Set 2 of Lupine Festival Seasons

Bob Jensen at Trinity University 

Every year there's a Lupine Festival in Sugar Hill. This year the Festival is June 1-June 15, 2012. This particular year the Lupines were late due to our cold springtime (it's still cold in June). Our furnace has run every day since August 2011. So the peak of the lupine season may actually be in late June due to cold weather. The lupine are similar to but much larger than the blue bonnets we enjoyed in the "Hill Country" north of our home in San Antonio. Below is a lupine that has not yet entirely filled out. This photograph is courtesy of my friend Wes Lavin.

For comparison purposes, here is a Texas Blue Bonnet in March
This photograph is courtesy of Trinity University's Public Information Officer Venetia DuBose

The Sugar Hill Lupine Festival in the White Mountains of New Hampshire

Below you can see how beautiful our wildflower field south of our cottage becomes in June

The roof that's visible below is part of our barn roof

The view of Mt. Washington on the left and Mt. Garfield on the right as seen from our front lawn

Here's a woman doing what we hope will not be done in front of our cottage.
We prefer that tourists enjoy the view without trampling the lupine
The highest mountain in this shot is Mt. Lafayette

The three similar mountains below are the Three Graces
But we call them the three Cannon Balls to the south of Canon Mountain and north of Mt. Kinsman

A neighbor down the road puts out this sign every year and has walking trails through her fields

One of the most popular places to eat in New England (breakfast and lunch only)
it's called Polly's Pancake Parlor and is only a mile down the road from our cottage
Across from Polly's there's the old barn that was sagging in the middle until two years ago

This barn houses one lonely Appaloosa mare that's always in tall pasture
Incidentally, it is not healthy for horses to graze on lupine plants
This is one of the reason this mare cannot reach the lupine

For a description of lupine fields along our road, go to http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0027pL 

There is a fantastic spot in northern New Hampshire for wildflowers with mountains on the horizon (though not usually covered in snow at that time of the year). Go to Sugar Hill, NH in mid-June for the lupine festival. From about June 10th to 17th there are fields of lupines that bloom beneath the White Mountains. In Sugar Hill on Sunset Road there is a 12 acre field completely filled lupines that has Cannon Mountain and Mt. Washington in the background. These lupines come in shades of blue, purple, white and pink. The attached image was taken at sunrise in the lupine field on Sunset Road in Sugar Hill. The back roads around Sugar Hill contain a number of spots where there are large concentrations of lupines, some strategically located near red barns and white churches. This spot is not only great for grand landscape shots, but is also macro photography heaven, the dew drops and little insects on the lupines also make great subjects. But be careful, one morning at sunrise I was intently photographing the sunrise and moved towards a tree to include it in my shot. I startled a mother moose and calf who I did not realize were on the other side of the tree and they ran right in front of me. Of course having a 17-35mm lens on my camera with an ND grad and polarizing filter made it a little tough to get a good shot of the moose.

About 5 miles away is Franconia Notch state park where there are lots of nice waterfall opportunities, my favorites include The Basin, the Falling Waters Trail (Stair Falls and Cloudland Falls are both wonderful) and the Flume.

This area in early to mid-June can't be beat. To do grand landscape photography in New England requires a little more work than in the national parks out west, but Sugar Hill is one of the better locations in New England for the kind of photography you are interested in.

-- Ed McGuirk , April 06, 2002; 06:15 A.M. Eastern

Photographer Wes Lavin often visits up in these mountains
He occasionally allows me to post some of his pictures

This is a Wes Lavin springtime photograph of the Iris Farm down the road
Sadly, the farm is now vacant with an uncertain future
I would like to see it become a living farm for tourists

Below is a picture that I took when above the  picturesque Iris Farm
This photograph shows the Kinsman Mountain Range backdrop of this old farm

Set 1 Photographs of the Lupine Festival in Sugar Hill --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/Lupine/Set01/LupineSet01.htm

Wildflowers Set 1 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Tidbits/Wildflowers/Set01/WildFlowersSet01.htm    

Erika's Flowers of the Field --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2008/tidbits080625.htm

A Walk Down Lovers Lane --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2009/tidbits090623.htm

Texas Wildflowers Set 1 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/Wildflowers/Texas/WildflowersTexas.htm

Texas Wildflowers Set 3 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Tidbits/Wildflowers/Texas02/TexasWildflowersSet02.htm

Our cottage's history ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/CottageHistory/Hotel/Brochure/Brochure1900.htm

More of Bob Jensen's Pictures and Stories
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.htm

On May 14, 2006 I retired from Trinity University after a long and wonderful career as an accounting professor in four universities. I was generously granted "Emeritus" status by the Trustees of Trinity University. My wife and I now live in a cottage in the White Mountains of New Hampshire ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/NHcottage/NHcottage.htm

Bob Jensen's Blogs --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/JensenBlogs.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called New Bookmarks --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called Tidbits --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called Fraud Updates --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
Bob Jensen's past presentations and lectures --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/resume.htm#Presentations   

Our address is 190 Sunset Hill Road, Sugar Hill, New Hampshire
Our cottage was known as the Brayton Cottage in the early 1900s
Sunset Hill is a ridge overlooking with New Hampshire's White Mountains to the East
and Vermont's Green Mountains to the West

Bob Jensen's Threads --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm

Bob Jensen's Home Page --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/