Welch and Dickey Weekend Warm Up - 10-8-10

On Wednesday last week we made a last minute decision to try to escape the craziness of the last few months and get to the mountains one more time this fall. Hmmm. Escaping the craziness on Columbus Day weekend in the Whites? Yup. And did it ever work! We were lucky enough to find a room at Attitash (maybe the only place that still had one). Heading up on Friday morning it was smooth sailing through the Boston traffic and signs of great things to come for the next 4 days.

We'd managed to knock a few more 4k's off our list before the end of summer and figured we would get a few more this weekend. First priority though - places to enjoy the end of the great fall colors and beautiful views. For that there couldn't be many better choices than Welch and Dickey. After driving all the way up under brilliant blue cloudless skies we pulled in under the southern edge of the cloud canopy at around noon. The clouds may have been hanging over the trails, but the views to the south were spectacular. The fall colors were still in full swing down here and we had an afternoon of amazing views. 

The trails were good with only a bit of avoidable mud left from the recent rains. Many of the ledges were wet - some with running water - but the footing was all generally fine as long as we were a bit careful. We did the usual counter-clockwise loop over Welch and then Dickey. The parking lot had been quite full (particularly for a weekday) but everyone else must have been going the same way and been ahead of us because we had the mountains mostly to ourselves. A great walk, great views and a perfect start to a great weekend! Story to be continued...

Nice autumn day in the woods


Heading out onto the first Welch ledges


Still great fall colors here


Foliage on fire on Welch summit


Nat heading across the ledges


Gumdrop forrest


The complete album is here: http://picasaweb.google.com/mtruman42/WelchDickey10810#