During memorial day weekend, we went 2 nights/3 days backpacking. I want to make sure to practice social distancing during this covid-19 outbreak, however, recently it is getting difficult to do so on trails. First of all, snow has almost melted in New Hampshire, meaning more hikers come hiking. Secondly, not many people are careful about social distancing.
To overcome this issue, we chose unpopular area to hike. What is unpopular? First, it is the area without 4000-footers. 4000-footers are the mountains higher than 4000 foot high. In New England, there is the list of 4000-footers, and the list persons do those >4000 feet peaks. Actually there are so many list people. It is surprising how little hikers are for the 3998 foot high peak. 4000 foot mountains without views are much more popular than 3999 foot mountains with great views in New England. We don't care the list (I know that Mr.N secretly records which mountains we hiked, though). Based on this observation we went backpacking in the Wild River Wilderness.
First day is the easiest. Only 3.3 miles. The trail is along with river all the way and several time needed to cross. There is no bridge. This is another reason the area was not popular. In fact, it seemed like this is much bigger facto to make this area isolated.
Since we were not hiking for the past 3-4 weeks due to outbreak and mostly we went kayaking, it was really nice feeling to be on a trail. The temperature was above 20C (probably above 70F) with full of sun. I felt like the summer suddenly came! Our last hike was snowshoeing actually. What a difference.
After snow is gone, there are pretty flowers.
We saw at least two colors of trillium. White and red. 
The white one has nice pink/red color in the center. It is very nice to see flowers.
Then I had a big moment in the 1st day morning.
I saw a mother moose and a baby moose!!!!!
We were hiking quietly, I was on the first and Mr.N a little behind. I heard some noise in the forest and I stopped and looked around. Oh wow. There is animal! I stared at her and she stared at me for a few second. Then Mr.N came and said, "Moose!" Then we noticed a baby moose!!!
The mother moose was black, and the baby was brown. The baby was in a little lower place from mother. Mother must have signaled baby to come and baby had to climb the tiny hill. The baby struggled a little to climb it. Aww, cute! Then they disappeared deeper into the forest.
I would say that this was my first time seeing moose. More precisely I had seen moose in Grand Teton, however, it was too far and I just spotted it as a black dot. I was on the top of mountain and looking down the bottom of valley. The valley was at least 1000 meters below, so moose was just like a dot. I wouldn't feel like I saw a moose. Thus this time was the first time! So happy I saw moose and a baby moose!
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| Meadow |
The trail continued pleasantly: flat and sunny.
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| Beaver's trace |
Another finding a little later the encounter of moose was a lot of trees cut by beavers. There was a small creek. It looked like a river beavers really like. We saw trees fell by being eaten by beavers, and trees beavers half way and almost done to be cut. By making trees fell, beavers can eat upper portion.
The left picture is the trace of beaver. The tree was cut by beaver and the tree has beaver's teeth marks. Cute!
Many animals live in the forest. Fun!
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| River crossing |
Last portion of the first day before reaching a campsite was river crossing. The river appears to be shallow, but it actually knee high (right picture). Also the water is just from melted snow, so it is very cold.
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| our tent |
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| Campfire |
After crossing we reached the backcountry campsites. This is free, designated camp area in the backcountry. Good thing is fire is allowed! Indeed there was already a fire ring. Moreover, logs are everywhere in the area. Immediately I arrived at the site, I started foraging. Dinner and campfire is the best combination for the night. Bonus was evening birds' calls. Those voices are nostalgic and beautiful.
I had a nice sleep with river sounds whole night. Usually first night of backpacking I have a less deep sleep, but this time was perfect.
Next morning was beautiful. It was nice to wake up in the forest. Now morning birds' songs came. Now those are cheering and cute. Morning started with breakfast and, of course, campfire.
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| River crossing |
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| Eagle Crag |
The second day had several river crossing again. One of them was especially scary, because just downstream we crossed was a little falls and upstream was also falls (left picture). It means deep and and power of stream is high. Due to large frequency of river crossings, many people don't choose this tracks. This means this area is really empty. Indeed, until we came to the point that can be accessed without river crossing we didn't see anyone at all. Solitude was nice. Mr.N said no bridge is like Montana wilderness. I love deep wilderness without humans. For safety-wise we have Derome Inreach (satellite device).
Then we ascended to Eagle Crag which was the highest point of the backpacking and had lunch. Lunch was crackers and tuna. Delicious!
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| Morning forest |
The second day night we had planned to camp at another designated backcountry camping area, but there were more than 4 tents already there when we arrived around 5 p.m. So we continued hiking another mile and found some good spot in the forest. Dispersed camping is solitude and nice. Next morning we walked a few miles in the nice quiet forest and wrapped up the backpacking.
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