After the previous failed sunset we went up South Mountain, just 5 miles south of downtown Phoenix. This time there were no clouds to obstruct the view!
Phoenix – September 2021 – Sunset Achieved
Tag: Mountain
Cerro Tronador, Argentina – December 2019 – Thunder Mountain
Tronador is an 11,000 foot high extinct volcanic mountain just south of Bariloche, containing numerous glaciers. It’s name is Spanish for Thunder, the sound of the ice cracking in the glaciers.
It is in all day effort to drive up, and hike around, the mountain and the glaciers. We started by heading south on Ruta 40 – passing the ever present hitchhikers seen in the area.
A few miles south of Bariloche you make the turn to the road leading up the mountain. It is a narrow dirt road, so narrow that it is one way up the mountain from 10 AM until 4 PM, then one way back down the mountain until 7 PM.
The initial part of the road passes through a valley floor and Lago Mascardi.
It is a 48 kilometer drive up this road, but about 1/2 way you begin to get some amazing views.
Eventually we made our way to the National Park where we were surrounded by towering walls and waterfalls. The area to the right is known as the Black Glacier due to the amount of debris it picks up off the mountain as it comes down.
Eventually it was time to head back down the mountain and our funky little rental car (which we named La Cucaracha – the cockroach – it was a no frills, nasty little car but no matter what we did to it you couldn’t kill it) hung on through the now wet, curvy downhill.
Brookline, New Hampshire – August 2019 – Sculpture Mountain (Andres Institute of Art)
In Southern New Hampshire there is a small mountain (but high enough!) that is the home of the Andres Institute of Art. So put on your hiking shoes/boots and head up the hill – you will be rewarded with a higher pulse rate, and some great sculptures.
When you get to the top you get rewarded with a great view too!
Well worth the hike up the mountain.
Barre, Vermont – August 2019 – Rockin’ Out in Vermont
While New Hampshire may be known as the Granite State, Vermont has their fair share. Their statehouse is a great example of Vermont granite.
Just outside the nearby town of Barre is the Rock of Ages Granite Company.
It is like many of the old company towns I grew up seeing in Pennsylvania and Ohio, only instead of coal it is granite – everywhere.
When you arrive at the top of the mountain and look down you see this massive pit. It is 600′ deep, but 300′ of it is under water.
Everything is super sized here, as they cut away giant chunks of granite for processing.
This quarry has been used for over 100 years. Their tools today are much better than the early days, which have been left behind. In the early days they climbed down these sketchy looking ladders to use drilling and dynamite to break the granite apart.
The years of removal have left interesting patterns on the quarry walls.
The tall yellow tower was used to bring the multi ton pieces up to the surface.
It was dangerous work.
As we made our way back down the mountain we passed their stockyard. Nothing was behind fences as the threat of something carrying away a rock weighing thousands of pounds without getting noticed is fairly low.
It wouldn’t even fit in their pickup truck.
We arrived while the factory was on lunch, so we spent some time bowling on the granite bowling lane, with granite pins. They claim that they used to use real bowling balls, but the pins would break the balls, so now they use foam.
The factory is quiet…. for the moment.
The crew has returned. With the weight everything is moved with cranes.
The granite business has gone down tremendously over the years. In the early years much was used in the construction industry (all those cool Art Deco buildings), but now it is relegated to mostly head stones. Even those aren’t used as much as in the past.
This day all the work we saw was on the aforementioned headstones.
Artisans still do the detail work.
And someone named David is about to get his headstone.
RDZ Photography 