Things with Wings: White Mountains, New Hampshire

Sunday, June 24, 2012

White Mountains, New Hampshire

We spent Saturday-Sunday in the White Mountains, enjoying beautiful scenery, wildlife sightings, good friends and lots of butterflies! The lupine had mostly gone by, as the heat shortened the bloom time and sent them to seed. There were still occasional blooms to see, and you can just imagine how beautiful the area is during peak season.

Our first outing was to hike at Flume Gorge.

It's a two mile trail, mostly uphill, with lots of stairs at the end of the gorge, which has 70-90 feet granite walls and a waterfall rushing through it. Shortly after we started our hike, we came to a covered bridge and saw about 20 White Admiral butterflies on the stones along the river below the bridge. None of us had ever seen so many butterflies gathered in one place! And it was a first sighting of this variety for me! Whoot!

White Admiral butterflies

As we continued along the trail, we began noticing thunder...but we continued on! We saw more White Admirals all along the trail.

We almost made it around the loop before the rain began, and since we were under a dense forest canopy, we didn't get wet!

See the Mama Turkey and all her babies? They are well camouflaged!

Saturday evening, we went on a Moose Tour with Pemi Valley Mouse Tours from 8-11:30PM. I had never seen a moose before, and we all agreed it might be fun to go on an official tour. It wasn't guaranteed, but they had a 97% success rate. We saw four moose and a black bear on the tour! Why are the moose at the sides of the roads, when they have the whole forest available to them? After winter, they can gain weight more easily by eating salt. The rock salt used to treat icy roads in the winter washes into the ditches and roadside swampy areas, and the moose are drawn to it like moths to a flame!

Credit: Pemi Valley Moose Tours

One of the stops on our Moose Tour was to watch the sun set over the mountain. It was a lovely sunset! I didn't get any photos of the moose or bear. Things moved too quickly and it was too dark!

Today we drove up to Sugar Hill for breakfast at Polly's Pancake Parlor. Delicious! We also walked through the lupine fields, although they were mostly gone by.