What a wonderful day! Here are some happy highlights and a bunch of pictures.
- My friend Stephanie (I got her permission to use her name) and I started out later than planned but Magalloway Mountain wasn't too long of a drive from where we camped. After driving over miles of dirt roads we ended up at the trailhead. We chose to go up the Bobcat Trail and down the Coot Trail. The Bobcat Trail is a narrow trail that doubled as a small brook in places. 😉 When we got to the top of the mountain there was a trail to an overlook and we went there first. The overlook was over a cliff, but it was beautiful and we could see so far. The tower view was also spectacular and gave us a 360 degree view. I don't know where the borders are, but from where we stood in New Hampshire we could see Canada and Maine, probably Vermont, too. The Coot Trail was wider and probably could be used by vehicles that can handle steep hills with rocks and gravel when maintaining the buildings on the top. When I started down the first steep section I noticed the shadow of a large bird mottled within the tree shadows. I looked up and didn't see it. I considered for a moment that it was a bad omen and the bird was just waiting for me, the weakest and one falling behind, to dive down at me from above. Ah, imagination.
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| Bobcat Trail |
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| Overlook |
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| Down |
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| The fire tower. |
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| Stephanie & me |
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| This must be a very important wrench. |
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| Back to the bottom! |
- One of the things we learned going on this trip is that the Connecticut River starts up here. This was intriguing to both of us. There are also four lakes that it flows through in the area. We stopped and had lunch at a picnic area by Second Connecticut Lake.
- Then we drove up to the border crossing with Canada. There is a parking area for a hiking trail at the border crossing, The Fourth Connecticut Lake Trail. We parked, got out of the car, walked by the US border control buildings, crossed the street and found the trail. The trail wasn't extremely long, but there were more hills than I expected. It still took some time to maneuver the rocks and mud. Much of the trail was along the border.
For some reason these pictures are in opposite order of actual time.
- As we got close to the lake, the woods became a verdant forest filled with mosses. We walked around the lake, although it seemed more like a pond. There were a few streams feeding it and two streams leaving it. One stream showed up on the map as the Connecticut River. The other stream isn't even on the map we were using! On the way out, I took took many pictures of the border.
- After that, we had to go to the Third Connecticut Lake. It was lovely.
- There is a place near all this that used to have a fire tower. We considered going, but at this point it was getting late enough that there just wasn't time. We stopped at the trailhead and took some pictures of the river and moved on.
- The next stop was for ice cream! We stopped at Moose Alley Ice Cream stand. It seems to be the last ice cream stand on Route 3 before the Canadian border. I had a dish with apple crumble, vanilla ice cream, and caramel sauce. Stephanie got one with a waffle, vanilla ice cream, and caramel sauce. Yum!
- After that we pulled over at a boat launch to get a better look at First Connecticut Lake. At this point I can say that I dipped my fingers in every one of these four Connecticut Lakes.
- It was getting late so we didn't linger and headed toward the next campground. It was around 1.5 hours away. We did make one more quick stop at Beaver Brook Falls. We had passed it on the way north, and decided to stop for a photo on the way south. We drove through Dixville Notch which was a pretty drive. We arrived at the campground around sunset. We set up, ate and enjoyed a lovely fire. I think I will sleep well tonight.
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| Dixville Notch area |
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| Sunsetting |
☮
Thank you for being part of my happy things. Stay safe.
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