ceramic gnome, he had fallen out of his tree, and we put him back.  There were tons of pretty mushrooms on the trail, different kinds than in past years.  We also saw a spring peeper and a newt. 

     We noticed two major blowdowns.  One was north of the switchback.  The other was a large tree that fell across the blue trail north of the Link.  This tree had many branches which blocked the trail. The blue trail here is hard enought to follow normally, even without a blowdown, since it is a fairly primitive trail. Otherwise the trails seemed in good shape.  The forest was moist, but not muddy.  Some of the boulders in Schoolhouse Brook seem to have been moved around by the force of the water, but the trail was not flooded out. 

     The Fox Link sign had pulled out of the ground or broken off leaving no hole where it once was.  The trail sign above it had lost a nail and was hanging sideways.  On the other hand, the new sign we put in last July was in good condition.

     This was a very pleasant hike and I am glad the forest is still in pretty good shape.  You can see photos of the falls, a pretty mushroom, and a newt in the "Pushwagon" photo album. 

(This is a guest blog by Bruce while Dickens is recovering from his surgery)

     Since I have come to enjoy bare rock ledges I decided to re-climb Mt Monadnock by the Marlboro trail, which I had done previously in 1990 with the entire family.  This time, to be different, I did a loop:  Marlboro to the top, then descending by the Smith Summit Trail, the Great Pasture trail, and then the Marian trail back to the lower Marlboro trail. 

     Along the way I met a hiker from Peterborough who climbs Mt Monadnock once every month, and another hiker from Royalston who has climbed it 125 times.  This was my 9th ascent of Monadnock, each time by a different route.  The entire loop took me from 12:00 noon to 6:30 PM, going at a leisurely pace. 

      I have not been able to identify the mushroom that is in the photo album since I could not find anything like it in my mushroom book.  There were tadpoles in a pool on the summit.  Near the top there was a lot of sheep laurel, but it had already flowered.  The so-called Great Pasture trail is steep, rocky, and wooded, the opposite of a pasture.  I enjoyed the loop but I should warn other hikers that the Marian trail ascends quite a bit, more than you might expect from looking at the map. I should also note that dogs are not allowed on this mountain, due to the large crowds of hikers it gets, often hundreds of them on the weekends.

(This is a guest blog by Bruce while Dickens is recovering)

     The plan was for my friend Gary Kling and I to ascend Mt Adams NH (5799') by going up the Caps Ridge Trail on Mt Jefferson (5716') up to the Cornice trail, then take that trail south to the Gulfside Trail, then take that trail up to the top of Mt Adams.  We would then descend on Lowe's Path.  We realized that the descent might take us into the nighttime but we both had flashlights.

     We started up the Caps Ridge trail at 7:52 AM.  The weather was ideal.  Starting up the first cap, we met a young couple and their dog Sequoia, a brindled pit-bull type dog.   We completed our ascent of the caps and then took the Cornice trail, which involved a lot of boulder hopping, but not as bad as the Gulfside trail.

     We had lunch on the scenic Gulfside trail.  Here, we met "Ramblin' Man", an AT thru hiker, who praised the Grayson Highlands in Virginia because they reminded him of the heather moors in Scotland.  Almost all of the Gulfside trail involved hopping over boulders, many of which were sideways or slanted.  If you missed or slipped into the voids between them, you could get injured.  I picked my way through these boulder fields very carefully, but Gary just bounded through them like a chamois, as if he had been hiking on them all his life.  Needless to say I slowed Gary down on this stretch of the trail.  I became very fatigued but Gary stayed as fresh as a daisy.

     The views along the trail and from the slopes of Mt Adams were very dramatic.  We turned back at 3:50 PM.  We descended on Lowe's Path which crossed through a series of grassy tablelands and over Adams 4 (5355').  Here also we had to travel on a path made of jumbled boulders. 

     When we reached Gray Knob Cabin at 6:50 PM, I was so tired out that I decided to spend the night.  Gary, however, still had a reservoir of energy, and he decided to continue downhill to try to finish that evening.

     My night at the cabin went well.  I was given a mattress and a blanket.  At 2 AM in the night, I went outside to visit the outhouse.  I looked up at the night sky and saw a shooting star.  I also saw what at the time I thought was a blazing campfire in the distance, but upon reflection I am sure it was a will o' the wisp.

     The next morning I left the cabin at 6:45 AM and arrived back at the bottom at 11:30 AM.  Here, I met Carol and we went to lunch together, and later stopped at Slicks for some ice cream cones. 

    Overall a very challenging and adventurous hike.

(Guest blog by Bruce while Dickens is recovering)

     This new trail just opened up in June of 2011.  My friend Fred Bump and I decided to give it a try.  The weathermen predicted "Mostly Sunny" but actually it was overcast for the duration of the hike.  I learned about the trail by searching the internet.

     We arrived at the parking lot on Route 2 east of North Adams at 10:24 AM.  Right away we were impressed by the high quality of the trail and the huge amount of work involved to create it.  The hike goes up to the top of a ridge called the Hoosac Range and continues south for three miles, over a series of knolls and one major unnamed eminence (2596 feet high) we decided to name Albertus Mtn after Fred's cat.  Along the way it passes a few nice lookouts and a long series of picturesque stone cliffs that face perpendicular to the orientation of the ridge.

     At 12:09 we arrived at the main lookout on Spruce Hill (2566 feet high) and had lunch overlooking a fine panorama of Mt Greylock.  Here, there was a bit of a breeze (the rest of the trail was calm) and we saw a number of swallows flying around.  When we were just finishing lunch, up came two groups of hikers, the first we had seen.  One group came up the well-known blue blazed Busby trail, and the other came up the new white blazed trail we had used.  Two large hiking dogs also greeted us. 

     After conversing with the hikers for awhile, we moved north to a lesser lookout and continued to rest up prior to heading back.  Here we saw some flowering ceanothus and a couple of yellow butterflies. We started back at 1:07.

     On our return trip we met a young Art teacher whose students had helped clear the new trail.  Later, we met a few other friendly personages coming up the new trail.  We took our time, stopped for a snack of Ritz crackers, and were back out at 3:15 PM. 

     This is a very pleasant, easy trail with some very enjoyable lookouts.  There are no water sources available that we could see, although supposedly there is a pond somewhere off the trail.  On the way back I caught a glimpse of a bird which I think was a rufous-sided towhee.

     (This is a guest blog from Bruce while Dickens is recovering from his surgery).

     The unique thing about this hike is that it went over Round Mtn CT, then over Mt Frissell MA, then to the summit of Brace Mtn NY, covering three states and three mountains in one hike.  It would have been better as a traverse starting in CT and ending in NY, but I did it as a single hike and had to go back over the same mountains I had climbed on the way in. 

     I started at 11 AM and headed up Round Mtn.  This mountain is not high but the trail is extremely steep.  Round Mtn is 2296 feet, Mt Frissell is 2454 feet, and Brace Mtn is 2311 feet.  The trees on Round are rather low and there are many fine rocky lookouts. 

     Formerly Mt Frissell had a reputation for not having many views, but that is no longer the case now.  There are plenty of good lookouts on this mountain.  The slope of the mountain has an interesting marker for the highest spot in Connecticut.  On the way to Brace I met a woman hiking with a boy, I assume her son, who was coming back from the ridge to Brace.  A resident of Minnesota, she had hiked this trail on purpose to reach the high point of Connecticut. 

     Brace Mtn was quite beatiful and very pleasantly windy.  The Catskills in the distance were overshadowed in clouds, as they were when I climbed Alander Mtn to the north of Brace.  Like Alander, this trail has tons of mountain laurel but it was too late in the season and it was not flowering on this hike.   The trail also has a lot of blueberries.  I reached the top of Brace at 1:55 PM and had lunch.

     On all three mountains I saw a lot of swallows.  A couple of them were barn swallows but the rest seemed to be northern rough winged swallows.  I also saw what I think was a rough legged hawk.  I heard some pretty birdsongs but was unable to spot the songsters. 

     All in all it was a delightful hike.  I wouldn't recommend it for dogs because it has no water sources.  For this reason it was a good hike to do while Dickens is out of commission recovering from his surgery.  I was back out at 4:57 PM.

     (This is a guest blog by Bruce while Dickens is recovering from his surgery).

     Two  reasons I never did the popular Welch-Dickey loop hike were that it was steep and that it had no water; therefore I didn't think it would be a good hike to go on with my dog.  Having completed the loop on 7/16/11, I could add another reason:  that half of the hike is on rock ledges where the rock is very rough and jagged and could be hard on a dog's feet.

     Notwithstanding these issues, I did meet four dogs on this hike and they all seemed to be doing fine.  Their names were Maggie, Kias, Luna and Wally.  I think Maggie and Kias were Bernese Mtn dogs.  Luna was a smaller dog but she seemed very energetic.  Wally was a poodle.  They were all very well behaved. 

     This is not a place for solitude because it is touted in all the guidebooks.  I was glad to see families with kids and they all seemed to be having a great time.  I started at 10:29 AM and reached the top of Welch Mtn at 12:15 PM.  The views here were fantastic.  You could see the following mtns:  Noon, Jennings, Sandwich, Tripyramid,
Sachem, Tenney, Moosilauke, Kearsarge, Cardigan and, of course, nearby Dickey Mtn.

     The ledges on Dickey were equally beautiful.  There was a nice view north here showing the Franconia Ridge.  While I was crossing on the tops of the lower ledges, a group of rabbits ran out of the woods and up the trail.  I didn't get a good look at them, but since one guidebook mentions snowshoe rabbits in this area, I assume that's what they must have been.  They looked pretty big and they moved very fast.

     Taking my time, as I always do, and being passed by lots of other hikers, I was back at the parking lot at 3:50 PM. I would say that the loop hike lived up to its reputation as being one of the classic don't-miss hikes of New England because of all the amazing and beautiful ledges.

     This is a very enjoyable hike over the summits of Mt Skakutakee NH (2002') and nearby Mt Thumb NH (1920').  The hike seems harder than the low elevations would indicate because the trails are full of rocks.  At one point, even a boulder field.  Both mountains have pleasant views of Mt Monadnock, Crotched Mtn, the Wapack Range, and the wooded lowlands of Southern New Hampshire.  Of the two, the views on Thumb Mtn are the best.

     When I left Mt Skatutakee to go to Thumb Mtn there were three signs that had been vandalized and were blank.  I thought from the map I had to take the trail on the farthest left.  After descending a long way I realized this was wrong and I came back and took the trail that has white triangles on it.  This led me to Mt Thumb.

     Except for the end of the hike when you come to Jack Pond and its outgoing stream, there are no water sources on this trail.  On my way down I did meet two different groups of hikers who had dogs.  Both dogs were very friendly and well behaved. 

     The loop hike was fun because one did not have to come back the same way.   I heard a lot of birds but didn't see any.  I did see a red squirrel and tree frog.  You could see where there had been pink lady slippers but the flowers were already gone.