Last Saturday was a beautiful sunny day with temperatures in the 50s F. Sunday, the weather people said, would be even better with wall to wall sunshine and temperatures in the 60s. In New Hampshire such predictions for a December day are enough to get people really excited, but unfortunately a fog rolled in overnight and at 10:30 am on Sunday our landscape still looked like the photo above.
Not only had fog rolled in but cold as well, so this wasn’t just ordinary fog. No, this was freezing fog.
Everything was coated in rime including the roads if you could believe the road watchers. I didn’t happen to see any icy roads but maybe I was just lucky.
I had planned the night before to show you a June day in December with sunshine, blue skies, and green grass, so I had to come up with a plan B. If there’s one thing you learn as a nature blogger it’s that you have to be flexible and take what nature gives. Make all the plans you want, but nature will do as nature pleases and you’ll either go along or be left out of the game. Anyhow, in a pinch I thought I’d climb one of our many hills to see if I could get above the fog. When I reached the bottom of Hewe’s Hill in Swanzey I was presented with the view in the photo above.
This white pine (Pinus strobus) at the trail head really was white, but with frost.
The trail was wet but easily climbed. This is a quick, easy climb and that’s why I chose it. I was afraid the sun would come out and burn off all the mist before I could get up above it, which is exactly what happened when I tried this last year on Mount Caesar in Swanzey. It’s a bit of a letdown to climb as fast as you can only to finally reach the summit and huff and puff as you watch the last wisps of mist disappear before you can even turn your camera on.
I didn’t expect to see any spider webs because I thought any sensible spider would be doing whatever spiders do in the winter like maybe sleeping, but there were spider webs to be seen. They looked more like someone’s kite string had tangled in the bushes than the beautiful crotchet like spider webs you’d see in the corners of the Addams Family mansion but there they were; strings of ice.
The trees wore long stockings made of tree skirt moss (Anomodon attenuates.)
Blue turkey tail fungi (Trametes versicolor) decorated the logs and fallen branches.
A slice of bright sunlight made me think that I had spent too much time dilly dallying along the trail and had once again lost my chance to get above the fog.
In fact my chances weren’t looking at all promising. The mist I saw from the top of Mount Caesar last year burned off quicker than I ever would have believed it could.
But finally there it was, and this was the first glimpse. I had made it, but only just in time.
Is this what a forest fire looks like from above, I wondered?
The cloud was beautiful as it washed through the valley like a stream but silently, without even so much as a sigh.
Careful, we don’t want to take the fast way down. It would most certainly be our last step.
I visited with my friends the toad skin lichens (Lasallia papulosa) while watching the mist roll on. They’re very shy and only grow on hilltops, but since I always lean on their rock when I come here I’ve gotten to know them well. They were being woken by the first rays of the sun and that made me wonder how much light a lichen needs. I know that they produce their own food through photosynthesis but beyond that I know very little about their light requirements. I think this one is one of the most unusual and beautiful of our lichens.
All too soon the mist started to yield to the power of the sun and evaporate.
And then it was gone, just like that, with nothing left but a soft haze, and I sat beside the toad skin lichens wondering about all of the people who had missed it. I wondered if they knew how peaceful it was up here, and I wondered how many knew that most of their troubles and fears would vanish like the mist had if they just spent more of their time in places like this one.
I knew how the person who blazed the trees must have felt when he or she painted this smiley face because I had smiled myself all the way down the trail. And who wouldn’t, after such an interesting and beautiful morning?
This is the same view that appears in the 4th photo in this post just two hours later, so I am able to show you a June day in December with sunshine, blue skies, and green grass after all.
Glance into the world just as though time were gone: and everything crooked will become straight to you. ~Friedrich Nietzsche
Thanks for stopping in.
I’m glad you made it to the top before the mist disappeared. We seem to have missed out on our misty mornings this year, it’s either been raining or too warm.
We’ve had a few lately but usually they’re few and far between and hardly ever happen on weekends.
Being above mist or cloud gives you a really special view. I love the rays of sunlight coming through the trees. You have really caught the beauty of the low light as well as the sunshine. Amelia
Thank you Amelia. That was a great day!
Reblogged this on Dawn of Divine Rays and commented:
Thank you, Allen. Wishing you a very blessed and happy week. Namaste
You’re welcome Agnes, and thank you. I hope you also have a great week!
Thank you for hiking up top for us! It was beautiful!
You’re welcome Eliza, and thank you!
You had me smiling here “…I thought any sensible spider would be doing whatever spiders do in the winter like maybe sleeping, but there were spider webs to be seen. They looked more like someone’s kite string had tangled in the bushes than the beautiful crotchet like spider webs you’d see in the corners of the Addams Family mansion…” and I never stopped smirking until the end. What a wonderful climb! So glad you got to spend some time with your ‘friends’ and love that you saw the irony in how others miss the simple pleasures.
Thank you Martha. I’m going to have to find out what spiders do in winter. I don’t think I’ve ever heard.
I’m glad this post made you smile. We all need to do that more often, I think!
Another beautiful post, Allen. I am so pleased you managed to walk fast enough to catch the fog in the valley before it disappeared. Your writing is so eloquent and your photos excellent. The views you took looking down on the fog and the shot of the rays of sunlight through the trees are my favourites.
Thank you Clare. You can never seem to plan on fog so it always comes to me as a surprise. I’m glad I made it up there in time to catch it too! The sun coming through the trees was another surprise!
We get quite a few foggy days during the winter but not too many with a hoar frost. I love them; especially when the fog disappears and the sun comes out and all is a white sparkly wonderland!
That’s just the way it was that day!
🙂
Lovely shots. We did see a car off the road on Sunday morning on our way to Mt. Major. The fog off Lake Winnipesaukee had frozen on Route 11 making a sheet of black ice. Had never seen that happen before.
Thank you. That sounds like a jaw clenching trip around the lake for sure. I didn’t hear of any accidents here, thankfully.
Gorgeous, gorgeous photos. Especially that third one.
Thank you!
A wonderful post. Thanks.
You’re welcome, and thank you.
Very pretty! You caught both sides of an excellent day!
Thanks Montucky! I wish I could have gotten just a little higher though.
What a great day for taking photographs and what excellent use you made of it.
Thank you. It turned out to be a fine day after a dicey start.
Superb photos of the misty valleys between the hills! I really like the icy spider webs, the lichen, and the rays of light through the trees also.
Great timing for this post as well, I think that you solved a mystery for me. We had exactly the same weather last weekend, very thick fog. I could hear gulls and geese flying overhead, and I wondered how they navigated in the fog, but they were probably flying above it.
Thanks Jerry! Yes Hewes hill is only 912 feet high so it would be easy for birds to get up above that kind of ground fog. They were all quiet when I was up there. I don’t remember hearing a single bird, which is odd for that area.
I wonder if they can fly through it. It was pretty thick!
Beautiful collection of pictures. I wish we had the toad skin lichens here. I enjoyed your hike!
Thank you. I’m not really sure if the toad skins grow in Illinois or not. They’d probably be someplace with some elevation if they did.
I doubt it. We’re short on elevation, plus are a lot hotter.
Stunning pictures here, Allen. But your writing is even more fabulous. Lines such as: “The trees wore long stockings made of tree skirt moss.”
And also: “And then it was gone, just like that, with nothing left but a soft haze, and I sat beside the toad skin lichens wondering about all of the people who had missed it. I wondered if they knew how peaceful it was up here, and I wondered how many knew that most of their troubles and fears would vanish like the mist had if they just spent more of their time in places like this one.”
That’s beautiful stuff, Allen.
How’s the book coming along? (… she nags.)
Thanks very much Cynthia. Quite often it seems like these posts write themselves and I’m here just to do the typing, so I don’t know where stuff like that comes from. It just comes.
The book is still just an idea with a sketchy written outline, I’m afraid. I thought I didn’t have enough time before but now with my new job eating up two more hours a day, and I’m sure of it.
It will happen when it does. In the meantime, your writing is taking on a life of its own, and this is obviously the path you need to travel before the book takes form. It was that way for me, except it took 25 years and then some! Don’t take that long…
Beautiful. I don’t remember being above the clouds ever except in an airplane; something I’d love to do one day.
Thank you Sara. This is one of those times when everything has to fall into place at just the right moment for it to work, and I’ve only had 2 chances over the last 5 years. Still, I never really made it above the clouds. I was more even with them but it was still something to see!
We had similar weather here. Love the shot of the trail with shafts of sunlight! Always feel closer to whatever that is that’s beyond us when I’m in the woods.
Thank you. Yes, the woods are a very spiritual place, no matter what the weather, and I can’t stay away!
Fog and frost have such a quieting effect, don’t they? While it might be an annoying combination for driving to work, it sure made a great day for a blogger (and a blog reader). Very nice.
Thank you Judy. Yes, it was very quiet up there. I can’t even remember any birds calling.
We’ve had that same thing happen several times over the last week and I agree that driving to work in it is no picnic!
Fog can make for some wonderfully peaceful feeling images. I did see a 2 car accident on Temple Mountain Sunday morning. There were some icy roads, but nothing a little common sense couldn’t overcome. Love the frost on the spider web. Glad you made it to the top before all the fog burned off. Surreal and peaceful.
Thank you Laura. Surreal and peaceful are great ways to describe how it was. I’m not surprised that Temple Mountain was icy. That one used to try my patience every time I drove over it in winter.
Thank you for climbing the hill fast enough to get those lovely pictures from the top.
You’re welcome Susan. They still don’t look as good as what your brother sees in Scotland, but I keep hoping I’ll see something similar one day.