Wednesday, May 21: Chamberlain/Reynolds; Belknap Woods

The fearless rangers 3 (see me wearing the Squam Ranger's "back bag")decided to take advantage of the second day of gorgeous spring sunshine to explore more trails. We had walked 4.5 miles yesterday, but on the "check off your trails list", we only accumulated credit for 3 miles. Today, even though the walk was much easier - mostly level shorefront forest (Chamberlain/Reynold Forest and the Belknap Woods), we managed to accumulate 6 miles! We were glad to do the walk in late May to see the leaves just bursting, the lake calm and clear, and so many tiny wildflowers. Chamberlain/Reynolds had the reward of the beaches with the white sand showing ripples below the surface, and the fun board walk across the swamp and a place to linger for those less designation oriented than us. Still feeling energetic at the end of Chamberlain/Reynolds, we headed down 25B to Belknap Woods. At the beginning of the walk, the sound of the cars was distracting, but then we fell in love with the wilder feel of this area. It too had a smaller version of the walk across swamp water, but the boards sprang underfoot (see Hunter enjoying the unsteadiness), and the trail maps at the start and at intervals in the woods were so faded they were useless. But the fearless rangers managed to find the sometimes faded and/or far apart yellow paint indicators which did bring us back to the gorgeous clear stream that ran alongside the start of the trail

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May 20, 2014 : Prescott Tr.; Mt. Livermore; Old Mountain Rd.

First day out. Our plan: to hike the 50 miles that Squam Lakes Association has designated - and to earn our Squam Ranger hats! We started on Old Mountain Road - me (the photographer, not in evidence in this day's photos) and Hunter and our #3 ranger, Rumi, the black pup that shows up over and over again, our Portuguese water dog. Our plan was to hike up the Old Mountain Rd. to Prescott Trail, up over Mt. Livermore on the Ridge Trail, and then to circle back down to Old Mountain Rd. and back: 4.5 miles. It would have been a breeze - the leaves just com ing out, a nice breeze, perfect day - but then I thought I knew the way - and we took a wrong (unlabeled) turn onto a heavily logged area. Thanks to Hunter's wisdom, we gave up after 15 or 20 minutes, returned to the Old Highway and found Prescott Trail

. It was in beautiful condition - tall old growth king pines, stone walls. We chanced on a snake slithering across the trail and watched a huge bird fly overhead: was it an eagle? hawk? The views at the top were breathtaking. The decent took us to Burleigh Farm - postcard perfect. We chanced on a tiny frog on our loop back to the car...