With several days of dismal weather in the forecast, today was the day to get out for a few hours and return to an area where I knew the bushwhacking would be snow-free, on the south spur of Bald Knob.
This is what I look for this time of year. It's a little too early for the full ASAP (April Snow Avoidance Program). Though the approach trails were covered in ice and old snow, I did not step on one patch of snow along the bushwhack route.
A beech, swaying to the music of spring.
A random giant white pine, high on the slope.
Water flowing through a miniature sluice.
Lichen-crusted.
The long arms of the oak.
Approaching the big granite ledge atop the south spur of Bald Knob.
Peering south at the Campton Range. Two days earlier I was exploring the lower foreground ridge in the center of the photo.
I enjoyed a sweet hour-plus of sun and 50-degree temp on the ledge. A junco was singing and the wild cry of a Pileated Woodpecker issued from the nearby woods.
Heading down a ledgy spine.
I stopped briefly at a lower perch along the crest - another big granite slab.
A side view of this steep slab, with Cone Mountain in the distance.
Steep terrain.
Lichen hairdo.
Reaching for the sky.
Snow lingers in the shade of this linear rock formation.
