Cormorant Encounters

Pelagic and Brandt’s Cormorants at Montaña de Oro, Los Osos, Calif. Courtesy of Mike Baird

Gliding through calm water on Lake Chebbaco, I focused on gently sliding my paddle into the water before using the strength in my abs to complete my stroke. In the distance, I saw the blurry silhouette of large, dark birds standing on a blue raft, stretching their wings to dry in the sun. With each stroke, I made out more detail.
“Dan, see the cormorants over there,” I hollered to my partner a couple hundred feet in front of me, while pointing at the raft.
“Yeah, looks like they’re on a breakaway raft.”
One, two , three… I found myself counting the birds standing in a perfect line on two edges of an old wooden raft, each spaced the same distance from the other allowing them to spread their wings.
Five, six, seven, eight.
Quietly gliding closer and closer, I took a good look, noticing the orange patch on their beaks, dark oily looking feathers and webbed feet. Double-crested cormorants, I learned, the ones that live in colonies and like to nest on rocky shores.
Later while paddling back across the lake from the shore to return to the beach where we had launched, I suddenly saw a giant arc of what from a distance looked to me like tall, thin black submarine periscopes sticking out of the water. Those periscopes, or how the long, extended necks and pointy beaks of the cormorants appeared to me from a distance, made me realize that below the gentle waters the cormorants were dive bombing in search of their next meal.

Climbing Owl’s Head in Winter

At 6:30 a.m., day break, we’re crossing the mighty Pemigewasset River, its powerful currents roaring through the boulder strewn riverbed below. With each step on the snow-covered cable suspension bridge, I feel the structure oscillating from front to back.

Our group of six hiker friends is heading up to Owl’s Head Mountain (4.025 ft), one of the longest single mountain hikes of New Hampshire’s forty-eight 4,000-foot mountains in the Pemigewasset Wilderness.

“My thighs and derrière feel like cold meat,” I joked to Heather, a thirtyish member of our group, who confessed she was having the same problem. The temperature was holding steady at six degrees F as we walked nearly three mile along the Lincoln Woods Trail. I donned a mask to warm my face, but my breath froze white crystals onto my eyelashes and long wisps of hair.

Later on the Black Pond Trail, we passed a marsh, sun glinting off silvery ice around slender dead trees. A mile or so later, we headed into the woods for our first bushwhack over to Lincoln Brook Trail, a detour that reduced our total number of stream crossings to three. One advantage of climbing Owl’s Head in winter is the ability to legally bushwhack which cuts out mileage from the nearly 19-mile summer route.

At Lincoln Brook, we ran into a group of three men trying to cross the rushing stream, frozen in parts, but soft in others. One hiker’s foot broke through frozen ice causing them to search for a more solid crossing. We began to doubt whether the stream was passable at all, but decided to walk along the south bank of the brook in search of a better place to cross. Most of us were wearing microspike traction, but the slippery slope had us hanging by tree branches to keep from sliding into freezing water. “Imagine what it was like for Lewis and Clark doing this for years,” quipped Dan M.

A few minutes later, Ken found a large frozen sheet of ice that looked safe to cross. He walked to the far side, then grabbed a branch above him, took one long step over rushing water and landed on the other side. Tomoko went next, walking gingerly across the frozen slab until she reached the rushing water. Then with a hand from Ken took a long jump and was over in no time. Third in line, I felt a bit jittery trying to gauge how far I would have to jump to avoid the rushing current.

“Hold the log, then take a big step and grab my hand,” Ken shouted while reaching out to assist.
With others waiting on the ice, I knew I had to go for it. One lunge toward the other side and a tug from Ken’s hand was all it took to fly up to the opposite bank.

Callie, Heather’s trusty German Shepherd/Golden Retriever dog put us all to shame with her intuitive judgment on where to place her furry feet before gracefully launching to the other side.

From there we bushwhacked through dense Spruce forest back to Lincoln Brook Trail, branches snapping and snow showering down on us as we forged ahead toward the summit. Two hours later, after a steep bushwhack through snowy forest, we reached the summit where we met the other group of hikers who had struggled to cross the stream and exchanged stories as we ate out lunch.

The descent required crampons and hundreds of careful steps to avoid slipping on patches of ice beneath the light layer of new snow, but we all made it down safely. Although our group could move at a good clip, our struggle to find a passable stream crossing had put us at least an hour behind schedule.

We walked the last few miles back on the Lincoln Woods Trail as the last glimmer of daylight disappeared. My feet were burning and felt like lead from the 17-mile slog, but I felt that inner sense of peace that comes after a full day of hiking and was happy everyone had successfully summited.

Obstacle Course

Crunch, crunch, crunch…

That would be my footsteps as I head out to load my skis into the car. It’s still dark at 6 a.m., but the boats on the rack near the car and field beyond are aglow with a blanket of new snow.

The three inches of snow that fell last night isn’t enough to ski without hitting bare spots, so Dan and I drove north to meet a friend at Lincoln Woods in New Hampshire. It was a cold average of about 15 degrees F when we clipped into our skis, but we warmed up once we started gliding through the fresh powder snow on the Pemi East Trail, which runs along the east branch of the Pemigewasit River.

After climbing our first hill on the Pemi East Side Trail, we slid down to a stream crossing that proved a bit tricky. I’ve crossed many a stream while hiking, but crossing frozen logs on skis without getting wet is tough. Within an hour and a few stream crossings later, we had chunks of ice forming on our skis so had to remove them to scrape off the ice as best we could with our fingers and tips of our ski poles. My friend Mary says a plastic credit card does the trick, so I’ll be sure to stick an old one in my pocket for my next X-C ski trip.

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A mile or so later, we stopped to gaze westward at Bond Cliff in the distance. Across the river, the Lincoln Woods Trail leads to Owl’s Head Mountain (4,025 ft), further on the Wilderness Trail, to the Bonds (Mt. Bond, West Bond and the Bond Cliff), all 4,000 footers.

On our way out, I high stepped over a downed log rather than sking around the log on a narrow ledge that dropped steeply into the icy rapids below. You never know what you’ll encounter while X-C skiiing through the woods, but that’s half the fun!

Finding Zaira

Today I had a lesson with my new guitar teacher, Zaira Meneses, and am so excited to get back to daily practice and playing. I’m working on scales in the Julio Sagreras book, playing through Italian guitarist and composer Mateo Carcassi’s (1792-1853) Allegro, challenging at first, but with Zaira’s help it’s coming, and learning the treble part of J.S. Bach’s Minuet No. 1, so we can play that as a duet when next we meet after the holidays.

For the past year and a half, I have been self-studying guitar, but having a teacher makes all the difference, especially for classical playing. Sometimes I fall in love with a piece and can sing it or hear it in my head, but get frustrated when I can’t figure out how to make it sing on the guitar. That’s where Zaira comes in. In just two lessons, she has helped me release tension from my left hand, demonstrated how to lift my fingers before gently placing them on the strings for a more supple sound in places, and revealed a “Russian trick” for moving my hand up or down the neck rather than creating more tension by stretching my fingers too far. I’m amazed at how little pressure is needed to play a note on a string and releasing all of that tension immediately frees you up to play.

Learning how to remove tension in my playing is now my metaphor for life. I’m trying, just TRYING to approach daily tasks more efficiently without forcing results. Of course that means allowing enough time for each task and that’s the hard part since I’m fabulously good at cramming my schedule with too many activities that can cause a near train wreck trying to fit everything in in a single day.

So glad I found Zaira listed on the Website of the Boston Classical Guitar Society. I called to see if she could recommend a teacher near me on Boston’s North Shore and was surprised when she answered in a cheery voice on the first ring. With her busy teaching schedule, community outreach, international touring and family life, I figured I’d have to leave a voice mail and probably wait days to hear back. I had been searching for a classical guitar teacher, preferably someone who played Latin music since I love Latin rhythms and learned a little Brazilian Bossa Nova with David Newsam, my prior teacher. Within moments, Zaira’s warm and ebullient personality captivated me.

Though I had intended to ask Zaira about other teachers, she quickly started interviewing me: “So you’re a writer,” she said. “Woooow. I don’t know any writers. What do you write about?” I shared a little about my professional work writing about business & technology, my narrative non-fiction memoir writing about Japan, then told her how I had been going through a divorce while living in New York and decided to buy a classical guitar instead of going on a vacation–a decision I never regretted. A vacation would give me only a couple weeks of pleasure, I figured, while a guitar would provide daily medicine for the soul.

Fifteen minutes later, I had agreed to drive to Zaira’s home in Needham for my first lesson. “I can tell you’re musical,” she said.

October Ice Cream

By mid-October, you know the days are numbered before the roads start getting messy so after Dan got home from work, we headed out for a late afternoon ride to Crane Beach. It was 52 degrees F and Dan insisted the wind chill would freeze me into a mummy.
“You’re gonna get cold,” he said with an intense look of resignation. Since I don’t own any of that expensive neoprene gear, I triple layered on top and bottom and squeezed my helmet over a red stocking cap. No way that wind chill was gonna bother me.
We hopped on our bikes, Dan on his sleek LeMond racing bike, I on my Trek touring bike, a hand-me-down from my 88-year-old mother who now sports a recumbent tricycle. Our neighbor Chris was painting his fence as we rode down the driveway.
“Nice bike,” he said admiring Dan’s bike, paint brush in mid-air, while I glanced at my loose handlebar tape and blank screen on the cyclometer I keep meaning to repair.

Only a couple of minutes into our ride, I felt my body begin to overheat as I peddled up the first hill on Western Ave, my gears slipping in the cold weather. I had to unzip my windbreaker, remove one fleece layer and strip off my wind pants, leaving me in two more breathable layers.

On Crane Beach, at the end of one of the boardwalks leading down to the beach, Dan took off his shoes to walk barefooted. Clip shoes don’t do well in sand. Later I got the urge to do the same so I could sink my feet into the sand and dip my toes into the frothy saltwater one last time before wintry weather arrives.

“Your feet must be cold,” a woman said, staring down at Dan’s feet.
“Yeah, I can’t feel the soles of my feet,” he said.

Our feet were frozen by the time we got back to the boardwalk, so we quickly brushed off the sand and put our shoes back on before returning to our bikes as the sun began to set. We rode back through the salt marsh adjacent to Castle Hill, past Russell Farms where visitors were taking home the last of this year’s apples and past the hay fields back-lit by a brilliant orange sky.

“I could really enjoy some ice cream about now,” I said half joking as we coasted toward Rt. 133, assuming Down River Ice Cream was closed for the season. Then as the yellow building came into view, I saw a light and the silhouette of a teenager through the window.
“Now we HAVE to get ice cream,” I said gleefully.

I ordered lemon chiffon yoghurt—I’m allergic so ice cream is out. Lucky Dan got the real stuff–coffee ice cream. We walked around back by the strawberry planters and sat in turquoise and hot pink vinyl Adirondack chairs to enjoy our cones, but quickly discovered eating ice cream in October just isn’t the same as in summer.

“Geez, my tongue is sticking to the ice cream every time I take a lick,” I lamented. “This doesn’t taste nearly as good as I remember it tasting in summer. Guess you need hot sun to melt it into that creamy consistency.”

“Yeah, you’re right. You have to bite into it,” Dan said, gingerly biting off a frozen chunk.

“This makes my teeth hurt,” I complained

By the time we finished our last bite, the sun had set. After small talking with a lanky male customer, who seemed impressed we were braving the chilly weather on bikes, we put on our headlamps, crossed the road and peddled home.

As we rode in the dark, cold wind chilling my face, I realized the ice cream hadn’t quite sated me. I needed to warm up and was ready for hot apple cider with a little rum.

The Killing

Hisssssssss.

The sound of a rattlesnake or so it sounded through the second story bedroom window at just past 11 o’clock a few nights ago. Whatever creature of the night was producing that sound was clearly defending its life.

Within seconds, a high-pitched screeching from somewhere down behind the house echoed through the dark forest.  Suddenly I imagined a coyote and its prey dancing a circle of death, one tearing into the flesh of the other as the smaller animal dug its claws deep into the attacker in its final fight for survival.

Beneath the screeching that lasted about a minute, I heard a steady rhythmic pulse, followed by a soft whimper, then silence.

After a few moments passed, Dan put his mouth to the screened window and with great force hollered: “Bugaboo, bugabugaboo,”

“What the hell…?” I blurted.

“I don’t want it leaving any carcass behind,” he said.

The morning after the killing, I walked out to the front yard and peered back at the spot where I figured the killing had occurred.  Birds were singing and the forest looked unchanged with no signs of Death from my vantage point. My eyes then traveled left to the rock den where Fuzzy Wuzzy, a plump ground hog, has been living.  My gut told me his den was empty. I had no desire to investigate further.

It’s been four days now and Fuzzy Wuzzy has not appeared as usual on the last couple of sunny days. He always seemed to stay close, circling around the house, and if he ever noticed me staring while he stood on his hindquarters nibbling on moist blades of grass in the field, he’d make a run for the woodpile. Then there was the day a squealing noise interrupted me and I looked up and saw Fuzzy Wuzzy in the side yard running and leaping playfully in circles with another groundhog that looked to be his mate.

I’m not sure I’ll be seeing Fuzzy Wuzzy again.  Time will tell.

Sandstone Tunnel

Zion Mt. Carmel Highway

As we wound our way up switchbacks on the Zion-Mount Carmel Highway, the thought of riding through a mile-long tunnel made of sandstone put me on edge. I had felt the soft, red rock crumble beneath my fingers when I touched rock faces while hiking in the morning.  No match for the strength of hard granite found in New England.

Later I read in Zion National Park literature that concrete ribs were added the entire length of the Zion-Mount Carmel Tunnel, reinforcement for what was considered the longest non-urban tunnel in the U.S. when the $503,000 project was completed in 1930.

Following the collapse of a sandstone pillar in 1958 that filled the tunnel with piles of debris, the tunnel is now electronically monitored 24-7 to alert park officials if problems arise. I had no need to worry.

While driving through the long, dark tunnel, we stopped at a large window-like opening cut out of the tunnel wall.  Peering through the opening, I took in the deep canyon glowing umber as the sun gently set. The tunnel engineers carved out the windows for light and ventilation, and stunning views, and as a space where fallen rocks could be tossed down into the canyon below.

What a testament to teamwork of the Union Pacific Railroad, the National Park Service, the Utah Road Commission, and the Bureau of Public Roads who put their heads together in the late 1920s to build Zion-Mt. Carmel Highway and the tunnel that cut through staggering cliffs and cavernous gorges to access Bryce Canyon and the Grand Canyon.