Tag Archives: Sutton

Training for the Claassen Northeast Kingdom Lakes Century Tour

By jimblock | Published September 16, 2011

The 14th Annual Terry & Ben Claassen Memorial Northeast Kingdom Lakes Century Tour will take place tomorrow, September 17. It will be my third century ride of 2011 after The Prouty and a training ride for The Prouty. Like I did for the 13th Claassen, I plan to leave Crystal Lake State Park in Barton, VT as early as they will let me (presumably 7 am), ride at my own pace (slower than most) and take some photos with my LX5 that will be around my neck for most of the ride. If I would have realized last year how hilly this ride is (6600 feet of climbing) I might not have entered. But I will be back tomorrow for another punishing 100 mile ride. Weather promises to be sunny and cool with thankfully less wind than last year.

After The Prouty I explored Andover, NH and other NH spots with my mountain bike. Then on the last day of August I climbed on my road bike for the first time since the July 9th Prouty and started training for the Claassen. I rode mostly in the Sunapee, New London, Wilmot, Sutton, Bradford, Warner, Henniker areas, with some rides farther afield. The rides varied in length between 27 and 80 miles. Most were fairly hilly. Here are some of the photos I took during these rides.

I often started very early in the morning from Burkehaven Harbor in Sunapee. After pumping my tires I looked up and saw the sky. Grabbing my LX5 I made several three shot panoramic images at waters edge. Here is one. 

As I rode along Lake Avenue the sun was just beginning to emerge across the lake lighting the side of Mount Kearsarge—or was that light just flare in the photo I took? There are many homes along this road so view spots are few, but I found one for this photo.

Typically I climb to Springfield or New London before speeding downhill to Wilmot or Sutton. This photo makes it look like I ride on grass. I don’t; the wheel was stationary on grass when I took this photo moving the camera in an arc during the exposure.

Sometimes I stop at the Waterloo Covered Bridge in Warner after riding the beautiful Roby Road. Here are a few photos I took one visit.

Farther along I saw what looked like a yard sale covered for the night.I would often stop for a bagle at the St. George Cafe in Henniker.Passing through Newbury and Sunapee often revealed colorful motifs.

Water is a prominent feature in many of my scenic photos—especially if the water is moving or reflecting fall foliage. And around water the foliage is often quite colorful by mid-September. Here is a slide show of photos I took of some of the water bodies along my routes.

Returning to Lake Sunapee after one ride revealed a beautiful sky—a nice end to a long ride.

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King Hill Reservation

By jimblock | Published September 2, 2010

A family ski area where many, including yours truly, first took a successful downhill run, King Ridge Ski Area in Sutton NH is now a conserved area for hiking, bird watching, and cross country skiing. The former ski area has been divided into a luxury home development at the very top of the hill and a 441-acre preserve owned by the Town of Sutton with the Ausbon Sargent holding the conservation easement. Trailheads are found along Hominy Pot Road and Kings Hill Rd. We entered from Hominy Pot Rd. found 0.2 mile east of Exit 11 off I-89. A small parking lot is exactly 1 mile from NH Rt. 11 just beyond the interstate crossing, but it is easy to miss because the sign is partly hidden.

The area seems to be infrequently used. I have been there a number of times for bird photography and yesterday for a hike with Jann and have never seen another visitor. Many of the trails are level and easy, but some climb the former ski slopes. The trail along Lyon Brook is especially nice. We have had a hot dry summer so the brook was just barely running—more like trickling among the exposed rocks.


Streams filled with water are exciting to photograph, but the dark exposed rocks with bright reflection in the pools made interesting subjects.

We approached a well-made bridge over Lyon Brook, and I set up to make a multi-shot panoramic image. I shot 5 images with the camera oriented vertically on a tripod and used 4 of them for the composite below. In this way one can make the lens effectively wider and still maintain a “normal” aspect ratio.

After crossing the bridge we emerged from the forest into a field filled with milkweed and some migrating warblers. But we suspected we were off the reservation so we returned to a wide path along an old stone wall. The light was very contrasty so I made three bracketed exposures two stops apart and merged them using Photomatix Pro.
I had been using a polarizer and when I aimed my lens at a small piece of the brook, I saw a dramatic change in the image as I rotated it. I’ve seen this many times before, but a side-by-side comparison of such images can be a huge surprise to those who do not use one. Here are two views of the same subject taken 9 seconds apart. All I did was rotate the polarizer.

Finally an unidentified caterpillar. Anyone know the species? There was a stem next to this one that had been stripped of leaves. Could be this is the culprit and it moved next door to continue eating.

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Boot Tree and Steam Engine, HDR examples

By jimblock | Published July 28, 2010

I recently photographed two curiosities in the Sunapee/Sutton area.  Both were surrounded by trees and both days were bright and sunny.  This is a deadly combination for creating a nice photo—the contrast is way too high and the shadows tend to “confuse the image”.  So I tried a 5-shot high dynamic range (HDR) blend.

HDR is a technique where you take multiple exposures (some brighter than normal and some darker) and use software to blend the images into a single version.  In this way one can tame the contrast; compress the dynamic range.  For quite a while I have used Photomatix to accomplish this blending and “tone mapping” since the HDR tool in Photoshop was much inferior.  However, with CS5 Photoshop’s “HDR Pro” tool is much improved.  So now I use both but still favor Photomatix in most cases.  The two example here were both created with Photomatix.

Since the creation of a single blended image from multiple captures involves getting them to align properly, using a solid tripod is very helpful.  But on these two occasions I did not have a tripod handy.  So I used a technique that sometime works well—high speed HDR. You set the shutter release mode to the  fastest burst possible, use auto-bracketing, and brace the camera as best you can so it moves as little as possible between exposures. If you are steady enough the software will be able to fix the misalignment.

HDR software has multiple sliders to control many features of the mapping of tones from the 32-bit initial image to the resultant 16-bit image.  How you choose to set these sliders has a major impact on the “look” of the image. One can go for a realistic look or a very unusual, somewhat painterly, look.  I did one of each in the following images.

This wood fired steam engine was abandoned near a quarry in Sunapee years ago.  It was used to haul stone up out of the quarry. I made no attempt at realism here.

The boot tree in Sutton is hard to find even if you are looking for it. It blends nicely with the surroundings at this intersection. There are a total of 5 boots; East Sutton is hidden  behind the tree in this view.

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