My first hike was to the Eternal Flame, a beloved local landmark just south of Buffalo. The flame is a natural gas flame that burns inside a small alcove in a waterfall. Read any of the trail reviews and you’re bound to find one person complaining that on their visit it was out, so it it’s as permanent as the name suggests. I started from one of the picnic shelters and walked a few miles in. Aside from one insanely steep descent of about 30 meters the trail was fairly mellow, with a little bit of creek walking. Can’t wait to visit in winter!
The beginning of 2021 was busy! There were roadtrips, weddings, mountains, bike touring, barbecue, beaches, birds, and the long road to Buffalo. After spending winter stomping around New Hampshire I drove to North Carolina, where my sister attended a wedding and I went bike touring and met a family of ospreys. We stopped in Virginia to see some friends and saw the cicadas as well! Then I had a wedding to attend in New Jersey, and we slipped off to the beach just before it started to pour. I had an early season bikepacking trip around Mt Monadnock, with lots of mud and as much walking as riding. A few more hikes in New England (plus some beaches, some whales, and some quality ocean time) before setting off for the Great Lakes.
It is believed that the word “monadnock” means “mountain that stands alone” in Abenaki. While there are many monadnocks in New Hampshire, most people know of only one, the biggest and most popular, and the most lonely of them all. I toured around the base of the mountain in early May, performing a complete circumnavigation on my bike. It is a magnetic peak, rocky and bald on top, visible for miles around, and shooting straight up out of rolling farmland and forest. Many of my Covid-era adventures brought me into Monadnock’s shadow, and I must admit that it is a charismatic landmark, dominating the landscape.
Sometimes I get too caught up with my sketchbook, with producing perfect internet-ready art. This was a chance to experiment and play. Whether it works or not is up to the viewer. Which do you prefer?
I had my second bike adventure of the season down in Raleigh, NC. My sister was attending a wedding and I tagged along as a co-pilot. With three days to kill I decided to head off and explore on my bike. I rode through the city, utilizing the fabulous network of swooping bike trails. Those eventually spit me out onto quiet country highways and I made my way to Falls Lake Dam. I camped by the river, and was disappointed by the cold rainy weather that pestered me all through the second day. I had planned to hike a bit along the Mountains to Sea trail, but instead hung out close to camp and hiked to the end of Shinleaf Point.
I spotted a pair of ospreys fishing off the point, and saw them carry their catches up to a nest where chicks could be heard yelping for a bite. I watched them for a long time, and poked around in the open forest looking for other birds and critters. It was cold and damp all day, except for 15 minutes of brilliant sunshine just before sunset.
On the third day I took the Neuse River Trail back to the city, spying turtles and kingfishers along the way. All in all a good trip. Once back at the rental house I wolfed down some barbecue with my sister and her friends, stripped the bike down, and prepared for the long drive back to New England.
Unlike last year I was better prepared for my first bike tour of the season. I’ve been riding indoors all winter, and nice weather allowed me to get out on the road earlier. That being said, I still met with enough challenges to induce some proper Type 2 Fun along the way. The route was built by a co-worker familiar with the area around Keene, however he hadn’t been there in quite some time and recent rains really changed the face of the tracks! I missed a turn after mistaking the road for a river, dragged my bike through shapeless muck up to the bottom bracket, and walked through light rain down a four wheel drive track turned into a creek. It wasn’t all misery, though. There were some beautiful sections of fresh pavement, a fantastic and nearly empty campground, and lots of waterfalls!
This trip I tested out a new rack and new fork mounts. I had to make some brackets to get the bags to fit on my fork and they performed extremely well. The rack held up, though it should be said that having the capacity to carry more weight isn’t necessarily an advantage: sure, you get more stuff, but you also have to haul it up hills! I wrecked my rear fender on the second day; luckily that’s a cheaper fix than wrecking the derailleur or wheel. However it did mean that my gear and shoes got much muddier on the way back than the way out.
With my kit solidified for the season I’ve already started mapping out more routes, daydreaming with maps in hand…
Scenes from a midwinter hike to Ethan Pond, a small body of water tucked in a valley about a 2820ft/860m above sea level. The main trail was steep and packed into a smooth sidewalk of snow, but beyond the turn-off to Ethan Pond the snow was fresh and untouched. Beneath the powder was a solid monorail for fairly easy travel that extended to the turn-off for the hut. It took a while to find the hut since the trail was buried under thigh-deep snow drifts. We broke trail to the end of the pond and had beautiful views of Mt. Wiley. It was quite cold and windy so we didn’t linger long.
I returned to the US when borders starting closing due to COVID-19, and for once I stayed put. Or I mostly stayed put. I got out and hiked and biked and skied and explored, but I stayed with the borders of one place. It’s the longest I spent in a single state since leaving Minnesota. Even getting outdoors was a challenge at times, as the pandemic drove people into the mountains like never before. Finding places without crowds was tricky, especially on weekends. Luckily there is a lot of forest in the northeast and plenty of places to explore year-round.
This is a very late post, drawn in July 2020. I’ve been slow to get any art out during the pandemic, but at least I managed to get out for a little adventure! I loaded up my new bike and headed out to bike the entire Northern Rail Trail, a 60 mile (97km) gravel path through central New Hampshire. The first few hours I rode with a co-worker but he eventually took off, outpacing me on a lighter unloaded bike. I slogged along to the end, then turned around to look for the campground, missing a turn and crawling up a giant hill as my last effort of the day. I was not quite in shape for this adventure, having rarely ridden for the last two years, and only getting in about a dozen road rides before setting off.
Day 2 was made easier by a slight downhill gradient, but all my muscles were quite upset at the 65 miles (104km) the day before. With around 15 miles (24km) to go I got caught in a downpour and hammered for about 10 miles (16km) until the rain ended and all my energy was gone. I managed to drag myself to the car just in time to avoid a roaring thunderstorm.
Doesn’t sound like much fun but it was a nice trip. I saw my first beaver, a doe and her fawn, and several turkeys. Plus I ran my new bike through the ringer, pinpointing some gear and fit issues I needed to work on and reminding myself that maybe I should do a bit more training before jumping into crazy adventures!
Indonesia is the 14th largest country by area, and the largest archipelago. It contains over 17,000 islands, most unnamed and uninhabited. It stretches thousands of kilometers from east to west, following a fissure in the earth’s crust. It’s the world’s 4th most populous country, each island sporting its own culture, or maybe several dozen different cultures. Hundreds of languages are spoken by hundreds of different ethnic groups. The natives of the Papuan highlands in the east and the conservative Sunni Muslims in Aceh in the west are connected only by their shared Indonesian citizenship.
A map of Indonesia’s geographic neighborhood, courtesy of Google Maps. Down in the bottom right corner is Australia, and just above that is the island shared by Papua (Indonesia) and Papua New Guinea (independent).
I only visited three islands, and I barely explored those, if I’m honest. Java and Sulawesi are large and diverse, with numerous pockets of geological and cultural wonders. Bali is much smaller but can still take weeks to thoroughly explore, especially if you are keen to get away from the beach resorts and nightclubs.
Here are some size comparisons to help you wrap your head around the scale of the archipelago: Java, considered the cultural heart of Indonesia, is a little bigger than New York state, and about twice the size of Tasmania. The section I traveled was mostly cultivated plains surrounded by huge green volcanoes—both dead and alive. Bali is only slightly larger than Delaware, and about twice the size of the ACT. The center of the island is dominated by two volcanic plateaus and a series of crater lakes, and all the runoff tilts down in long straight channels toward the sea. Sulawesi, massive and wild, is a little bigger than North Dakota, and contains a huge variety of climate zones, from lowland plains to high-altitude forest, barren volcanoes and dense jungle.
This small and very not-to-scale window into the Indonesian archipelago is a good place to start, but by no means captures the scale and diversity of this island nation.
Sketchbook Wanderings 