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More Squalls

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January 6 2018 from Michael Hassey on Vimeo.

(The video is downsampled to 4K – Click the gear in the player to up the resolution (if you have the screen for it)oh, and full size is best size. Just sayin)

We got first tracks again Sunday morning. There were flurries all the while we were on the slopes. It was like some giant was picking up the snow globe and giving it a good shake every time it started to settle down.  It was a warmish 35 and sunny at times back at Mittenstock.

Sally had left. I was waiting for the dishwasher to finish while packing up after a great weekend. I saw that Chocorua had slipped behind some squalls again so I quickly set up a D800 with a 50mm and hooked up the intervalometer.

Glad I did.

 

Dog Bone Ridge

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After getting first tracks this morning at the mountain we came back to Mittenstock and took the boys out to Dog Bone Ridge.
Great conditions. Relatively warm at 34 degrees with no wind. A nice early January day.

It’s just two miles.
It’s kinda a scar of a path ( a series of skider tracks)
But it’s right outside our door and offers a nice accessible terrain hike for us.

We have never done it outside of show shoes. So much opens up in the winter. After a few snow storms travel is effortless on pillows and the views open up considerably. No bugs, no Harley’s. Off trail on snow shoes is the game of the season for us.

There had to be north of 18” of snow. It was a little heavy, but it made for solid traction and a stable track out and back, up and down. Both of us were good for one tumbledown each this trip.

I shot only a 50mm 1.4 on the D810. I always bring all sorts of gear and just about never break it out on trip. Part of the problem is that once I get on trail I am overcome with a ‘let’s make time’ feeling and tend to not want to stop or break pace. I need to work on that.

The truly great thing about Dog Bone Ridge is the access. Put the pack on in the house – and off you go.

Sally, fifty feet from home at the end of the hike today.

Not sure what the name of this piece of ground is.

We call it Dog Bone Ridge because

 

Well, Dogs…

 

Moonset at Sunrise

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MoonsetAtSunrise from Michael Hassey on Vimeo.

I also shot this at 300MM

300mmMS from Michael Hassey on Vimeo.

I worked as a human intervalometer manually depressing the shutter every time I heard the D800 fire on the 50mm. The result was a wee bit bumpy. 100 frames on 6 seconds did not yield much. I ran the output through Final Cut with a stabilizer (Lock&Load) applied to eliminate the shakes from the long lens and bumpy handling of the frames.

Dec 22 Clearing

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Dec22MTL from Michael Hassey on Vimeo.

A single NEF file from the D800 averages 75 MB.
Thats a 7360×4912 image. This sequence was shot on a Nikkor 85mm at f/9 for 1/120. I capture in M and lock the WB as well as ISO.

I shot 850 frames on a six second interval for around one and a half hours of exposure – filling a 64GB CF card. After dumping the card, creating keyframes, blending and equalizing the exposure curve and then rendering to a movie I am left with twenty-eight seconds of 4K magic.

I use Adobe Lightroom and the excellent LR Timelapse .

I was multi-tasking and did not have a timer on it, but would guess it was around 3.5 hours of processing time to squeeze that 28 seconds out of my Mac.

If you are on a capable device and want to make sure you get all the pixels you so deserve be sure to click the gear on the player and set the resolution to 4K. Vimeo will default to 1080P or at least it does on my crappy internet connection.

Winter Cometh

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Bring it I say

Shot this end of November. We had some great early season snow for Thanksgiving.

HUGE photo, but fun if you have the bandwidth.

It had been snowing all day the day before, as well as that morning. Behind the snow was some gusty wind and more squalls. Here are two captures as a time lapse mash up.

Nov 21 Squalls from Michael Hassey on Vimeo.

 

 

Also shot this;

Nov29-2018 from Michael Hassey on Vimeo.

 

 

April 22

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A five frame hand held HDR shot off the bridge looking up at the brook

A quick walk up a FR off of Nanamocomuk yielded a great little jaunt for a Sunday morning.

Laying in the snow every chance he could
Rolling in another snow patch
A five frame hand held HDR shot off the bridge looking up at the brook
Circled by wet mountain dogs
Another HDR shot off the brook from the bridge
The walk back – less snow the lower you go
Looking down the brook for one more HDR

Spring Conditions

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Perhaps the best run of the day was on 'North Conway'

And then it was spring.

 

Came over to MS to ski the last week our mountain was open.

It has rained a bit overnight – I got to the slopes around 11 AM as the sky was clearing. It was WARM at 53 and with the reflected sun it was crazy warm.

 

Back home and the doors and windows are open while the house gets a breath of the fresh air of a sunny spring day.

Dog Bone Ridge

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The Train

Last week, the Goldens got turned around by snow ball accumulation on the undercarriage. This week it was much colder and with an additional 15-20 inches of snow it was perhaps ideal conditions.

Temperature was around 25 with winds at 15 gusting to over 30

Snow Balls

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We set out for DogBone Ridge this morning. 14″ of fresh on the ground and we were able to strap on the snow shoes on the front porch and head off right from the house.

Leaving the back yard

We were not out more than twenty yards when Sally got trapped, twisted and went down. Lucky for her there were a couple of Goldens to help in recovery.

Down she goes

 

The trail for the most part follows skidder track which also carries some melt.

We were not that far into the days adventure when we realized there was a developing problem.

Some significant snow balls were starting to accumulate on the fuzzy undercarriage of the pups.

We had to reverse – head back and clean up the Goldens.

The cleanup involved warm water and bathtubs and resembled a scene from a Disney movie before long.

 

SnowBalls from Michael Hassey on Vimeo.

 

Memories of Balsams

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For ten years, from 1999 until our last visit in 2011, going to the Balsams was our family winter tradition. Most of the time it was just Sally and I, but on two occasions we were joined by the Brewers for some quality winter holiday family time.

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