August 19th, 2018, New Hampshire
It was a nice day from beginning to end today. The trail crossed several minor peaks, including Moose Mountain and one called Velvet Rocks. The up and down was relatively gentle throughout the day.
I continued to see more diversity in plant and animal life compared to the rest of the trail up north. I am still seeing many of the same things as before, plus many more plants that are new. I also see an occasional grey squirrel and fewer of the red squirrels now. The grey squirrels appeared exactly at the same time as the oak trees so I assume they are dependent on the acorns as their food source.
The red squirrels, in contrast, are tiny and probably get what they need from the small pine cones that have been plentiful up north. I have gotten a kick out of the red squirrels. They are quite chatty and fuss at you when you come near. They chatter and make the cutest rubber ducky squeaks that it sounds less like a warning than it is supposed to.
Much of forest today had some old growth trees—much larger than others I’ve seen.
There were also more old stone walls, a sign that we are now approaching more inhabited land. Someone invested a lot of labor to build the walls, perhaps for separating their land from neighboring parcels. I’m not sure why they are here, deep in the woods—and I wonder about the history of the land as I pass by these artifacts.
I happened to see another of the orange newts, except very tiny. You can see the toe of my shoe in the picture below.
The trail passed through two meadow-like fields full of wild flowers. The bees and butterflies were busy. One field had so many blackberries—I must have eaten a hundred on the way. There were many more just out of my reach in the meadow.
There were also some wild grapes growing there but they weren’t ripe yet.
And for the first time there were cattails growing in the lakes and bogs.
I reached the edge of Hanover. The trail goes directly through town.
Hanover is the home of Dartmouth University and looks like a beautiful little town. I set up my camp on the trail outside of town and walked around a bit to get oriented. I hope to stop by the grocery tomorrow for food, shower and do laundry at the public community center, then visit the art museum before heading out again.
And here are a few of the interesting things I noticed on the trail today.
