Pleasant Mountain

Last Sunday we took our final end-of-autumn hike to Pleasant Mountain in Bridgton, Maine, located  at the Shawnee Peak Ski Resort about 20 minutes from our house.  The advantages of hiking this time of year are:

1.  Due to cooler temperatures you never get overheated when you ascend the mountain

2. No bugs!

3. Fallen leaves mean mostly unobstructed views

4. Fewer people on popular trails

That said, there are just as many disadvantages.

1. You’ve missed the glorious colors of the Fall Season

2.  The fallen leaves often obscure the trail and trail markers

3. The fallen leaves make for a very slippery and slow-going surface to hike on

4. The fallen leaves obscure rocks, water, mud, and uneven ground.

Although we had lots of fun, the actual hike was less than spectacular.  There was a grey cast to the sky (shortly after the end of the hike, it started raining), and the haze meant I wouldn’t be getting any amazing pictures that day.  Still, it was good to get out in the fresh air, and it beats stair climbing in a gym any day!

There are many different trails to reach the summit of Pleasant Mountain, which is only 2006' high. We took the Ledges Trail, which rises about 1800' in less than two miles - not particularly difficult.

This sign reminds hikers to wear bright orange so that hunters won't mistake hikers for prey. Officially there is no hunting on Sundays in Maine, but there are more lawbreakers than there are game wardens, and we prefer to be safe rather than sorry!

If not for the blue blaze trailmarker painted on the tree, we would have wandered off the trail that was hidden by heavy leaf cover. It's very easy to get lost on late aurumn hikes due to faded or sparsely posted trail signs.

about 2/3 of the way to the top, granite ledges provide nice views of the many lakes and ponds that ring all sides of Pleasant Mountain

We were greeted by extremely high winds when we got to the top. Here Spencer tries to stand his ground while his ears are blowin' in the wind

An old, boarded-up fire tower sits on summit of Pleasant Mountain

Taking a rest on the summit, my husband chats on his ham radio with other "hams" transmitting from Maine and New Mexico.

Our topo GPS records our latitude/longitude and elevation every 5 seconds as we walk . It overlays this data with a topo map to produce a summary of our hike. (click to enlarge)

If you’d like to read more about Pleasant Mountain/Shawnee Peak and access an excellent trail map, click here.

A Thousand Shades of Grey

The lush greens of summer and the vibrant golds, reds, oranges and purples of autumn are long gone.  While winter landscapes are often bleak and stark, they have a beauty all their own.  Who knew that there were so many shades of grey?

Little Pond after the storm, 4 pm Wednesday, November 23 (click to enlarge)

White Wednesday

Yesterday it was in the 50s, with crystal clear blue, sunny skies.  This morning we woke up to heavy snowfall – 10″ as of this writing, with more expected later this afternoon.  Fortunately, I had just bought some lined, waterproof snow pants for my husband and myself at the bargain price of $10 each.  They sure came in handy today!

Here I am with my dog, snowshoeing next to the house. When the going gets tough, the tough get going! (click to enlarge)

Spencer towels off after our walk in the snow

White Mountain Winter Texting

While shopping at the TJ Maxx located in North Conway, NH in the White Mountains, I came across strange-looking winter mittens:  a hole where the thumb should be.

I thought it was a defective pair until I looked at the label.

(click to enlarge)

What will they think of next?

Shabbaton at the Shul on the Beach

A Shabbaton was held Parshat Va’yera (Veteran’s Day weekend) in Old Orchard Beach, a 7-mile stretch of beautiful sand and ocean along Maine’s southern coast, and my husband and I  were excited to attend.  For one thing, my husband doesn’t get that many opportunities to daven with a minyan.  It’s always nice to meet new people from different Jewish communities.  And as part of the Maine contingent, we felt a responsibility and desire to participate since frum Maine Jews are so few and far in between.  We had been Shabbos guests in Old Orchard Beach in September (you may read about the town’s Jewish history in a previous blogpost by clicking here) and were looking forward to returning.

Jewishly speaking, Old Orchard Beach was in its heyday until the 1960s, although they still get a small summer crowd and do have a summer minyan.  Congregation Beth Israel is a magnificent but small-sized jewel of a shul built in 1912, supposedly by a Jewish community member who was also a boat-builder, and that influence is apparent in its interior architecture and design.  It has always been an Orthodox synagogue since its founding.  Unfortunately, to my knowledge, there are no young people with small children who are members, so its future in the next 20 years is uncertain.

There is a sizeable contingent of traditional Sephardi Israelis who operate the many t-shirt and beachware shops along the main drag, and of course the ubiquitious electronics store is Israeli-owned, too.  Catering primarily to tourists (mostly French Canadians, Mainers, and people from Massachusetts), the concessions and stores are only open during “the season” (aka the summer months).

an Israeli-owned electronics store, boarded up for the winter, will re-open for the summer. (click to enlarge)

But before I could even think of attending the Shabbaton, I had to find a place to board my dog.

Here in rural Maine, most dogs are working dogs.  They may guard a farm or home; herd sheep; retrieve ducks shot in marshes and bogs during hunting season; track and hunt down bears; be hitched to sleds and race during winter; scale mountains with their owners during hikes; aid in search and rescue in the mountains.  Many rural dogs are left outside year round, sheltering in an outdoor kennel or cage insulated with straw.  Few are “indoor” dogs living in the lap of luxury as mere accessories to their owners, with no expectations as to their worth other than as loyal companions offering unconditional love.

There are plenty of kennels near where I live, but none were the right environment for my dog.  Most of the kennels were extremely confined spaces; they didn’t allow for socialization with other dogs lest fighting occur (my dog loves to play); and most kennel owners showed up only to fill the dogs’ bowls with food and water and to let them out to go to the bathroom.  Otherwise there was no human contact nor interaction.

Finally I found a place that was “cage free.”  At the unfortunately named “Doggone Fun Doggy Daycare” all dogs interacted all of the time, playing together during the day in a huge grassy fenced area and sleeping together in a converted garage (connected to the owner’s home)  that was filled with old couches and cots.  However, since the dogs had constant interaction, it was necessary for them to get along, as not all dogs interact happily.  So the kennel required my bringing my dog sometime before (a 90 minute drive one way!) for a 1-hour “evaluation” to make sure his social skills were up to snuff.  You’d think he was trying to get into Harvard.

As bad as this sounds, apparently I am not as neurotic as most dog owners.  I did not feel a need to check on the live webcam the kennel posts 24/7 to make sure my dog was faring well.  Nor did I wish to become a Facebook friend so I could watch the numerous videos and photos of the doggie boarders  the kennel owner posts throughout the day.  Fortunately his rates were fair, unlike another kennel I checked out whose rates were higher than the motel we booked in Old Orchard Beach.  I was not about to pay more for my dog’s accommodations than my own!

Now that the dog was taken care of, I could concentrate on the Shabbaton.

The Shabbaton organizers arranged special, inexpensive rates at two different nearby motels for Shabbaton participants.  I booked the cheaper one and didn’t give it a second thought until a few minutes before we set out for Old Orchard Beach.    I googled the name of the motel and “reviews” and suddenly felt sick.  Here are excerpts from actual online reviews:

“As soon as we opened the door we were overwhelmed with a horrible stench of cigarettes, feet, and cat pee.”

“You got to be kidding!”

“It was like something out of  ‘I Love Lucy.'”

“The ceiling fan also served as an automatic air freshener – someone rubber banded a pine tree air freshener for a car onto the fan blade.”

 “No sign of bugs. I guess they already moved out.”

 “Each room is slanted, so your equilibrium is off the whole time. Then have a couple of cocktails and wow – weird feeling.”

“Find another place to stay.”

I turned to my husband in a panic.  “What should we DO?” I whined, practically in tears.  “Bring the Lysol!  Bring the sleeping bags! We might need them if the beds are really gross!”

With great apprehension, we arrived at the motel, about a 2-hour southerly drive from our house.  It did seem rather run-down from the outside, but the staff was accommodating when I asked to look at the room first before committing.

I guess all those negative reviews on the internet worked.  Because the room may have needed updating, but it was spotless. There was absolutely no odor of cigarettes, dirty feet, nor cat pee. The linens were fresh and looked new.  The kitchenette was spotless, as was the bathroom.  The carpet was frayed, but clean.  The room was pristine.  And the mattress was soooo comfortable, I slept soundly for 9 hours straight later that night.  A train passed nearby, but never when I was sleeping.  The location was great.  The price was right.  Life was good. (And yes, I followed up with a positive online review.)

With only an hour remaining before the beginning of Shabbat, I ran to the shul and took some pictures of the interior and exterior, as well as the beach that was literally in the shul’s backyard.  I ran back to the motel, stashed my camera, and walked back to the shul with my husband, where I lit candles and he davened with the minyan.

Congregation Beth Israel of Old Orchard Beach, built 1912

Said to have been built by a Jewish boat builder, the shul reflects Maine's seafaring heritage. Notice the white lace mechitza that separates the men's section from the ladies' section. (click to enlarge)

Note the interesting curves at the corners of the ceiling (click to enlarge)

The view from the bima looking towards the shul entrance (click to enlarge)

Almost every window along the sides of the shul has stained glass dedicated by various members of yore (click to enlarge)

Now you’ve seen the facade and interior.  How about a tour of the shul’s “backyard?”

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I lit candles two doors away, at the restaurant where we’d be having our Shabbat meals.  The Barefoot Boy was built several decades ago by the brother of our Old Orchard Beach Shabbaton organizer and hosts, the Weinsteins.  A few years ago he sold it to an Italian guy with whom the Weinsteins maintain a good relationship.  Due to the restaurant’s proximity to the shul, and the fact that the restaurant is now open only on Sundays due to the off-season, the owner was amenable to hosting the meals, catered by the Chabad rebbetzin from Portand, for the Shabbaton.  Imagine: delicious kosher Shabbos meals . . . in a lobster restaurant!

This lobster restaurant is where we lit Shabbat candles and ate our meals. At that time the tables were decorated with white Shabbos tablecloths and bouquets of fresh flowers. Although it was kind of strange to be eating amongst fishnets and mermaid and lobster decorations, most of the main street was shuttered for the season with no tourists about, so I don't think there was an issue of mar'as ayin.

Although the shul remains open every Shabbos throughout the year, it was the first time that Congregation Beth Israel had a minyan since the summer season, so worshippers were greeted with extreme joy and appreciation.  It was an eclectic mix of people, ages 3 to 69:  five people from Old Orchard Beach, a family of three from Portland, and my husband and I made up the Maine contingent.  The other 25 or so people came from the Boston-Newton area (one family via Russia).  Just about everyone there was a ba’al tshuva, including the featured speaker, an American rabbi now living in Israel who studies the writings of Reb Nachman of Breslov.

Due to the intimacy of the environment, we quickly established a kesher (ties) with many of the participants.  In fact we shmoozed so long over lunch that there wasn’t time to return to the motel before mincha, so the participants continued their shmoozing on the sunny but very brisk beachfront.  I am hopeful we will soon be having many new Shabbos visitors to our house in Maine!

After mincha I returned to the motel and as soon as Shabbos was over, I said Baruch HaMavdil bein kodesh la’chol.  I  drove my car to the shul, camera in hand, for havdalah.

The Weinsteins lead havdala on Motzei Shabbos in the shul

Shabbaton participants during motzei Shabbos davening

(click to enlarge)

On motzei Shabbos all of us went to the Weinsteins for a Melave Malka for discussion, camaraderie, and more food.

On Sunday morning I dashed to the beach in time for a sunrise photo.

Sunrise, 6:35 a.m., Old Orchard Beach (click to enlarge)

I was thrilled to find sand dollars at low tide, which brought back fond memories from my childhood, when we used to collect sand dollars, clamshells, abalone shells and conch shells on the beaches in Santa Monica and Malibu (in the 1960s there were actually shells on the beach, which is no longer the case).  I put the sand dollars in my pockets, with the idea of sending them to my grandchildren.  Sand dollars are really quite amazing works of art: HaShem has stamped each with a perfectly engraved daisy.

Sand dollars (click to enlarge)

Even on the smallest of scales, HaShem's imprint on everything in the world fills me with wonder! (click to enlarge)

The Shabbaton concluded Sunday morning with davening, brunch and a shiur.  We said our goodbyes and exchanged email addresses. I headed north, back to our house in Maine, first picking up our dog at the kennel, who survived his stay at Doggone Fun Doggy Daycare without incident.

The burden of maintaining the 100-year-old building is met primarily by the very small number of Jews who live full-time in OOB (as it’s known to locals).  Tax-deductible donations may be made towards the shul’s upkeep and special programs by sending a check to Congregation Beth Israel, PO Box 213, Old Orchard Beach ME 04064

Things have not changed since this decades-old sign was posted at the shul entrance. The shul will celebrate its centennial in 2012. It relies heavily and hopefully on donations and the generous support of its few residents to sustain itself. (click to enlarge)

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Skype

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Was there ever a greater way to stay in touch with our grandchildren when we can’t be with them, than Skype?  . . . Although I think my 3 year old granddaughter in Israel prefers “Skype-ing” with our dog, Spencer . . .

Cabela’s

Each Cabela's store in the franchise is built of huge timber logs, resembling a quaint yet stately lodge, but the interior and parking lot is larger than Wal Marts and usually full.,

While big-box sporting goods stores exist throughout the US, there is something special about Cabelas.  So when I saw a Cabela’s just off the highway when we were on our way to Old Orchard Beach, I knew I must somehow find time to stop in.

It was only an hour before closing when I arrived on motzei Shabbos, but Cabela’s was booming, despite the mostly higher-end retail prices.  Whole families toured its boundless aisles filled with anything and everything having to do with outdoor recreation (biking, camping, kayaking, hiking), target shooting, hunting and fishing; clothing related to those activities; home decor (as long as the “home” is a log cabin or lodge, since everything has a woods theme with lots of canoes, moose, and bears incorporated in the design), and food preparation and preservation (food dehydrators and camp stoves and anything to do with beef jerky).

Ever wondered how ice fisherman drill a hole in 3' thick lake ice in the dead of winter when it's -25 F? They use a huge, heavy, gas-powered augur (kind of like a giant corkscrew). This one costs $900. (The salesman thought it was pretty funny when I asked him to take my picture doing a product demonstration, especially while wearing my Shabbos clothes and pearls!)

This vast collection of rods and reels for sale captures only about 25% of the actual display of fishing equipment, which besides yet more rods and reels and other fishing paraphernalia, includes hundreds of taxidermied fish species displayed on the walls and a giant aquarium filled with many varieties of live fish.

A tiny portion of the camouflage clothing department

This taxidermied moose is wired so its lips and mouth move when it talks, inviting visitors to try their luck in the shooting gallery

Junior hunters enjoying the shooting gallery with their parents

There are literally hundreds of magnificent examples of taxidermied animals from around the world displayed throughout the store.  There is a group of gazelles frozen in time, “running”in flight; a deer scratching itself; and other such “natural” and “action” poses that are amazingly lifelike.  It’s actually kind of sad to think of all those animals that were killed for sport.  Many of the animals on display are now on the endangered species list (although that was not the case at the time of their being shot).

Big game hunting for sport has little in common with local deer hunting, which in many cases keeps hunters and their families from going hungry in the winter, when jobs are scarce.

At the store entrance behind a clothing display is a rock cliff which has a 360 degree display of taxidermied big game animals.

Apples, Apples, and More Apples

Late afternoon sun glows on some of the applesauce I made

As many of you know from a previous post, I have apples coming out of my ears.  I couldn’t resist the many types of apples grown at local orchards, especially when they had “utilities” and “drops” – less than aesthetically perfect apples for thirty cents per pound.  Okay . . . with 150 lbs. sitting on my porch, I may have gone a bit overboard.  Two weeks later, 60 lbs remains, and like the last 10 lbs of a weight reduction diet, seems impossible to diminish.

I’ve been making apple chips which are a healthier version of potato chips, and much more delicious.  Even though there is sugar, I got the recipe  years ago from Weight Watcher’s, so I figure it can’t be too fattening:

Cinnamon Apple Crisps

Ingredients:
2 small apples, Red Delicious or Gala, sliced paper thin (I use a mandolin slicer)
1 Tbsp sugar
½ tsp ground cinnamon

Instructions:
*   Preheat oven to 200 degrees F
*   Line 2 baking sheets with parchment
paper (not wax paper). Place apple slices
in a single layer on parchment paper; sprinkle with
sugar and cinnamon.
*   Bake until lightly browned, about 2 hours. (note: at the two-hour mark the apples are dry and leathery.  I prefer them very crispy like chips, so I continue baking for a total of 2.5 – 3 hours.)

Cool on wire rack and serve, or store in airtight container.

Really, how much cider can you drink?  (A lot!)

When I was making cider, I noticed when using my juicer that if I didn’t clean the sieve after 5 or so apples, the juice became very thick and pulpy.  After 10 apples, the sieve was no longer straining very well at all, and the “juice” was really more like a watery applesauce.  I realized that I now had an easy way to use up my apples!  So I took this applesauce wannabe goop, added some cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice, and simmered it in a pot on low heat until some of the liquid dissolved and it was thicker.  It made an absolutely delicious applesauce and it was sugar-free!

Now I had a different problem:  how to store 12 quarts of applesauce?  I headed down to Wal Mart and bought canning jars in pint and half-pint sizes.

(A side note about my trip to Wal Mart:  I could not find the canning jars, so I asked a store employee what aisle they were in.  “Follow me,” he said, and proceeded to walk me to the other end of the store.  “You can just tell me what aisle it’s in, you don’t have to walk me the whole way,” I suggested.  “Oh, that’s all right,” he said agreeably, “that’s my job!”

Wow.  I can’t remember the last time an employee in my home town, and certainly not at the Wal Mart there, was so amenable.  Here in the White Mountains, when a store clerk asks, “May I help you?” they actually mean it!  This has been the case wherever I go, whatever the type of store.)

When I got home, I sterilized the canning jars and the lids, and then packed the jars with the bubbling hot applesauce, filling to within 3/4″ of the top of the jar.  I tightened the lids, and immersed the sealed jars in a pressure cooker filled with boiling water, and let it “cook” under pressure for 15 minutes.  Carefully removing the hot jars from the pot, I let them cool at room temperature.  Now the jars were hermetically sealed, and my applesauce would have a shelf life of up to 2 years.

Afterwards I was thinking about the whole applesauce-making process.  It wasn’t that difficult, but it took time.  I realized I would never have attempted this in my hometown – – I’m always distracted, and always, as my mother a”h would have said, “running like a chicken with its head cut off.”  Time is something we just never seem to have enough of.

It felt nice to be able to slow down.

Hiking Fashla

This was really our last week to hike a major hike until next summer.  Next week we’ve been invited to a Shabbaton 2 hours away and in two weeks’ time it will most likely be too cold and snowy.  Our goal was to hike Speckled Mountain, which is the mountain facing our house, and the highest peak in the immediate area, known for its stupendous views.

We woke up early to a very clear sunny day but the temperature was only 22 degrees, so we decided to wait until the temperature hit 30.  We were wearing layers and indeed it warmed up quickly and we were able to hike comfortably in heavyweight long-sleeved t-shirts, and of course for safety, our neon orange vests to alert hunters to our presence.

at the beginning of the trail, when there was actually a visible path amongst the leaves (click to enlarge)

We decided to be very lazy and drive to the trailhead, which was only .8 mile from our house, but we figured we’d be very tired on the way home and any savings in distance would later be appreciated.

At the trailhead was the Gammon Family cemetery.  Most of the tombstones were from the mid-1800s, and the smaller tombstones were of children that sadly passed away at a young age.  Gammon Mountain is actually across from my home to the south, and until this past summer, old Mrs. Gammon, a widow, lived just down the road.  Mrs. Gammon was what one local called “the salt of the earth.”  She is feisty – you would never want to cross her – and she used to hunt and fish well into her 80s.  Now due to infirmity she lives with her only surviving child, a daughter, in another rural Maine town.

the rusty entry gate to a ca. 1800s rural family cemetery in the middle of nowhere, not even on a real road (click to enlarge)

According to both our trail map and topo GPS, we should have found the trail  to Speckled Mountain easily, but we did not.

Consequently, we attempted to climb up the region’s highest mountain via bushwhacking.  It was an extremely stupid idea!  We were literally hacking our way through miles of heavy underbrush, climbing boulders and rock cliffs, and pushing our way through thousands of branches of trees. We are scratched up, torn up, blistered and beaten.

That’s not to say we didn’t see some unusual things.  There were several clearings from which we saw magnificent panoramas of Kezar Lake, Horseshoe Pond, Sugarloaf, Gammon and Adams Mts.   We also happened upon an abandoned gemstone mine that was not on any map – clearly a “secret” location.  Beryl, feldspar, tourmaline, mica and quartz were likely mined there.

Old stone walls like this one date from Colonial times and are found throughout northern New England. They were used by Colonists for farming, as well as boundary markers. It's amazing is to realize how difficult they must have been to build, as they are often in extremely remote wilderness areas. Probably stones were dragged and placed with teams of oxen. (click to enlarge)

it's hard to believe we started at the bottom and slogged our way up to this viewpoint. That's Kezar Lake in the background. (click to enlarge)

All the while the topo map indicated that we could bushwhack up the mountain and finally meet up with the trail, so we continued onward and upward.  At one point, we were just completely spent, but of course, what goes up must come down, especially as we have one less hour of light now that it’s daylight savings time, and temperatures drop very quickly here in the mountains once the sun goes behind the highest ridge.

On the good side, at no time were we “lost” as we were at very high elevations with overlooks so we always had our bearings (with the nearby mountains and lakes and ponds that served as “markers.”).  Also, we knew we could have always come down the way we came up since we had recorded the route on our topo gps.  We had plenty of food and water.

That said, we really, really didn’t want to bushwhack down – it was literally STRAIGHT down and the fallen leaves were 2′ deep at spots and it made for very slippery going, not to mention sore knees, thighs and feet. Thankfully we had our hiking poles with us.  Without them there is simply no way we could have made it up or down the mountainside.

We called our son (who is recovering from a nasty case of pneumonia and was accordingly probably none too thrilled to take our call) on our cell from a high point, which was an all-granite overhang that had dried alpen moss strewn about (which made it spongy and not slippery) and asked him how far we were from the trail.  He assured us that according to our longitude and latitude coordinates read on site,  and the Google topo map that he perused online, that we were literally next to the trail.

the beauty of dried white lichen on granite boulders, mingled with scarlet leaves (click to enlarge)

We continued climbing up the granite side and finally, yes! we found a cairn, which is a marker of stacked stones indicating a trail.  The views were awesome.

But despite this and one further call to our son, we could simply not locate  a single painted trail blaze nor another cairn, even walking north, south, east and west 100′ each way.

Discouraged, and mindful of the rapidly approaching lateness of the afternoon, we realized that not only were we not going to reach the summit of Speckled Mt. (and we believe we came within about 600′ of the summit from our height of land) we weren’t even going to have the “luxury” of walking down the mountain on a “real” trail, despite our exhaustion.

I was so tired.  It was tempting to call Mountain Rescue but realistically, we weren’t in danger and we weren’t lost, just inconvenienced.  And because this was due to hiker error, we would have had to foot a very large bill for their services, not to mention becoming the laughingstocks of our little town and the surrounding area (where events like this are reported in the newspapers).

It was back to bushwhacking for us!  And so it was – we continued along at as fast a pace as we could manage, stopping once or twice to rest when my husband’s  thigh began cramping badly, as well as to rehydrate and snack on nuts and raisins.

Meanwhile we experienced several light tumbles into the soft leaf piles due to the slippery uneven surfaces with holes and rocks and even hidden streams of water coursing down the mountain underneath our feet.  We did not take the exact same route down as we had going up – until a certain part when we knew we were near an old logging and mining road and at that point we followed the gps topo exactly, crisscrossing the mountain so we would finally, finally get to steady ground.

We made it back to the car at sunset, and fortunately it was only .8 mile drive from there to our house (I was very happy that we had been so lazy about driving our car that short distance from our house to the trailhead).  Home had never looked so welcoming and comforting!

First order of the day:  remove hiking shoes and socks, and bemoan our ruined feet.  Tick removal (I found two:  yuck.)  From there a very hot bath and a mega dose of Ibuprofen, Neosporin for our abrasions, bandaids for the blisters,  a bowl of hot soup, and  a cold beer for my husband.  Even our dog was tired!

As I said, we were not “lost” B”H at any time, just off-trail.  But that said, if in the future I see that I am just not on a marked trail, then I am turning right around and going home!  It was 7.5 hours and 6.7 miles of constant extremely steep, slow climbing and descending, with almost no breaks whatsoever!  (This is a climb that, had we been on trail, should have taken 4 – 5 hours maximum to the summit and back).  Honestly, our climb many years ago to Mt. Washington (one of NH’s toughest climbs) was less strenuous than today’s “fashla.”

Here is a record of our misbegotten journey, showing our house, the trailhead, the wrong turn, the secret mine, where we ended up, and the summit we never got to see (click to enlarge):

Backyard View

(make sure you click on the photo to see the entire panorama)

This view was taken about 500′ from my back door, a short bushwhack up the hill, this past Friday Nov. 4.  The mountain under the cloud is Speckled Mountain, so called due to the many colors of autumn leaves from the great variety of trees found there (unfortunately we are now past peak so only pine, beech and oak remain).  Speckled Mountain is the tallest mountain in this section of the White Mountains, known as the Speckled-Caribou Wilderness Area of the White Mountain National Forest.  We hope to climb to the summit of Speckled Mountain in the very near future (about a 7-mile roundtrip hike from my home).