Friday, December 19, 2008

Montalban Ridge on Mt. Washinton Looking west towards Mt. Lafayette, 2006

As in the previous photo(s) this shows another sample of rocks left by the glacier as it melted including the erratic in the center of the picture with rounded edges and the other, smaller rocks in the center foreground. Between the rocks the vegetation includes mosses, lichens, diapensia lapponica, a flower found in the alpine zone, which is the plant beween the smaller rocks that form a tight crown or tuft, and in the background is some krummholz of black spruce and balsam fir. This is still sub-alpine, at the transition point at about 4800 feet, where the alpine
zone would begin on the northern side of the range. This shoulder of Mt. Washington has a southern aspect and is also protected from the north by the summit massif of Mt. Washington and Boott Spur, an intervening higher ridge also just to the north.

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