Training Log Archive: CleverSky

Nottingcook Forest, Blue. Pretty hot (somewhere in the 80s), and it was a challenging course, nobody broke 11 min/km. Forgot my O-shoes, so I did this in running shoes, which was tolerable, just a few moments of sliding on steep slopes. There was a lot of walking involved. The main oopsies were #5 (fooled by extra unmapped logging trails), #9 (drifted off to the right), and #16 (bad execution, drifted waaay right. My execution on #7 was also pretty lame, and my route midway looks pretty weird, though I salvaged a halfway decent leg out of it. I'm rather impressed that Nancy managed to get around this whole course as well. Good job!

Just wanted an easy cruise in the woods to unwind from spending the whole morning in a job interview, so I tried something new that worked out okay. Crossed the street, and went out the Lane trail to the Holman St. bridge, then went uphill a bit and found a trail on the other side. I assume this is what the snowmobilers used to use before that route became off-limits. Very pretty winding trail through some nice and intricate woods, until it seemed to come to an abrupt end at Mulpus Brook. I probably missed a turn in there somewhere, and I'll have to go back with my glasses on to see if it continues. Distance is a wild guess.

Mystery Blazes LSwamp. Nice day, blue sky, temps in the lower 70s. I have a number of things on my mind, which caused me just enough stress to keep pushing pretty hard the whole way around. A bunch of people I know went flying today, and I imagine they're in the air right now, but I had stuff I needed to get done.

Walking to the ConComm meeting and back. I've been chairing the meetings for the last couple of months. We approved the Order of Conditions for the Pleasant Street solar farm, and the abutters are livid. They had brought along some lunatic "expert" who came up from the Cape for each of the meetings and made speeches, and at the end of this meeting she spouted off basically accusing us of incompetence and malfeasance and stormed off in a huff. There may be some basis for disallowing this project, but it's not on wetlands grounds -- we've held the applicant to as stringent a standard as we have for other projects, and the proposed work is really benign as far as our jurisdiction goes. But the neighbors don't want all these solar panels in what has been a hayfield adjacent to their homes, and they expect us to be a stumbling block to the project on their behalf. Maybe there will be a zoning/bylaws issue that will halt the project, and they can get satisfaction that way.

Hiking up to the Flume Gorge and back with Nancy. It's off-season, so the place is closed, which means we didn't need to pay admission, and also means that we didn't get to walk all the way through the gorge because the boardwalk is in the process of being put back in place for the season, but we could see enough to satisfy us.

With Nancy at Franconia Notch. Starting from The Basin, up the Basin Cascades Trail to the Cascade Brook Trail, hung out at Lonesome Lake Hut for a while then went down the Lonesome Lake Trail to the Lafayette Campground, then the Pemi Trail back to the car. Pretty warm day, and there was a surprising amount of snow still in the woods.

Maybe the water level was high as a result (unlike most water levels right now), but in any case the stream crossings, especially the one where the bridge got washed out, were kind of interesting. For that one Nancy took off her shoes and used a couple of sticks for balance to wade through thigh-deep swift frigid water. I opted for an alternate route where I could leap between stepping stones. Quite an awesome day to be outdoors.

College Woods Red. Third place, about 8 minutes behind Alar and one minute behind Jeff. Pretty warm out.