Saturday, September 24, 2016. A beautiful day for a hike in southwest New Hampshire. The owner of the RV park gave me a detailed map for getting to the Madame Sherri Forest. I missed it the first pass but caught it on the switchback. The place is snug up against the Vermont border, between the Connecticut River and Pisgah state park. Seems there really was a Madame Sherri who was a costume designer when she bought this place in the 20s and became quite the social maven. She had a house called “the castle” that burned some years ago with not much left to show for it except the stone portions.
I tried to walk the Ann Stokes Loop, but I lost the trail about halfway through and had to retrace my steps. It was mostly a forest trial, but it went past a nice lake and had some marshlands at the beginning of the trail.
Looks like fowl play to me.
When I started the trek I made the conscious decision to wear my sneakers instead of hiking boots, just to see the difference. Mistake #1. It wasn’t horrible, but the boots would have been a definite improvement. Unconsciously I forgot to take my walking stick. I’ve found when the trail has a lot of rocks and tree roots and change in elevation the walking stick comes in mighty handy. That’s exactly how this trail was, thus Mistake #2.
No matter the temperature, and today was in the 50s, I sweat like a dog. It’s just what I do. To keep the sweat out of my face I always carry a rag for that purpose. During a stop to catch my breath (probably a couple of hundred feet in elevation change today) I wiped off and put the rag on my shoulder instead of in my pocket. Well, I knew this was tempting fate when I did it, and sure enough when the next wipe was due in about 10 minutes, the rag was gone. Mistake #3. Fortunately, since I was still retracing steps it showed up a few hundred yards back down the trail and we had a joyous reunion.
Afterwards I headed for Wilmington, VT, a town I passed through coming from Ithaca. Thought it might deserve some exploration. Plus, on the way I knew there was a scenic overlook I wanted to catch called Hogback Mountain. It is quite the panorama, at about 2200 feet elevation. They say you see 3 states from there: NH, VT and MA, and I have no reason to doubt it on a beautiful clear day like this. Picked up some red velvet fudge in the gift shop, just because. They have some interesting fudge flavors up here. Had cookies n cream fudge the other day.
You can see in the foreground the first hints of foliage change.
Wilmington is a small town, quintessentially New England Quaint: antique shops, woodworking shop, etc.
RoadThrill 