Time for a Climb

It’s blueberry picking time in these parts so last Saturday I thought I’d visit one of our most popular blueberry picking sites and get a climb in as well. The day was supposed to be hot and humid as so many have lately so I got up early and headed out to Pitcher Mountain in Stoddard; about a half hour north of Keene.

Since blueberries cost as much as $3.50 a pint in stores $1.50 a quart is quite a good deal, but of course you have to pick them yourself. Payment is often trusted to the honor system.

The trail is a drivable road to a point; wide with a relatively easy grade. If I was 20 again it might take me 15 minutes to make it to the top but these days I find interesting things to photograph along the way, so it often takes me twice that amount of time. Or maybe that’s just an excuse to stop and catch my breath.

I’ve climbed this mountain so many times that I really don’t know the number, but I’ve never seen bush honeysuckle (Diervilla lonicera) here before. On this day it was everywhere, all along the trail. This illustrates perfectly why I follow the same trails over and over; you simply can’t see it all in one hike and sometimes I wonder if you could say that you had seen it all even after 100 hikes.

Bush honeysuckle flowers are tubular and pale greenish yellow at first before changing to orange or purplish red. This is the first time I’ve ever gotten a photo of them that I could be satisfied with. The long red mushroom shaped central pistil is a good sign that you’re seeing bush honeysuckle. In the fall the leaves turn from green to yellow to red. Bumblebees, butterflies, moths, and hummingbirds visit the flowers and moose and deer like to browse on the branches.

There is always a feeling of having stepped through a doorway into another world when I see this view. After living in the closeness of the forest for so long here is suddenly open space, and it seems vast and infinite. I have to stand here and stare foe awhile trying to take in the immensity, and if I remember I’ll take a photo.

The old road gets a little rocky from this point on but I’ve seen trucks drive up it. Walking up it is a little trickier, but not too bad.

I keep hoping to see the Scottish highland cattle that live in the fields that border the trail but I haven’t seen them yet.

As if to live up to its name meadowsweet grew beside the meadow. This one had a blush of pink, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen. I just found out that there is a native meadowsweet called Spirea alba and an introduced species called Filipendula ulmaria. In photos they look identical, so that will complicate things somewhat. It looks like I’ve got some studying to do. I also discovered that I misidentified the scientific name of the meadowsweet that appeared in my last flower post.

Before you know it the fire tower appears above the trees. The last time I was here it was manned and someone was washing the windows, but I didn’t see anyone this time. One benefit of climbing early is the sun doesn’t glare off those windows.

The old cabin seems to tilt more to the left each time I see it, but it’s hard to see in this photo. It’s only a matter of time until a snowy winter takes it down, I imagine. I’m guessing that it was probably built so the fire lookouts could stay around the clock. It makes me wonder what living up here was like. For a lover of solitude it must have been just about perfect, even without indoor plumbing.

The 5 acres at the very top of Pitcher Mountain are owned by the New Hampshire Forestry Commission. They first built a wooden fire tower here in 1915 but in April of 1940 a fire destroyed 27,000 acres of forest, including the fire tower and all of the trees on the summit. It was the most destructive fire in the region’s history. The present steel tower is a replacement and, because of the lack of trees, offers a full 360 degree view of the surrounding hills. Visitors are sometimes welcomed in to see the views.

It takes some serious hardware to keep the fire tower from blowing off the mountain. Strong steel cables pin it to the bedrock in several locations.

The wind turbines over on Bear Mountain in Lempster, New Hampshire were visible. It’s often so hazy that they can’t be seen at all. As the trees in the foreground of this photo show it was quite breezy on this day and the windmills were pointed right into it. There was a time or two when strong gusts came through and I wondered if they might blow me over.

I don’t know the name of this hill that is nearest to the mountain but I like the way it rises out of the surrounding forest like an ancient burial mound. It’s hard to believe that all I could see was burned and treeless less than a century ago. Nature heals itself quickly.

Clouds were casting shadows on the forest below and I sat for a while watching them move over the landscape. I used to like doing the same when I was a boy. I didn’t notice the many undulating hills and valleys rising and falling off into the distance until I saw this photo.

Blueberry bushes are everywhere you look here, all along the trail and all over the summit, and you can often hear blueberry pickers that you can’t see. As this photo shows the berries aren’t quite fully ripe but I was still surprised that I didn’t meet any pickers this day. In fact it seemed like I had the whole mountain to myself. Black bears love blueberries too and I’ve heard that they’ve been seen here during berry season, but I didn’t see any of them either.

Common goldspeck lichens (Candelariella vitellina) cover the bare bedrock in several places. At least I think that’s what they are; there is an alpine species that apparently looks much the same unless you have a microscope to see the spores with. My new camera does well with macros but it can’t get quite close enough to see lichen spores.

The body (Thallus) of the goldspeck lichen is kind of egg yolk yellow and the tiny round fruiting bodies (Apothecia) have a slightly raised rim. This is a crustose lichen that I usually find on rock, but it can also grow on wood, bark and soil. I know of a few trees that are covered with it right in downtown Keene. Unlike many lichens it doesn’t seem to mind car exhaust.

A flower I’ve never seen grows in the cracks in the rocks at the summit and I was amazed that I had never noticed it before. Mountain white cinquefoil (Potentilla tridentata) is also called three toothed cinquefoil because of the three large teeth at the end of each leaf. The white 5 petaled flowers are small; maybe a half inch across on a good day. They are said to bloom for 2 or 3 months and make an excellent choice for a sunny rock garden that doesn’t get too hot, because they don’t like heat. They must be struggling this summer because it has been hot. We’ve had a long string of mid-80 to 90 degree days.

There had been a thunderstorm the night before and it helped fill the natural birdbath a little, but the darker line on the stone in this photo shows how much has evaporated. I love how the sky reflects so much blue into this small puddle.

If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things in nature have a message you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive. ~Eleanora Duse

Thanks for coming by.

 

 

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Time for a Climb

A friend of mine who moved to California many years ago came back east for a visit recently and, since it was a beautiful summery day with low humidity we decided to climb Pitcher Mountain in Stoddard, New Hampshire. This mountain was named for the Pitcher family who settled here in the 1700s. The trail is actually a road so the fire wardens, technicians, and others can easily drive almost all the way to the top. Hiking it takes about 15 minutes with no stops.

Before long you reach the pasture where Scottish highland cattle are kept. They weren’t here this day, but there were plenty of wildflowers to admire.

Grasses were also flowering. They are beautiful when they bloom.

 

Nearer to the top the trail gets steeper and rockier.

Before you know it you’re at the old ranger station. There is a shed and an outhouse out in back.

It isn’t hard to imagine the mighty winds that must blow up here. The fire tower is tied down to solid granite in several places so it doesn’t blow off the mountain.

Ironically the original wooden fire tower built here in 1915 was destroyed by fire in April of 1940. 27,000 acres of forest burned, including the fire tower and all of the trees on the summit.  It was the most destructive fire in the region’s history and burned the top of the mountain right down to bare granite. There are 16 active fire towers in the state, but this one is only manned when the fire danger is high. It has microwave transmitters and receivers on it, and I’m never really sure what to think about that.

Blueberry bushes have colonized the mountaintop and this is a favorite spot to come and pick them. Sometimes entire families will come and pick buckets full of berries. There are acres of them and there always seems to be enough for everybody.

Others come for the views, which on this day were quite good.

I always have to take a close look at the lichens when I come here, even though they never seem to change. Orangey-yellowish common gold speck lichen (Candelariella vitellina) and black and white tile lichen (Lecidea tessellata) appear here with small spots of pale yellow sulfur fire dot lichen (Caloplaca flavovirescens.)

 

I took this shot more for the clouds than anything else. I like the way that they float off into infinity. According to Henry David Thoreau mountain tops were sacred and mysterious places to Native Americans and they never visited them. “Only daring and insolent men go there” he said, but I didn’t feel particularly daring or insolent on this day.

 

Deep striations in the granite are a reminder that this entire region was once under ice. It’s hard to imagine ice thick enough to cover these mountains.

 

Even on mountain tops, trigonometry.

As you start back down the path on this, the second highest mountain in the region, you are greeted by a view of Mount Monadnock, which is the highest. The sun coming through the clouds was doing some strange things to the colors of the hills, making them look like a painting.

You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again. So why bother in the first place? Just this: What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen. There is an art of conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up. When one can no longer see, one can at least still know. ~Rene Daumal

Thanks for coming by. Happy first day of summer!

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Climbing Pitcher Mountain in Winter

We had another warmish, sunny weekend day last week so I decided to see how climbing Pitcher Mountain in winter was.

Pitcher Mountain is in Stoddard New Hampshire, a small town north east of Keene. The town was named after Colonel Sampson Stoddard of Chelmsford, Massachusetts, the charter being granted to him and others on May 10, 1752. The population has fluctuated over the years, falling to as low as 100 people in 1900 to around 1000 today. According to the town’s website the Congregational Church was organized in 1787 but the building in the photo wasn’t built until 1836.

  

Even though Pitcher Mountain is, at 2,152 feet (656 m), the second highest mountain in this area after Mount Monadnock, most of the elevation can be gained by driving so you only have to hike the last 300 feet. In fact, if the gate that the fire warden passes through was open you could drive almost to the top with a 4 wheel drive vehicle.

According to the good folks at the Cheshire County Historical Society Pitcher Mountain gets its name from the Pitcher family, who settled in this area in the late 1700s. Their house was located just a stone’s throw from this sign, right where the parking lot is today. They must have been hardy souls. This is rugged country for farming.

 

The elevation gain may be only 300 feet but the trail is steep enough for me to have to stop occasionally to huff and puff and look at interesting things. Several web sites say that if you don’t stop you can reach the summit in about 15 minutes, but what is the hurry?

The trail skirts a large pasture in places. The owners raise Scottish Highland Cattle here but I didn’t see any of them this day.

 

Scottish highland cattle look well equipped for our winter weather. This photo is from Wikipedia.

 

It isn’t long before you get a glimpse of the fire tower through the apple trees and blueberry bushes. The spacing of the apple trees tells me that there used to be an orchard here. Now people come from miles around to pick the blueberries, and with 50 acres of bushes there must be plenty to go around.

 

The old fire warden’s cabin still stands but doesn’t look like it sees much use even though the tower is staffed from April through October. There is a privy out in back of the cabin so there probably isn’t any running water here.

 

The 5 acres at the very top of Pitcher Mountain are owned by the New Hampshire Forestry Commission. They first built a wooden fire tower here in 1915 but in April of 1940 a fire destroyed 27,000 acres of forest, including the fire tower and all of the trees on the summit.  It was the most destructive fire in the region’s history. The present steel tower is a replacement and, because of the lack of trees, offers a full 360 degree view of the surrounding hills.

 

Lovewell mountain lies somewhere to the north, just north of Washington, New Hampshire but I couldn’t see it on this day because of the haze. These hills make up the Monadnock highlands which separate the Connecticut and Merrimack rivers.

 

This hill off to the west looked almost close enough to touch but it would have been quite a hike to the top of it from here.

 

This is the view of the pasture we passed in photo number 4 from above. The cattle have quite a view.

 

I wondered if these steel rods hammered into the rock were once used for tying down the fire tower.  It was pretty cool with a gusty wind on the summit, so I didn’t stand around wondering for too long.  I was also interested in the lichens. The steel rod was about 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch in diameter, so that should give you an idea of how small the lichens were.

 

Common goldspeck lichen (Candelariella vitellina) is a crustose lichen that seems very granular when you get a close look at it, and this is the closest I’ve ever gotten in a photo. You can just make out a couple of its round, almost microscopic fruiting bodies (apothecia) in the center of the photo. This lichen contains a yellow pigment called calysin and was once used in Sweden to dye wool yellow. It must have been difficult scraping it off the rocks that it grew on and I would imagine that yellow wool in Sweden was very expensive then.

An areolate lichen is one in which the body is made up of many little lumps or islands. The tile lichen (Lecidea tessellata) in the above photo fits that description well. Its black fruiting bodies (apothecia) are even with, or slightly sunken into the surrounding body (thallus). There are 136 species of tile lichens and identification is difficult without a microscope. I’ve made a guess at the identity of this one hoping that someone will correct me if I’m wrong. Tile lichens grow on rock in full sun and can grow through winter in temperatures that are just above freezing.

 

As you head back down the trail you are greeted by a view of Mount Monadnock to the south, the only mountain in this region taller than the one you’re standing on.

I’ve learned that everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you’re climbing it. ~Author unknown

Thanks for coming by.

 

 

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