Kayaking @ Quaboag River

blue sky blue river

We went kayaking on Quaboag river two weekend in a row. There are many animals including birds, beavers, and muskrats. 

heron

First weekend we went east side of the river, then the following weekend we kayaked into the west side.  The river was blue with reflecting blue sky. It was really lovely than I had expected.

As this area is a designated as wildlife refuge, we saw many birds. First bird we saw was a heron. They like to be along the river. We saw them sometimes fishing. Ummm. River fish sashimi....

It is interesting that herons are always being alone. In contrast, ducks are always being as a couple. 

heron

One time we saw a heron flying from rive side and flying over to the hills and the big heron was chased by small red-winged blackbird. Red-winged blackbirds are only 10% of bodysize of herons, but they are so aggressive! The heron chased by a red-winged blackbird had to fly to escape from it. 

ducks

Next cute ones were duck mother and babies! 4 babies! Babies' fur is fluffy is so cute. I wanted to pet them but limited myself from trying so (they are wild). 

Other babies we saw was beavers. It was on the top of other side from our kayaking side. Wow. 

This is a good kayaking area with full of lives. 

Backpacking in Wild River Wilderness

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!

Meadow

The trail continued pleasantly: flat and sunny. 

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!

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. 

our tent

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. 

River crossing

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!

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.  

Kayaking @ Tully Lake

Another kayaking!

Now snow is melted: trails in New Hampshire have more people. It is difficult to conduct social distancing on a narrow, steep trails. Compared to that, kayaking is much easier to have enough distance from other kayakers. Now our weekend activities are kayaking.

Sunny day

Today we went kayaking on river and Tully lake. We had emailed before if it is open and allowed to kayak. They said yes. The reason why we checked in advance was that the launching area was closed a week before. This time we made sure it was open and also we planned a back up place. Luckily it turned out to be a sunny warm day.

blue bird

Today we kayaked 6.6 miles, out and back, consisted of river portion and lake portion.
The highlight are animals.
First we saw a blue bird. The bird's silhouette is cute. Also without seeing their bodies we heard many birds' songs. 

red-winged blackbird

The next bird was red-winged blackbird. It was on the branch and calling a lot. Nice to see that. 

heron

Lastly we saw a heron. I took a picture it just left the rock.  It was big. 

Observing birds are relaxing and nice. Also just floating on a kayak  adds extra relaxing feeling. 

Birds are exciting, however, today's highlight of the highlights is a beaver!!!! It was my first time seeing a beaver. I have seen many beaver dams and beaver lodges but beavers themselves never came out and showed up. This time we spotted a beaver on the shore eating something! (right picture). 

A minute later he went into the water (the left picture), and started swimming. Since beavers can't breath inside the water, the head was out, but sometimes all the body was under the water. For example, there was log floating on his way, he went under the water to pass it. He swam very well! We kept a distance with him and continued observing. He swim fast!!

After I checked the recording of our kayaking, he swam 0.2 mile and disappeared, probably he landed somewhere.
He looked like he knew where he was going and had a very solid plan. Very cute and exciting!

Hope I will see a beaver again!

Kayaking @ Sudbury River

As I wrote in a previous entry, we got a new part for our broken kayak. Meaning we can go kayaking again. We chose this time Sudbury river, which is only 30 minute drive from Boston. 

First we went to the launching area we planned. We found more than 5 cars there and a group of 5 people was launching a boat. It looked like they might need more time. We didn't like the crowded launching area during this pandemic, so we went to another launching area. Another one was only 7 minute drive from there and there were only a couple of cars. We looked nearby and we found a place where we could launch around 100 meters away from the normal launching area. That way it was possible not to contact with any other strangers! Why not did that?!

Swan

First animal we saw was a swan. The entire 6 miles of kayaking there was only one swan. Maybe he needed solitude, or social distancing. Swans look like aristocrats. They can swim as if nothing is going on. They paddle hard under water, but no facial expression change, which is a real aristocrat.

Muskrat

Then next animal we saw was a muskrat. He was on the log floating on the river. It seemed that he was eating plants. Realizing a kayak coming, he swam to his home! So cute. I had never known about muskrats until I started kayaking, but now I see many and I like them. 

The next animal we saw was Canada geese. There were a lot of them. Cute. Then the next was turtles. They like to be on the log in a long line. Cuties. Sometimes small turtles are on  big ones. What funny about turtles is sometimes a big turtle is on a smaller turtle. Poor small ones!

Bird

Finally, we saw some birds, but heard a lot of birds. Here the area is Great Meadows Wildlife Refuge. Therefore many birds live there. It was nice to hear the birds. The left picture is one of the birds I could see. Can you see a bird?

Kayak with pump

As I wrote before here, we had air leaking problem. This time a good thing is that our new tube worked well. It was nice to paddle all the way without leaking air. Just in case we carried air pump on the kayak, as you can see on the right picture. 

While we were packing up our kayak to the car, we saw two kayaks went by the river. Hmmm? Two kayaks were tied. The second kayak was just pulled by the first one. Parents were paddling on the first one and the kids were on the second one and was pulled by the first one. Wow. Spoiled. 

Kayaking @ Nashua River

Kayaking is a great activity in the COVID-19 outbreak. Kayaking is much easier to comply with social distancing practices. Hiking is also good outdoor activity, however, as snow melt in New England, more people come out for hikes and now it is hard to have enough distances from others on narrow trails. 

Thus we went kayaking on Nashua river. We started in the city of Pepperell, which is 50 minute drive from Boston. This time we kayaked out and back, total 7 miles. 

Launching area

I was a little worried about launching might have other cars. Luckily there was no cars. The right picture is the launching area. The sign of river was funny. Between "NASHUA" and "RIVER" there was blue line. I first thought that somebody's vandalism. Then I realized that it was a drawing for river😆

Swan

We saw swans and geese. Actually I had never seen swans in California, but here in New England there are many opportunities to see them. 

Tree reflecting on the river

On the way kayaking was smooth and enjoyed a lot. Water was calm and trees on the shore was reflecting on the river. The hard part was the latter half coming back to the launching area. Why?  Because the air was leaking from the kayak! Our kayak is an inflatable one. Every time we start, we pump it up. Our pump has a gage of pressure and we always have air at an ideal pressure (1-2 psi). Luckily the holes were very little, so we didn't sink. However, even with little leak, less air makes kayak move forward much less. To make kayak move ahead, we needed to paddle much harder. Mr.N had a harder time, because his section (rear) sunk more than my area (front) due to his weight is heavier than mine. 

Upon coming home we found some holes and patched, but there was still leak. We called the company and sent pictures. They tried to argue that we didn't pump the air at the right pressure and asked if we used the pump with gauge to measure pressure. We sent our pump with a gauge. Actually our pump is their brand! So they couldn't argue more and they sent a new part of kayak. Yay the squeaky wheel gets the oil. We can go kayaking again with new part we got. 

Mount Eisenhower

We went hiking in Mount Eisenhower in March. It is still completely covered with snow in March in the White mountains in New Hampshire. 

During COVID-19 outbreak, it is good to go hiking in the snow. People who hike in the snow is limited, so it is easy to be social distancing. 

<Mount Eisenhower Hike>

Type: Out and back 

Distance: 8.7 miles

Elevation change: +/- 3215 feet

We had actuarially hiked up to the top of Mt.Eisenhower. However that time the summit was in the clouds. It was cold, windy, and no view. This time we checked the weather forecast and hiked again on a sunny day. 

At the trailhead I went outside of the car and I was surprised. It was not so cold.  Recent winter hikes I wear Montbell winter pants: birthday gift from Ms.L( thank you!). They are so good and warm, however, I even wondered they might be too warm. On the second thought I decided to wear them because the higher the colder. 

At the parking lot there was a cute black lab dog. The owner was calling her Pollough. She must be young. She was very energetic.
The parking lot was across the highway of the trailhead. Highway was very quiet, because New Hampshire has been under stay home order. After we crossed the road we were putting microspikes on. Then Pollough came to the trailhead! Only Pollough not the owners. The owners seemed to go to the other side of the trail, so they and Pollough didn't need to cross the highway. Naughty Pollough. Then Pollough again crossed the highway back to the parking lot. Dangerous! Lucky her there was few traffic. 

Mt Eisenhower then Mt Washington in the back

Trail

The trail is continuously uphill from the beginning to the end. 3200 feet elevation gain in 4.4 miles. It was a good workout. 

The last 1 mile is above tree line. The view was nice. Over the Eisenhower, there is the highest mountain in the New England, Mount Washington. Mount Washington is pretty covered with snow. In the Presidential range it is still in winter. Surprisingly, the summit was not windy. It was extremely rare in New England!! Usually I can't eat sandwich at the top due to high wind. This time I was able to enjoy sandwich with great view.
Two guys came to the top and the guy was telling to the other guy, "Last time I was here, it was sustained 60 mile per hour wind".
I thought, "Yes that is the standard."

After a nice lunch break, we started descending. On the way Mr.N decided to get water. There was one stream where water was not frozen and flowing. Mr.N was taking out his water bottle and Steripen. Then three people with two dogs came down. The guy told his dog, "You can go in" and the doggy went into the stream where Mr.N was about to get water. I thought, "Uh oh." It was actually funny.
After they left, Mr.N got water from upstream than the place the dog went in. 

Short Hike at Cutler Park

During COVID-19 outbreak, social distancing is mandatory. Here in Massachusetts, restaurants and bars are only take out and delivery. Gathering over 25 people are prohibited. Construction in the city is prohibited. In some other states, shelter in place are ordered state wide. Now, activities on weekends are very limited to many people in the U.S. However, hiking, biking, walking, running are still allowed as long as keep 6 feet with strangers. Under this circumstances, hiking is getting popular everywhere. 

We went to Cutler Park, relatively close to Boston for a short hike. We wanted to do a short hike because we did a big hike on a previous day. This is a nice local park for hiking, walking, and biking. 0.5 mile from a parking lot was kind of crowded. It looked definitely more people than usual. Nobody can hang out at coffee shops or restaurants. So weekend's activity shifted to more walking. However, after 0.5 mile, the trail was much quieter and nice. 

The fun part of this park is that there are many dogs. One particular dog I really liked was a middle sized brown dog. The owner had two dogs. The other one and owners walked fast and they were far ahead of brown one. The owner noticed the brown was far behind and stopped.
The owner said, "Come on buddy, you can do it."
The brown one was tired and he was walking very very slow. The way he slowly walked was soooooo cute. It made us cheer him on. After the owner cheers him on, he *slightly* walked faster. That was so cute!

trail

The trail is flat and smooth, which is totally different from New Hampshire's which is super rocky and steep. Smooth dirt trail on the meadow portion reminded me of California trails. I miss them!

The right picture is a portion near highway. This depicts very well "American trail".  Highways structure is very different from Japan. This picture is very American to me. First of all cars drive left side. Right, cars drive right side in Japan....and UK, New Zealand, Australia, etc. Roads are much wider in the U.S. Roads are narrower in Japan. When we went to New Zealand, there are many signs saying New Zealand roads are narrow. The signs are for tourists. The narrowness and left side traffic made me feel home. 

As we walked, we got close to the other end of road. Then again more people were walking. Ummm. I got concerned. More occasions to pass by strangers. I was concerned about COVID-19. So we decided to turn around. 

On the way back there was another cute dog. The doggy rubbed his entire body on the dirt covered with small brown leaves. His berries and backs. He got covered with dirt and leaves. The owner, a couple, were laughing and the guy said, "This is the worst ever!" The lady was quiet.

Later on we passed the couple again. We don't talk with strangers these days because of social distancing, but I overheard their conversation. It was around 3 p.m. Sunday.
The guy: We can have fresh bread with XX cream. (I didn't catch what he wanted with bread)
I couldn't hear the lady's voice.
The guy said, "That sounds good for afternoon snack?"
I didn't hear the lady's voice again. 

At first I thought that they are a married couple. After overhearing the conversation, I thought that the guy might be still approaching the lady. By suggesting afternoon snack with fresh bread, he might be trying to spend more time with her Sunday afternoon. They are probably 50's or 60's. 

It is not scientific, but sometimes I like to imagine strangers' lives. Mr.N suggested asking them. I said, "NO!"

Geese

Lastly we saw geese eating plants in the lake. cute!

Nice short hike, but I decided not to hike in local park in Mass. Concerned about COVID-19.