With the cold starting to grip New Hampshire, I decided to take a trip out to Sculptured Rocks Geological Site in Groton.
There is no trail along the gorge carved out by the Cockermouth River. So, you have to bushwhack along the river and find your way down to the river.
Given the conditions underfoot, this was done carefully, lest I lost my footing and ended up in the river. This would end up with me having a really bad day.
Scouting in the summer to find good access points and marking them with the GPS is certainly a good idea.
I did find a couple of safe ways down into the gorge and it was well worth it. The walls of the gorge were lined with walls of ice, frozen in the act of flowing over the rocks.
The rocks in the gorge themselves were glazed with ice and surrounded by a curtain of icicles that reach into the river.
Some of the ice was white and pristine, and others were stained with the tannins leached from the soil as the groundwater ran out through the rocks, resulting in a rust-colored stain in the ice.
This contrasts with the topping of whore snow that dusts the icy features.
