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Sunday, April 15, 2012

Pawtuckaway Spring Blooms

We had a wonderful weekend this weekend hanging out with good friends and making our first visit to Pawtuckaway State Park to catch some early spring wildflowers.  We spent Saturday afternoon at the pre-Awards party at Kevin and Judy's.  It was a fun time and was great to see many old friends and make some new ones.  After an afternoon of celebration it was time to move on to the main event - the AMC 4000 Footer Awards.  It's just amazing how popular hiking the 4000 footers has become over the years.  There were over 500 new award applicants this year and it seemed like most of them were there Saturday night.  It was great seeing many of our friends receive awards!  It was also a joy to see so many families go up together to get their scrolls.  What a wonderful way to bring up your kids in the outdoors and spend family time together!  Perhaps next year we'll have a new reason to return...

Saturday night we crashed at Kevin and Judy's (thanks SO much for the hospitality guys!).  Sunday turned out to be just a beautiful summer day.  Only problem is this is just the 3rd week of spring.  We joked that it was a really nice day for August - except this is the other 'A' month.  We wanted to take advantage of the early spring blooms and Kevin suggested that we head to Pawtuckaway.  This was our first visit there are we'll definitely return.  Emma has unfortunately been dealing with an injured leg (which is hopefully going to be fixed very soon) so she and Judy hung out in the lowlands while Kevin, Nat and I took a hike.  It took a bit of convincing from Judy to keep Emma from following us up North Mountain (which she actually did for about half way).  Hard to keep that girl down!  We did a nice loop over North and through the boulder fields with several stops for views from the ledges and even more to check out the wildflowers.  It was a great day and a great weekend overall.  Thanks again Kevin and Judy for the wonderful hospitality and healing thoughts to Emma for a quick recovery.  We'll be thinking about you all today.

Beautiful morning on Powwow Pond

Swamp dog

Hepatica

Saxifrage

Hepatica

Kevin moving in for the shot

Now that's a serious woodpecker!

Nat enjoys the sun on the ledges

Red Trilium

Bloodroot

Bloodroot

Emerging Bloodroot

Bloodroot garden

Bloodroot

Reptile hunter!

Coltsfoot

The whole album is here:  https://picasaweb.google.com/114856685929776719960/Pawtuckaway41512
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Location: Pawtuckaway State Park, 128 Mountain Rd, Nottingham, NH 03290, USA

6 comments:

  1. Karl4/16/2012 8:25 AM

    Hi Mark,

    I wish I had known you guys were over there, I would have tried to meet up with you! I live only 10 minutes from Pawtuckaway! Love those Hepatica shots. It's absolutely my favorite spring time flower in this region of NH. It's funny, I've been over there enough that I know exactly where a lot of your shots were taken from. For instance, that woodpecker tree is one that I have pictures of too! Great shots! Glad you had a good time!
    Karl

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    1. Mark Truman4/17/2012 8:27 AM

      I wish I'd thought to get in touch. Should have known that you were that close after seeing Jim on Saturday and having him tell me he was only 10 minutes from Kevin's. We'll have to plan another day. We'll definitely be back up there more this spring chasing the wildflowers north.

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  2. 1HappyHiker4/16/2012 9:29 PM

    What a beautiful series of wildflower photos!

    John

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    1. Mark Truman4/17/2012 8:27 AM

      Thanks John. It was really nice of all of them to pose for their portraits for us ;-)

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  3. Summerset4/17/2012 6:16 AM

    What lovely shots of the wildflowers! I'm hoping we start seeing them around here, too. Nice to meet you at the awards, BTW.

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  4. Mark Truman4/17/2012 8:28 AM

    Thanks Summerset. It was nice meeting you too. With all the warm weather the blooms should be moving north quickly this year. I'm sure they'll be up to you soon.

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