Sun-Dogs, Social Distance Hiking and Porter Sees Elder-things In the Wood
A friend of mine reached out on Monday, wanting to go for a Tuesday sunset hike up Mount Major, one of the more popular minor peaks in New Hampshire, overlooking the spectacular Lake Winnipesaukee. The current situation with MERS-2 (COVID-19) has been isolating for everyone, and after having been with little face to face contact -even at a minimum of six feet - with the exception of strangers milling about the grocery stores for now over two months, the idea really had appeal. Add to that the prospects of catching some great color in the sky and the vista of the lake, and getting in a good relatively strenuous hike this week; I was definitely up for it.
For those not familiar with Mount Major, it is easily accessible from Rt. 11 and is pretty popular. While most are practicing social distancing, it has been routinely packed, sometimes alarmingly for a low density population state such as ours. However, this was not the case as we rolled into the parking lot a little after six, with maybe ten cars in the lot.
The blue trail takes off steeply through rocky woodland from the remnants of an old road. The warm humid air from earlier in the day was blanketed beneath the mixed forest of hemlocks, pine, maples and birch. We kept a pretty good pace, pausing for the explorer-hound extraordinaire Porter, to sniff and stare suspiciously into the woods for an imagined elder-thing; and for all of the cars in the lot below us, we ran into perhaps only four people who were descending the mountain.
The last quarter of the hike is a grinding haul up barren slabs to the peak, where the foundation of a hut constructed by George Phippen in 1925 still remains with stunning views of Lake Winnipesaukee. Alycia and her pup Porter took a much needed rest, and in usual mad-man fashion I immediately set up the tripod toward the obvious shot across the lake. I wasn’t necessarily the most excited by this initial composition until Alycia pointed toward the horizon and said, “Look, there’s still snow”! And she was right, off in the distance was the snow clad peak of that north-eastern juggernaut Mount Washington, the tallest mountain in New England. As is typical though, at least for me…I forgot to pack a piece of kit…this time intentionally, since I was sure I was not going to want it…my long lens.
The ever changing light made it challenging and exciting, and I may have been perhaps narrating what I was doing (not in my not-too-shabby impersonation of the venerable Sir David Attenborough…my internal narrator). The couple on the other side of the hut probably thought, not incorrectly, that I was a crazy person. But, I didn't care. However, swinging the camera to the right, was a better composition of warm light illuminating a birch tree in the foreground, with the steel-blue water of the lake behind it.
One of the struggles of shooting landscapes is to know when to call it quits. With ever changing conditions of light, it is too easy to be focused on capturing an image because the next one could be the image. And, if I was by myself, this wouldn’t have mattered. But, here I was on a mountain-top with my friend who was looking for companionship on the trail. Human interaction. It was time to put down the camera, lay down on the rocks and give the dog skritches, enjoy the setting sun, and just be mindful of the moment rather than mind-full of trying to catch an image, and share time with a human being.
The sun was snuffed slowly by the high-level cirrus clouds moving in from the west, and just to the left of the shrouded sun, was a spot of rainbow-light - something that my hobbyist-meteorologist father calls a “sun-dog”, created by the refraction of light through high-altitude ice crystals. I pointed it out to Alycia who got some great photos of the phenomenon.
But finally, the cool wind on the peak and the fading sun drove us to head back down the mountain. We reached the parking at nightfall, with only three cars left in the lot. It was really good to get out of the house, catch up with a friend, and just share time with someone else for the first time in three weeks. Who knows when we will have something close to a semblance of normalcy. But, this wasn’t half bad.
Still not sure what Porter saw in the woods…