Isinglass River, Rochester, NH

I was told by Mark at Tri-City Bicycles to check out the trails at Isinglass River as an option for a quick local mountain bike ride. While my bike was in the shop last week, I decided to check them out on foot to see what the deal was. So, I ventured into Isengard.

er... sorry. IsinGLASS. Rich and Josh have spoken of a trail in Rochester with a waterfall on it, but I have never seen it, and I forgot it even existed. Apparently this was the location, and I gotta say, I was pretty shocked. I don't usually think of Rochester as a place that would have this:

and this:

just a few miles from the hustle and bustle. The trail was great- fairly flat with a few small hills, almost no roots, and almost no people (which means fast, fun, and flowy for a bike ride which I need to do). 

And they weren't lying about the waterfall. 

This is a quiet, beautiful spot that I just had no idea about. I walked all the way from the far entrance to the waterfall and back, which may only be 3-4 miles but it felt much farther. It was just a very nice, quiet afternoon walk with some beautiful scenery, following the river pretty much the entire way. 

This is looking down a perch towards the waterfall

After taking in this view, I made a friend

and promptly ate him. 

I then found, yet again, another Geocache thing. That makes 3 now, without even trying. This one was only a few days after the other one. Sadly, this one wasn't too hard to find, as I am always interested in large piles of trash and weird containers in the middle of the woods, since some stupid kids left it this way:

The last thing they wrote was something along the lines of "the stuff in this box is stupid, you should put some weed in here." ughk... I feel sorry for the world. 

So, I signed it, put it back together, re-hid it, and was on my way. Nice afternoon walk to a great spot I had no idea even existed.

seriously, worst handwriting ever. and the alligator I took does, in fact, rule.