Beede Falls

The Town of Sandwich and local conservation organizations maintain some beautiful open spaces in the area, including Sandwich Notch Park. One of our favorite dog walks (off-leash romps, mostly) is to Beede Falls, located in the park. We often start at Mead Base Conservation Center and make a loop using Sandwich Notch Road. (Click here if you’d like to learn more about Friends of Mead.) Though the falls draw a lot of visitors in the summer, during most of the year it seems that we have the place to ourselves. The park and Mead Base are at the southern end of the White Mountain National Forest and practically in our back yard. Lucky us! Lucky dogs!

Beau, pictured here, is the younger and peppier of our dogs. He’s technically our granddog, as we are keeping him for our son David who lives in San Francisco. David rescued him from the Humane Society in Sacramento. He’s mixed breed, seven different breeds according to one of those doggie DNA tests, but he sure came out well!  Beau can take off like a rocket and is prone to going walkabout, disappearing in the woods in a flash and reappearing anywhere from 5 minutes to 5 hours later. Fortunately, his long adventures have so far been from home, and he’s rarely any worse for the wear. (He has twice come back with a few little porcupine quills in his nose and front legs. We figure he must have come across a carcass, because if it had been a live animal, he would certainly have gotten a face full!)

This photo of Gracie, almost 11 now, shows her in her favorite position. She is a couch potato, though she can spring to life when out and about with Beau. (Don’t you think she could be an LL Bean model? That’s one of their futons she’s perched on.) I sometimes snap on her leash just to keep her moving. She wants to stop, smell, and eat pretty much everything. It’s a Lab trait. When I pull up to the parking area at Mead Base, she’s the one who starts whining with excitement and anticipation. (“Acorns, bark, dropped tissues, ooohhh, I can’t wait!”)

The walk into the falls is through a beautiful boreal forest — cool, damp, and shady — so at this time of year I wear creepers on my boots to prevent any ice dancing. (That makes flailing to the ground sound graceful, no?) I come back out to the car on the Sandwich Notch Road, which at this time of year is closed to car traffic. More sunshine there and lovely woods. There’s not much wildlife to see in the winter. We might come across snowshoe hare tracks or signs of deer or raccoons, but soon the chipmunks will be out, and Beau will be beside himself. 🙂

Here are the falls two weeks ago when the ice was breaking up. They’re part of the Bearcamp River, about 35 feet high, dropping into a large sandy pool. There are also lower falls, much smaller and friendly for sliding down in the summer. When I’m on my walk circuit I always pause here to listen. The sound changes so much from the muted whoosh of the water behind ice in the winter, to the roar of the cascade in the spring or during a wet fall. Take a listen yourself (and get a peek at the dogs) by clicking here, or click on the YouTube icon at the top right of the Home Page.

Here are the falls just yesterday. We’ve had a string of strangely warm days, and the ice is virtually gone. Click here to listen to the falls in full spring voice. They would make an excellent sound machine “white noise,” don’t you think? (Except for my chattering. Sorry about that!)

I’ve seen some spectacular waterfalls. I’ve ridden the Maid of the Mist to the base of Niagara Falls, wearing one of those see-through blue plastic ponchos. (Niagara is overkill, in my opinion, like drinking out of a fire hose.) And I’ve seen some absolutely gorgeous, towering falls in the Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina (where they filmed some of the footage for Last of the Mohicans, a favorite of mine), but to me, Beede Falls ranks right up there. Maybe it’s because the dogs can play there, or maybe it’s because I slid down the ledges of the lower falls as a child, laughing with my best friend Vicky, wearing cut-off blue jean shorts so as not to rip our swim suits to shreds. I certainly don’t need to “get away from it all” here in Sandwich. Maybe it’s that instead of running away from something I’m running to it. That feels good.