After some random googling and a suggestion from the relatives, I set off for the Hall Mountain Trail at the Bear Brook State Park in New Hampshire. I was expecting a nice little 3 mile jaunt through the woods, swinging by a little marsh, maybe getting to see some water birds or similar stuff.
Yep, didn't happen.
It was the beaver's fault. I swear.
It turns out that this particular park doesn't have very good blazing or other trail markings. I found the trail head just fine, and got onto the right. So that part was fine. I think I even did the first half of the trail correctly. But then there was the beaver. It was all his (or her fault).
You see, one of the major landmarks on the map I had was this relatively small swamp. I could gauge where I was on the trail by where the swamp was.
Well, that was the plan.
Except for the beaver.
You see, beavers like to have their lodges in ponds. But, sometimes, there isn't a pond. So the beaver, being an industrious little dude, will dam up a stream or maybe even a marsh, and make his own pond. Pretty ingenious, right? I think so too. Except when it causes this little marsh to become like 10X as big, and pretty much cover half the interior area of this loop trail.
So yeah, I got lost. My 3 mile hike turned into a 6.5 mile adventure. But despite that, still had a really good time. I went clockwise around the "loop", meaning that I did the toughest ascent first. All the way to the top of Hall Mountain in a little under a mile. It's not nearly as steep as some climbs I've done in the Smokies, but it was still non-trivial . The trail was quite wide, however it was obvious that folks had been four-wheeling recently, and there were a lot of muddy ruts and other wet areas. The top of the mountain itself seemed kind of like one of the balds we sometimes have in the Smokies. The view wasn't fantastic, but that's to be expected when it's still below the tree line.
At some point after this, I got off track and ended up on a different trail entirely. I won't be entirely sure where until I get the GPS data uploaded... I didn't leave the trail system, I just got ... relocated at one point.
Anyway, it was still cool - I saw a porcupine out in a field and got some decent shots of it before I scared it off. It also took me over to a much nicer view atop a granite cliff. I hopefully got some nice source images that I'll be able to HDR into something cool. AND! I saw a porcupine hiding up in a tree. Wicked cool.
Another thing I noticed were all the birch trees! I don't recall seeing many (maybe any) in TN, but they're all over the forests up here. I don't know why, but it's comforting to me. The forest feels very different from TN in general. I think there are more evergreens in general or something.
Anyway, that's it for now. I don't feel like trying to muck with pictures. You have the phone snaps from before to tide you over.
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