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| Leaf Peepin at Welch-Dickey Loop |
| The air was cool and the morning light diffused with fog and mist as we arrived at the trailhead of the Welch-Dickey Loop in New Hampshire. My partner and fellow hiker, Joe Demore , had hiked this area before. He was a great help in preparing me . This was to be my first experience at hiking in the White Mountains but it had always been my dream to see a fall in New England and I was very excited as I was about to have that dream realized. I had done my homework and could safely say that I had seen many pictures of the loop and I was familiar with many of the lookout points. The temperature that day was in the 70's and the sky a brilliant blue so I knew that any pictures we took would be spectacular. The weekend of October 11th the foliage was at its peak. The trail was in very good shape and easy to follow with yellow blazes. The length of the loop is 4.4 miles and traverses both the summits of Mt. Welch and Mt. Dickey with elevations of 2,605 ft and 2,734, respectively. The difficulty rating is moderate and the time to complete the loop is 2-3 hrs. There are several fantastic lookouts on the loop that give a great view of the valley. There are some steep |
| colors on the highway to the loop |
| drop offs and the rock slabs can be slippery if they are wet. But every view is worth the effort put forth to reach them. The wide rock slabs offered a great place to rest and view the scenery. The day of our hike there were many other hikers out to do some leaf peepin. No one was disappointed in the wide variety and amount of awesome scenery that this hike provided. This was truely the most amazing fall foliage that I had ever seen. The colors were so vibrant with the crimsoms, gold, orange, and of course the New England red. The following pictures convey such a small bit of the beauty that the hike provided for us. My many thanks go out to my guide, Joe, for choosing this hike to introduce me to the beauty that abounds here in New Hampshire. If you are looking for a hike that has gorgeous views in any season (but especially the fall) and that can be accomplished with a moderate effort, you can't go wrong with the Welch-Dickey Loop. |
| Fall colors at the Upper Mad River |
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| the view from the first look-out |
| you can see that it's a tad steep.. lol |
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| The morning we started out was a bit foggy but it quickly burned off. All these photos were taken by my hiking partner, Joe Demore. He did a very good job of capturing all of the unique images of our hike. |
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| This is another view of the White Mountains from the first lookout. The colors were very vibrant even up on the rock slabs. |