You show me fading trails you miss

[sovay]

For Valentine's Day, spatch and I climbed around a part of the Fells we had not explored before. It was windburningly cold and full of jagged granite and late bronze sun and wonderful.



This slightly apprehensive study in lichen and pink granite greeted us from the stone wall between visitors and the sluice from Bellevue Pond.

.

There were multiple signs posted about the hazard of the snow-hummocked ice with patches of tea-colored water surfacing through it, which did not stop us from spotting, off near the reeds, a skater.



We took the steeper of the two trails to the summit of Pine Hill, which even before it tilted into step-stairs of rock had trampled into ruts and knobs of grey slick ice beyond which the woods looked elegantly undisturbed. We read signs that it was the natural habitat of fishers whom we hoped were denned safe and warm.



We asked no directions from the slumped little snow-figure by the side of the trail.



The ice as we neared the summit took on the look of a tide, which was perfectly true in the last glaciation.



I am indebted to ashlyme for the description of this quality of light as a seventies sun.



Wright's Tower was built by the WPA in 1937. I have no idea when it was tagged by Manny, but I loved the chime of the paint with the falling blue of the sky.



Its observation deck is open to visitors in season, but we just looked up at it.



I got a clearer picture of the Boston skyline which foregrounded itself with I-93 and panned out to the harbor islands, but this one had the scrim of winter-stripped trees.



Rob got a selfie of us under Valentine conditions.



The descending trail involved much less wishing aloud for crampons and pitons.



I was especially taken with the saurian-backed wall over the brook.



Because we had then been hiking for an hour below freezing, we made immediately for dinner in the form of roast beef sandwiches from the Bill & Bob's in Woburn which we ate in the car with a surfeit of napkins. Rob got French fries on the side, I got fried mushrooms in a little red-and-white paper carton into which I should not have poured ranch dressing without first securing a fork. It was chaotic and satisfying. The car in the streetlight-spotted dusk was starring in a film by Michael Mann.



We collected dessert from Frozen Hoagies in Winchester which we shared with my mother, who observed that my lips were still blue, but ice cream is winter food in New England, especially if it's coconut-milk between two snickerdoodles.

Home again, I met rushthatspeaks on a Zoom call with an impeccable sense of comic timing. Rob showed me Captains Courageous (1937), so sea-soaked that between acts I split a can of mackerel with Hestia. My fingers eventually warmed.

Comments

[mrissa]

They made a film of Captains Courageous??? I mean, I suppose of course they would. But. Huh.

[sanguinity]

I would also like to hear more about the film, having imprinted on the book when I was young! I've been eyeing the film for some while now, but I hear there are some Significant Plot Changes of which I am wary...

[sovay]

I would also like to hear more about the film, having imprinted on the book when I was young! I've been eyeing the film for some while now, but I hear there are some Significant Plot Changes of which I am wary...

I have not read the novel in ages beyond the chapter excerpted in Andrew Lyett's Kipling and the Sea (2014), but the plot changes are significant enough to me that if you watched the film, it would probably work best to consider it more in the category of "inspired by" than "adapted from." All of the quotidian details of fishing off the Grand Banks are wonderful and include some location shooting in Massachusetts and the Maritimes. Spencer Tracy admitted at the time that he couldn't do accents and completely faked his way through being Portuguese, for which he won a very surprised Oscar.

[sanguinity]

Thank you!

[sovay]

They made a film of Captains Courageous??? I mean, I suppose of course they would. But. Huh.

It is a vivid and committed sea-story with a kind of sideways-hinged relationship to its source material and depends considerably, as noted to sanguinity, on a mileage varies supporting performance. spatch who loves this film did not argue with me reacting to the character's introduction with "Say, how did you get to be an Italian?"

[a_reasonable_man]

Mine is the opposite reaction: I didn't even know there was a book, but long ago I saw the movie on TV. Spencer Tracy! Freddie Bartholomew! (And now that I look it up, Lionel Barrymore, whom I'd forgotten.)

[sovay]

Spencer Tracy! Freddie Bartholomew! (And now that I look it up, Lionel Barrymore, whom I'd forgotten.)

And Mickey Rooney!

[regshoe]

Those look very beautiful and very cold. That view of the city with winter branches is especially lovely. (Also, I didn't know the word 'fell' was used anywhere in America, that's cool)

[sovay]

Those look very beautiful and very cold. That view of the city with winter branches is especially lovely.

Thank you! It was brilliantly cold and I was glad to be out in it and also glad to have somewhere to sit afterward until my fingers de-blanched.

(Also, I didn't know the word 'fell' was used anywhere in America, that's cool)

I don't know if they actually qualify by the UK definition, but they were definitely named by analogy—a sort of crumple of hills and water and the occasional former grazing meadow, mostly wooded but the trees run out at the top of most of the hills. We have been making forays in for years and not walked all the trails. The amount of hiking to acreage feels slightly non-Euclidean.

[sabotabby]

Oh very lovely.

[sovay]

Oh very lovely.

Thank you!

[asakiyume]

The sunlight in all of these is fantastic. I love the lichen-anxious boulder excessively (there, there, my friend...), and blessings on (and all protections to) the intrepid skater. Your kiss is very Northeastern Valentines-appropriate, and the downward-guiding boulders are like a kind of music. Speaking of, I like the title of your current music, too.

[sovay]

The sunlight in all of these is fantastic. I love the lichen-anxious boulder excessively (there, there, my friend...), and blessings on (and all protections to) the intrepid skater.

We didn't see them when we returned to the pond, but we didn't see any freshly broken ice, either. I suspect the apprehensive granite thinks about it all the time.

Your kiss is very Northeastern Valentines-appropriate, and the downward-guiding boulders are like a kind of music.

Thank you!

Speaking of, I like the title of your current music, too.

It is the title track of an album I acquired last month and have really been enjoying, the same one that produced the fern-fossiled music video of "Agnes (feat. Anna Mieke)" (2024).

[selkie]

That is SO MUCH NATURE, aaaagh.

*waits in sensible location with apres-schlep beverages for y’all, along with them tinfoil blankets they hand out*

[sovay]

*waits in sensible location with apres-schlep beverages for y’all, along with them tinfoil blankets they hand out*

You run the best aid stations.

[gwynnega]

My snow envy continues unabated!

[sovay]

My snow envy continues unabated!

I would love to send you a share!

[choco_frosh]

that all sounds really lovely!

[sovay]

that all sounds really lovely!

Thank you! We ended up where we did because it was a part of the Fells we didn't have to drive far to and it rewarded. "Panther Cave" off on a different trail loop also sounded promising, but we will return for it when it is less cold.

[vr_trakowski]

I love the little snow person (blorbo?)! Your photos are always gorgeous but the Wright's Tower one made me grin, because:

[sovay]

I love the little snow person (blorbo?)! Your photos are always gorgeous but the Wright's Tower one made me grin, because

Hah! That's great. When did you take it?

(Thank you!)

[vr_trakowski]

2007, in Cucuron, Provence. I can't remember any more if it was early morning or early evening. But I usually take very boring photos so that one sticks with me. :D

[sovay]

2007, in Cucuron, Provence. I can't remember any more if it was early morning or early evening. But I usually take very boring photos so that one sticks with me.

It is not a boring photo.

[thisbluespirit]

Glad you managed to do something nice for Valentine's!

Snow! Thanks for sharing all the photos. The seventies light description is very accurate indeed.

[sovay]

Glad you managed to do something nice for Valentine's!

Thank you!

Snow! Thanks for sharing all the photos. The seventies light description is very accurate indeed.

You're welcome! It just looked so Ghost Story for Christmas.

[lokifan]

Gorgeous! I especially like the ice-tide.

[sovay]

Gorgeous! I especially like the ice-tide.

Thank you!

[umadoshi]

Lovely and oh-so-cold! <3

[sovay]

Lovely and oh-so-cold!

Thank you! Definitely the latter.

[a_reasonable_man]

Sounds like a lovely alive day!

[sovay]

Sounds like a lovely alive day!

That is a really good way of putting it. Alive days are essential. This one was really nice!