Wanderings

I'm skipping all the "new job" details for now, but yes, I do have a new job as a wilderness therapy guide for a company here in Vermont. I have block scheduling, meaning I work for eight days and then have six days off. This means I have lots of time to go hiking. My first shift ended last Thursday so I've been out a little bit since then. Saturday I went to the Franconia ridge and hiked Mts. Flume and Liberty (it was really warm that day, probably in the upper 40s), Monday I went up to northern NH and hiked Mt. Cabot (also a warm hike), and today I visited the Presidentials and ticked off Mts. Eisenhower and Pierce (not warm at all by any stretch of the imagination). I wanted to get Jackson, too, but due to scheduling conflicts I ran out of time. Pictures are pretty lackluster, but I'll include some because that way you don't have to read as much.

Looking north from the summit of Eisenhower

Looking south to Pierce, Jackson, and a lot more mountains (Cardigan is almost dead center)

Going up Eisenhower

Looking northeast from the summit. Mt. Monroe is just left of center

My first glimpse of the ridge today

The trail was a bit icy

These are the cranberry bars I mentioned previously

Summit of Cabot

These are cranberry cinnamon rolls. They didn't last long

Heading up Cabot. The majority of the hike was in birch glades

Unknown Pond. There are campsites along here and I'd like to stay here sometime

Heading down, looking back at the summit of Liberty

Looking back at Flume from Liberty's summit. Sometime I'd like to just hike right up those slides

Looking at Liberty (left) and the rest of the Franconia Ridge

It's weird to see green and snow. I love ferns

This trail was icy

Looking down one of the slide chutes from Flume 

Disasters and Successes

Last week was a bit of a disaster in the kitchen.

Disaster One: Sauteed onion, broccoli, garlic, and kale on a bed of spinach with an avocado/ginger/lemon dressing. The dressing was actually pretty good. Overall, it was really just a plate piled high with green things. Rachel ate a good bit of her plate, but I couldn't make myself eat it. This led to...

Disaster Two: Grilled cheese. I know, I know. It's not really that difficult to make a grilled cheese sandwich. However, I tapped into my father's mom's genes and let one side of it get burned. I will say that the most appalling part is that I was standing in front of it while this happened. Pathetic. No photographic evidence here, either.

Disaster Three: Friday night. I made a lentil and beet borscht without cabbage. Apparently a borscht is not a borscht if it doesn't have cabbage in it. What it becomes is a beet-beet green-onion-lentil bowl of red beet-tasting water. As an adult, I'm trying to expand my palate and re-try foods I used to hate. Beets still fall into the category of not-my-favorite-food. Rachel and I resolved our problem by ordering pizza.

Unceremonious picture of a bowl of beets

Rachel did manage to save the week by coming up with two meals that were quite good. One was a pork scaloppine we've made a few times, and the other was steak with mushroom sauce and cauliflower puree.

Steak, mushrooms, cauliflower puree and a red wine sauce

Pork with pine nuts and capers on a bed of kale, garlic, and onion

At least the cauliflower was something from my childhood I was trying again. In truth, it was more like a substitute for mashed potatoes (with butter, too!). I'm not sure I'd choose it over mashed potatoes, but it was an interesting change. 

In professional news I accepted the job offer for the wilderness therapy program. I'm excited to be starting something new and am looking forward to the upcoming challenges. We'll see how it goes!

Besides chocking down beets, burned bread, and way too many green vegetables, we also went hiking this weekend. Our original plan was to hike Smarts Mountain, but we (I?) changed that after looking at the weather Sunday morning. A high pressure was building and although it would be cold the winds wouldn't be very high and it was clear. This meant I really wanted to get some good views. New plan: Mt. Jefferson. 

I hiked the Caps Ridge Trail a few weeks ago and was reminded how much fun the trail was. It's a short trip to the summit with some fun, above treeline, rock scrambles. It's nothing too exposed or challenging, it's just a cool trail. We left the car nice and early (a little after noon - oops), reached the summit, and made it back in about four and a half hours. The hike itself was pretty nice - the clouds lifted as we reached treeline, the wind wasn't too bad, and there was enough snow on the ground to make it look like winter without the sub-zero temperatures. The drive back rewarded us with a nice sunset. The hike this morning rewarded us with sore muscles.

Looking up at the Caps Ridge Trail from the first good viewpoint

She was trying to run away before the shutter released

Looking at the Southern Presidentials

Here we could watch clouds forming as the air came up the ridge

Coming up the last little bit

Cyclops shot, but I wasn't looking at the camera in the other one we took

Summit pin. I'm now on a quest to find these

On the way down

Some Tastes and Trails

We've been exploring some new culinary delights while cooking nightly and entertaining family members. Most of it has been courtesy of SmittenKitchen (and her cookbook). Tasty things: cranberry bars (I forgot to take a pic of them before we ate them all, so you'll just have to wait on those), wild rice/kale/onion gratin, a slab apple pie, black bean ragout, apple/cheddar scones, and cinnamon rolls. We also canned another nine pints of applesauce, and threw out about four pints of really vinegar-y apple butter. Note: white vinegar is NOT the same as apple cider vinegar. My bad. Pics of deliciousness.

The beginnings of scones

Cabot Extra Sharp

Ready to be rolled

They didn't last very long, but they also weren't the best scones we've ever had

Yup, three sticks of butter

Four pounds of apples

Fall spices: brown sugar, cinnamon, allspice, cloves

Yes, that's a cookie sheet

It's an apple pie for lots of people!

It's good. Really good.

So, that's what has been happening in the kitchen. In other news, I attended a hiring seminar for a wilderness therapy program. It was a five day experience (a very long interview, if you will) and I enjoyed it and the information I learned. I got a call today offering me a position. I'm torn on whether it's the right step or not. It's good to know, though, that I am still employable in the world of outdoor education. I need to let them know by tomorrow.

I was also lucky enough to escape up to Kingdom Trails today. They officially close on Thursday, so this might have been my last chance to get up there. Thankfully, I've gone up enough to break even on my season pass price (if I go up to ski, I'll be ahead of it since it is good for a year). Today was eighteen miles, so not too bad. Rachel came home and wanted to go running so there was a bit more self-propelled transportation later on, too. Pics from Kingdom:

This was actually taken at home, but there was ice and frost for the entire day. It sometimes made for tricky riding

New trail for me. It was excellent - lots of bridge riding, which was exciting

This was a Jaw, another challenging trail

Vermont!

Back in the Whites!

Recently, I've been lucky enough to spend some time in the woods. We've had fantastic weather this fall.. Really fantastic. Thinks 60s, sun, and hardly any wind. Perfect weather for hiking. I've revisited some old places (like the Presidentials, Tripyramids, and Mt. Moosilauke), trying to find new routes up and down, and I've also gone to new places (like today, when I went to the Percies). Today's trip was really interesting (in my opinion) so that's what's here. 

I had first heard about North and South Percy from a forum I frequent. The peaks themselves are pretty far north; they're still two hours north of here, just a bit over the border in NH. What piqued my interest is that there is an abandoned trail on North Percy which goes straight up some rock slabs. I found out that two people (and a moose) have died on the closed-for-thirty-years West Side trail. I've been a bit bored lately, hiking on all these well kept trails, so I looked forward to the challenge of following an old trail for a change. If I couldn't find it, I'd just go up. Pretty simple.

However, I did find it, and overall it was pretty easy to follow. I could easily make out the blue blazes painted on the rocks, and there were even two cairns still standing close to the summit. I would even say that there were too many blazes. At least they were faded. 

The view from the top was spectacular. Unfortunately it was a hazy day, but I still enjoyed it. There was a small windfarm to the northeast, which I think was beautiful. Further east was Maine and its Mahoosuc range. The south included the majority of the White Mountain National Forest. West was Vermont, and north was Canada. I would happily return to this summit, and probably via the same route. 

Descending North Percy was pretty straightforward. It reminded me of coming off of East Baldpate, although only for about a quarter of the distance. It was a quick out and back to South Percy. There was a summit registry (which I signed - first one since CO!), but the best part of the summit was the view from where I just was. The summit of South Percy is wooded, but there are good viewpoints and it's got a cool little vibe. It's difficult to explain. Some people are disappointed when they come up here, some say it's not worth it, but I certainly think it's worth the trip. It's only ten minutes. 

I ran back down, completely on the trail this time. It's had a lot of work done - there are a good number of stone steps and areas where it's been re-routed because of erosion. I met two older guys who where on their way up and we chatted for about five minutes. It only took twenty minutes to go 1.7 miles! Nice. The footing at the top part was treacherous because it was wet slabby rock, and the leaves did a pretty good job hiding small rocks and roots on the lower section. Still great fun, though!

From a tree in Rachel's yard. We had an entire milk crate.

Mmmmm

Sometimes I feel really old...

This was the first blaze I saw once I got onto part of the slide that wasn't about to kill me.

Steep! And fun.

I saw two tamaracks. I've never seen them on such thin soil, so high, and in a dry area. South Percy is in the background.

This part was great!

No way would I do this if it was wet.

That's a long way down.

There were lots and lots of blueberry plants up here.

Sustainable energy makes me happy.

The trail up South Percy was very green.

North Percy from South Percy.

This was a gravel pit on the access road. There's some cool glacial stream stratification going on. And a huge erratic.