Our date began at the Bavarian Chocolate House in North Conway, New Hampshire, because we’d decided the other day to shop for a gift together and in our minds nothing defines love more than chocolate. It was a great surprise to find a friend of ours, who works in the local branch of the shop, behind the counter in New Hampshire and so we didn’t even have to say “dark chocolate” for each choice we made. And she introduced us to the chocolatier. Then she proceeded to fill the largest box for us. It will last a few days.

That done, we drove on to Big Pines Natural Area in Tamworth, New Hampshire, which I’d just learned about recently. After eating sandwiches at the trailhead, and topping those off with . . . chocolate, we donned our micro-spikes to begin our venture into this old growth forest of white pines.

About one-tenth of a mile in, a bridge spans Swift River and on the other side, there’s a loop trail through the forest and along the river, plus a spur to the summit of Great Hill. Unfortunately, half the loop is closed until spring 2022 because of major erosion, so it was an out-and-back tour for us.

Hiking up, we soon found ourselves among the behemoths that are probably about 200 years old and about 150 feet tall. They are giants worthy of our admiration and so we did. And we hugged a few. Well, I told my guy we were just measuring it to see how many of our wing spans it took to encircle the tree. But really, it was a hug. For this one, 3 arm lengths plus one extra elbow to finger tip.

The bark of an extremely mature Eastern White Pine, aka Pinus strobus, (or perhaps it’s really the other way around), forms elongated plates that would make an interesting fabric pattern for a dress or skirt if I were so inclined to design and wear such.

In the furrows between the plates, layers upon layers of dead bark gather, each having served its purpose of protecting the tree from brisk winter days like today, and hot and humid days of summer before being replaced by the next. In a certain way, those layers reminded me of an oyster shell standing upright.

Had the tree that we stood before been about 50 to 100 years younger, the plates would have been covered with horizontal lines that are spaced so evenly they could almost be notebook paper. And perhaps that is their purpose–for they have noted so much during their lifetime and it’s all written down, we only need to decipher the story.

On this mighty tree, however, the lines had all but disappeared and in some places scales of bark had been shed.

Eventually, we moved on to another tree that was about 3 times our arm span plus half the distance from my elbow to the tips of my fingers in circumference.

We felt rather tiny as we looked skyward, and then we hiked along a spur to Great Hill and its fire tower.

I thought I’d taken a photo of the fire tower at the summit, but maybe my frozen fingers weren’t working in that moment and ran back into my mittens while missing the shot. We climbed up into the cab, where the Tamworth Conservation Commission has posted signs on all four sides of the surrounding mountains.

Mount Chocorua’s unique and craggy profile brought back memories of a summer hike up the Champney Trail to the summit, and my Nervous Nellie reaction.

Through another window frame we spied our hometown mountain’s long ridge line. A few mountains always help us to gain our bearings, this being Pleasant Mountain, but Mount Washington, Mount Kearsarge North, and Chocorua also give us a sense of where we are in the world–at least in our little speck of the world.

On the way back down, we paused again at the pine of our initial admiration. My, what legs it has. And so many.

We snuggled into it, in hopes of showing off its immense size, but realized the photo didn’t do it justice.

At last we crossed over Swift River again, followed the “easy” trail, which wasn’t so easy since we were the first to travel it in the deep snow, and we wore micro-spikes rather than snowshoes, but anyway, we soon finished up and treated ourselves to a . . . chocolate.

Driving home, I had an inspired moment. Neither of us had ever visited the Madison Boulder. In fact, we weren’t really sure where in Madison, New Hampshire, it was located, but decided we were up for the adventure. And . . . we found it.

We had no idea what to expect–certainly not a rock the size of a two-story house.

This glacial erratic was dropped during the most recent ice advance that began about 2.6 million years ago and ended 12,000 years ago.

Again, we posed in hopes of showing off the size of this boulder, but we knew it wasn’t the right perspective.

And so I hugged the boulder. Exactly how many hugs would it take for us to encircle it?

Well, consider this, which we learned from signs at the kiosk: In addition to the snow, “we weren’t able to see the entire thing because its base is buried up to ten feet deep in the soil upon which it rests. With this in mind, the Madison Boulder measures 23 feet in height, 37 feet from front to back, and 85 feet from left to right.” My guy did the math and said it would take 45 lengths of our arm spans to embrace it.

Do you want to know about weight? According to the kiosk sign: “Because a cubic foot of Conway Granite weighs approximately 164.86 lbs., we can calculate the approximate weight of this irregularly shaped object. Current estimates (I like that they state “current” because new information always emerges as we learn more) put its weight at 5,963 tons.”

“It’s believed that the Madison Boulder was probably plucked from Whitten Ledge, less than 2 miles to the northwest, which is made of Conway Granite. The ice transported the boulder, smoothing its edges, and left it on a different type of rock, called Concord Granite. A glacial boulder sitting on bedrock of a different type is known as a glacial erratic.”

Can you see my guy as he came around the bend of the boulder? It dwarfed him as it should because it’s the largest known glacial erratic in North America and a National Natural Landmark.

We were both dwarfed by the immensity of the trees and the boulder and certainly LOVE is something that will always make us feel smaller in the bigger context of the world. But a root entwined within the roots of a toppled Big Pine sent a message from the universe that no heart is perfect and yet all are precisely that.

The biggest box of chocolates. Big Pines. The largest known glacial erratic in North America.

From our heart to yours–Happy Oversized Valentine Mondate!