Saturday night before the moon came over the hill, I noticed the stars were out and the sky was clear. I saw a satellite go by and thought I would just set up my camera quickly then go to bed.
I was stuck with HOW MANY satellites went over in such a short period of time.
The quality is crappy – and I did not run it through TRLapse to de-flicker etc..
But fun to look at none the less..
StarLapse24 from Michael Hassey on Vimeo.
I was outside with Jake tonight – letting him do his thing before bed when I was struck with the nighttime curb appeal of MittenStock, so, I got out my gear and shot for a while. – I started with no flash – then one, then two, then three… Had trouble getting them to fire from the head but eventually .. I got a balance of natural and strobe and landed on this.
The last mile in can seem so long –
Filmed it tonight – for yucks and stuff…
The scooby handles the hill real well.
MittenApproach from Michael Hassey on Vimeo.
A little conflicted about when / if to trundle over to the land of mittendom. Mrs. Mittens is on call and as such, adventure time is restricted this weekend. This could however be a welcome opportunity to do some household repairs, finish prepping for winter, which I shudder when I say, is not that far away. The kiddies were at the ends of their driveways for buss practice today ! NOOOO!
Still, we are entering prime time as seasons go here in the north east. We remarked last weekend as we sat on the deck at sunset that it was over an hour earlier than June –
Get it while you can kids –
Get it while you can.
I think I will head over to MittenStock tonight. In time to toast the setting sun.
Sunday was a little warmer and more cloudy than forecast – but wonderful weather none the less. After the mitten special for breakfast, we re-fit the packs from climbing the day before back to hiking mode and drove up to hike the TNC lands of the Green Hills. This is the same section of hills that Black Cap is in, behind Cranmore separating MWV from Evans / Fryeburg area. We did Peaked Mtn. It was an easy five mile day, but the quality of the trail, the forest and the views were all outstanding. This is a gem.
And the obligatory BAP (big ass panorama)
I was inspired to join TNC 
Eating here is interesting –
We keep it simple and predictable as most of our time is relegated to adventures. We also like to name things – We are thinking of four seasonal specials.
So far –
Dinner: The mitten special. Brats on the grill, in buns with summer corn on the cob, beans and a salad. Sam Adams Summer Ale.
Breakfast: (twas the case this morning) Extra thick cut crispy applewood smoked bacon, pancakes with wild mountain blueberries we picked while hiking. Topped with Pure Maine maple syrup, strong dark roast coffee (we forgot to get fresh OJ )
We did Albany slabs today – the approach was…. interesting. Eventually we found the talus on south side and took it to the top where we dropped a rope down and did some nice slab climbing.
Two things struck me about this place – the beauty of the place and what we found on top. At first I thought I stumbled on to a geocache (tupperware container, paper, pens etc) but on inspection this touching passage was what we found,
So, here’s to you George –
And you as well Jim. I toasted you both tonight.
That was our plan today – Lazy start by any standard, but wander up to Jackson we did. There were only two other cars in the parking pull-out and most of the day it seemed we had the mountains to ourselves.
We had not done this before – and knew little of it. There is a ski trail up to a hut built around 1933 by the CCC that is still in use. It’s all USFS land and the trail seemed to be of above average quality. There were a few blow downs but all in all this was a well maintained low-use area.
We went up the ski path to the ‘old trail’ up to the col then hung a right over to the first view on ‘south’ which was unreal. Some of the best panoramic views you could imagine. There was for some reason a dragon fly convention going on at the same time, so it was fun to see somewhere around one hundred of them flying about on the breeze that we all enjoyed facing west.
From there we continued up to the true south summit past what we could only imagine was the scene of a lightning strike. Odd to find this where there is no camping or other signs of heavy use. Had to be lightning. The views from the south summit proper were nice but nothing like the western overlook a couple tenths earlier down the trail. There was a great view looking down into North Conway with Whitehorse and Cathedral prominent sentinels as they are.
We turned around, back down to the col and up to the north summit. That got a bit steep in spots – right where it started to go up like it was angry I decided it would be the perfect spot for some trail running. Sally told me afterwards that as she saw me take off she was wondering what the CPR sequence was for chest compressions / breaths. I ran until my legs failed. Literally I they would no longer respond to requests to lift up and move forward. I stopped and snapped a few shots of Sally coming up behind me and let life return to my lower limbs.
Soon we were at the cabin – lesser views to the east, then we took the ski trail all the way back to parking.
Great hike, some absolutely exceptional views and a great time.
We love it here.
And a couple of ‘killer’ panoramas (large file warning)
First from the western ledge of South Summit, Looking west – north-west.
And then from the South Summit proper, looking north to the north summit.
If you are STILL reading this, and not yet board to tears with tales of Double Head, here is my test video of my GoPro on the end of a mono pod. The trick is getting the right angle so the monopod disappears from the shot – that and a steady hand..
DoubleHead from Michael Hassey on Vimeo.
The weather is still looking great –
Just the five of us.
