A PAIR OF MORNING HIKES

It was great to get out on two recent beautiful mornings...

EAST PONDS LOOP: 9/2/16

A fun morning hike to East Pond and Little East Pond with my brother Drew and my nephew Mike, visiting from Connecticut and Brooklyn, respectively. This is a very pleasant 5-mile loop with 1000 ft. of elevation gain.

Drew and Mike at East Pond on a cool, breezy morning, after a pretty mellow 1.4 mile climb.

 
Beams from a dam built for the Tripoli Mill operation (1910-1916) of the Livermore Tripoli Co., which dredged diatomaceous earth, or tripoli, from the bottom of East Pond and processed it at a mill down by the junction of the East Pond and Little East Pond Trails. There is lots of interesting information on this operation at http://whitemountainhistory.org/Livermore_Tripoli_Co.html

Looking across at East Scar Ridge and the deep gap through which the trail passes en route to the Kancamagus Highway.

Geocaching!

Dark woods along the East Pond Loop, an enjoyable 1.5 mile meander between East Pond and Little East Pond.

Ferns and birches along the East Pond Loop.

Mike lines up a ferny shot.

The dry summer has lowered the shoreline at Little East Pond.

Mike and Drew at Little East Pond.

View across Little East Pond to several peaks of Scar Ridge. I love the wild aura of this shallow little water body, tucked into a high pocket at 2600 ft.

Strolling through tall hardwoods along the old railroad grade section of Little East Pond Trail.

A foundation at the Tripoli Mill site.

Found it!

WELCH MOUNTAIN: 9/4/16

A perfect early morning for hiking a ledgy peak before a busy day at the store. On the trail at 6:45 am with only one other car in the big Welch-Dickey parking lot.




Arriving at the south ledges of Welch. The trail corridor is delineated by the logs.

Looking back at the Dickey Cliff.

Up the Mad River Valley to the Tripyramids and Sleepers.

Looking up to the top of Welch.

Jack Pine, a northern species that in the White Mountains is found only on Welch (but not Dickey) and a handful of other locations such as Chocorua's Carter Ledge and the Webster Cliffs. It grows on poor rocky soils, often taking over in an area that has been burned due to its fire-resistant cones. It's believed that there was a major fire on the southern spurs of Mt. Tecumseh - including Welch and Dickey -in 1820.

Ledges along the trail.

The big granite slab on the south slope of Welch.

South to the Campton Range.

Peering into the sun towards Sandwich Dome.

Carr, Kineo and Cushman behind Cone Mountain and the Dickey Cliff.

The trail squeezes through this crevice.

The upper part of the climb leads up over vast sheets of granite.

Along the upper ledges.

A corridor through the scrub.

At the mostly bare summit.

Dickey Mountain behind the topmost summit ledge of Welch.

Looking west across the Welch-Dickey bowl. Mount Moosilauke is in the distance on the right.

I saw no one on the climb until I met this fellow who had camped on the summit and was heading out to do the loop over Dickey. After I posted this photo on the store Facebook page, there was a message from Tom Groleau: "That's me."

The Sandwich Range in silhouette.

North to the wild spur ridges of the Tecumseh Range.

Heading back down the ledges.

Nice hemlock forest on the lower slope of Welch. On the way down I encountered a total of 62 people and 14 dogs, and more hikers were pouring into the parking lot.