We need snow!!!

Never thought I'd utter those words!  Lol.  But, what little snow we've had has compressed into slippery wads of ice and my trails are treacherous in places!

It's been frigid here for two weeks now, so on Saturday, 1/26, when the temps edged up to the low 20's (heat wave!) I took advantage of it.  I had a suspicion that all the water crossings would be frozen solid, so I had a game plan as to where we'd head out and where we'd probably have to turn back.  I figured we'd do the middle Hampstead loop via the long way around the development to avoid the very busy and infinitely more dangerous East Road. 

The nice trails off of Golden Meadow Rd are only accessible after fording a pretty significant brook, which I was certain was frozen solid.

We went to visit the marker at the intersection of the towns of Hampstead, Atkinson and Plaistow.  I love this spot.  It sits on the top edge of a mounded hill, gullies on all sides and a crater in the middle.



Close up of the Hampstead side of the marker

We couldn't continue on into Atkinson because the water at the bottom of the gully was solid ice.  So we turned back and headed into Hampstead towards the Rookery (where the Herons nest) swamp.  Half way around the loop, we encountered this.....

 Another spot frozen solid!  You know it's been cold when water that's normally rushing is a block of ice.  Brrrrr.....

What happens when your horse figdets while you're trying to put away your iPhone. Lol!

 So we turned around *again* and went alllllll the way around to the other side of the afore mentioned flow of ice.  On the way, we took a side trail to see what the Spill way looked like.  What is normally rushing water that can be heard from a distance looked like you could ice skate on it! 

See the little "foot bridge"?  Creepy.  I've walked over it before, and I almost would rather wade through up to my knees than try to balance on that!

 Not in the mood to go ice skating on my horse, we turned around again and headed back for home.  All told, we were out for just shy of 2 hours and went just over 6 miles.  Not bad for a cold January hack! :)

GPS track info from our ride.  See the gap in the upper right?  We had to turn around for the ice.  The dead end in the lower right is the location of the marker at the "three corners"

 

Back at the barn safe and sound.



 So, let's do a snow dance for Southern New Hampshire!  I miss the fluffy footing.....