Up the Rollins Trail, Mount Kearsarge
11 in. x 17 in., acrylic on canvas
$200 unframed
Although I prefer to summit Kearsarge from the Wilmot side, the Rollins Trail to the top of Mount Kearsarge from the gentler slope on the Warner, NH side is only a half mile long (there's an auto road that takes you most of the way up). Rollins is utterly jam-packed with rocks almost every step of the way, like a jumbled riverbed. It's a short climb, but the moderate grade and rock litter can leave you feeling like you spent more time than anticipated on the gym stair-climber. Last September, for our shared birthday outing, my 9-year old granddaughter and I went up the Rollins Trail for her first ascent to the top of Kearsarge. It was the tallest mountain she'd climbed so far, and Gloria skipped from one outcropping to another, thrilled with each new vista, more vast than the one before. This painting is of the uphill approach on Rollins where the trail takes a hard right, right before you leave the mixed forest, and enter the zone where the conifers get shorter and spindly and you're just a short scramble from the open areas of bare granite slabs that will take you to the top.
