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I took the day off and went hiking for the eclipse.  I searched high and wide for where in the park I should go to see it.  My top choice was Indian Head, but I had backups of Baxter, Hurricane, and Jay in the event I couldn't get any parking at AMR.  The reason I wanted Indian Head was because the sun was going to be right over the lake during the totality.  I figured this out using https://www.suncalc.org/#/44.1121,-73.8237,15/2024.04.08/15:25/1/0. (set for the date/time of the eclipse, image of the sun path was generated there).

I got lucky.  I arrived at the AMR lot a little before 7 and got the second to last plowed spot.  The full lot was plowed shortly after we started hiking though, so we could have come up a little later and been fine.  Who knew though?  We had time to kill as the eclipse was around 330 and started around 2.  So, we hiked in and saw Beaver Meadows falls, which is absolutely lovely when frozen.  Got there late enough that we got some rainbows too!  Then we meandered up to Gill Brook and over to Indian Head.  As always, Gill brook is a thing of beauty.  The spur to Indian Head was a mixture of snow/slush and mud.  Not the most fun to hike.  The one scramble on the trail was fun to get up, but we all did it.  At the top we took a moment to head right to the lookout over the valley before heading to the ledges.

We got to the ledges with plenty of time to set up and prepare.  There were about 50 people on the 2 ledges and every party had good cameras.  It was like a small festival.  When the event started, we all were in awe.  A partial eclipse is amazing on its own.  But when you're watching where there's totallity, it's something completely different.  Watching the sun through the glasses, it was like the laser etching videos where it just all comes to a point and than BAM, you can't see anything.  Take the glasses off and it's a very weird feeling to be looking at the sun and seeing a white ring around a black dot.  If you looked at the horizon, it's all sunset colors, all around you.  It is just an out of the world experience.  About 1/2 way through the partial eclipse, I had to put on another layer as it suddenly got cold.  This lasted till we started hiking down.  

We then hiked down the short trail out to the road and headed over to Rainbow Falls.  Again, this is just spectacular in the winter.  Coming in from the bottom, we were faced with massive ice blocks, blue-green in color, at the base of the falls.  I saw it earlier in the winter from the Weld trail, but from the bottom was something else.  What a beautiful place.  Then we hiked out, hoping that getting to the cars around dark (730ish) we'd have missed the traffic.  Well, we didn't.  I turned left out of the lot to drop one of the hikers off at her car at Marcy Field, and then turned left to go to Stewarts for some food.  The lot was full.  I had to park next to the porta-potties.  When I went inside, there was a line of 20 for the restrooms and a line of 20 to checkout.  I grabbed drink and food, paid, then used the porta-potties before joining the long line of traffic to the northway.  When I got to 9N I took it and the road was empty to Elizabethtown out to the Northway exit 31.  I head south and just before exit 30 the traffic started.  I averaged about 40 the whole way down to at least Saratoga.  The 2 hour drive to Keene took me 4 hours.  I got home just past midnight.  It was an amazing day, but a long day.