Waterfalls & flood damage

I am starting my blog entry today with an old picture of me & my mom on the suspension bridge that leads over the Wild River and into the wilderness because this is where we intended to do our first pre-fall hike of the year. But as you will see, we were greeted with devastation upon arrival. The flooding caused by the recent hurricane called Irene, has taken the bridge completely out. We were completely shocked, dumbfounded in fact. Our hearts broke at the sight of the rubble that once was a gallant bridge.....gone.

After mourning our loss we chose not to ford the river this time and moved on out of the Evan's notch area and up to Randolf NH. Mom picked an impromptu hike that lead up the backside of Mt Madison. A somewhat short hike that turned out to be near vertical up most of the way. We camped in the deep thickets off trail on a slope not much fit for sleeping. But tired as we were we all slept quite well.

Our trip back down the mountain via a side route rewarded us with several sets of waterfalls. We followed the river all day down down down. Ice cold mountain water to slurp and play in. This yorkie was in heaven.

Sore legs at the end of a great weekend made us all aware of just how steep our hike had been.

On our way home we stopped in Lincoln to find more bridge damage at the entrance to the resort on Loon mountain. This bridge was undermined by what must have been incredible force.

I am so gad to be hiking again after much time this summer in a canoe. I do fear however that this will not be the last of the terrible hurricane damage that we will encounter this fall. Please be careful in the woods near these areas. And take time to reflect on what once was....and won't ever be again.