The last weekend of January the snow melted away at Partridge Run and I was able to drive out to Fawn Lake with little problem, except for the road being a little bit soft.
I hiked down to White Birch Pond, where in the shady side of the mountain there was a little bit of snow left.
Walking along the headwaters of the Switzkill Creek at Partridge Run.
A map of the route.
The Thatcher Park OSI Parcel with High Point and Hang Gliders Cliff have rapidly become one of my favorite local places to visit. It has replaced Partridge Run as a personal favorite, mainly because in addition to interesting woods to explore, it also has the Escarpment to look off.
The day when I went out hiking I had previously gone to the doctor with a horrible sinus infection. I was feeling pretty sick, but the bright blue skies just beckoned me to go outside and get some fresh air. So I donned my beat up old cowboy hat, took some Zyrtec and my antibiotics, and off I went.
I didn’t plan on snowshoeing too far, so I decided to park up at the old Bluestone Quarry off of Carrick Road. Carrick Road was a sheet of ice, with about 2 inches of packed snow on it. Fortunately the Quarry had an area that was well plowed and it was a perfect place for me to park and not worry about getting my pickup stuck. Even with 4×4, I am so paranoid about such things these days.
The bright sun and the blue skies were so delightful. In winter, it seems like gray snowy weather is always the norm, and it’s rare to get a truly nice day for snowshoeing. On this particular day, there was not a cloud in the sky, and it could almost not have been much nicer.
Here is the junction of the White Connector Trail and the Red Ski Loop which is multiplexed with the Long Path. This is only a short distance from High Point. The light and the weather was just so amazing on this afternoon.
I hopped off the Red Ski Trail and took an old woods road to High Point. I had never been over this way before, and when I reached High Point from this angle, I almost didn’t even realize it was High Point, looking out through a clearing.
While I go up to High Point quite a bit, it is the first time I really noticed this classic looking farm in Guilderland with the barns and the house. Obviously, you can’t tell what kind of livestock they raise from this picture, but it is a very classic old farm house and old barns, probably from back when it was a dairy operation some time ago.
All of the sun and fresh air made me start to feel better so I snowshoed on south to Hang Gliders cliff. While I usually would take the unmarked escarpment trail all the way on over in the summer, I took for the first part the Long Path and cut over to the unmarked trail, to avoid the section that runs right along the edge. Here we are looking off Hang Gliders cliff, down into the valley.
Settles Hill can viewed from Hang Gliders Cliff quite well. I have always loved the look Settles Hill if only for it’s rolling nature and all of beautiful small farms up on it. Most of this country is still in the Town of Guilderland, although some is in Princetown.
Snowshoeing along Hang Gliders Road. There was some icy patches and I passed a group of young kids snowmobiling, probably from one of the neighboring farms.
One of the things I don’t like about this time of year is the days are so short. That said, each and every day is getting a little longer, and twilight is now around 5 PM every night. In a month, the twilight will be much closer to 6 PM. Sunset was about 4:30 PM.
There was waxing crescent moon hiking back to the truck. Quite beautiful, as the sun set in the opposite direction. It made for a beautiful hike on back to my pickup, as I headed home for the day on this wonderful day.
The route I took is in green.
Last Saturday I went out snowshoeing at Grafton Lakes State Park. I wasn’t planning on going out, until I realized how truly nice it was outside. I quickly tossed my snowshoes in the pickup, packed up my pack, and off I went.
I drove out along Domain Road, past the winter entrance to the Grafton Lakes Park, and parked down along Second Pond. I didn’t realize that snowshoers/skiers could go through the winter entrance, and all the way to the beach on Long Pond. Instead, I snowshowed out along Second Lake to Long Pond. As you can see, Long Pond was not frozen.
I decided to go on the trail around Long Pond. While I’ve been around Long Pond in a canoe and kyack in the summer, I’ve never been all the way around the trail in winter.
Several sections of trail would have been swampy had it been warmer. It instead was ice, in most portions thick enough, that the snowshoes crossed it without cracking through. The trail along Long Pond probably is not very good for hiking on wet times.
The trail around Long Pond is signed with “More Difficult”. It is amusing to see the trail signed “More Difficult”, especially after all of the High Peaks and other mountains I’ve climbed in the Catskills and beyond. This trail is almost completely flat, bar a few rocks and roots sticking up and a few very small hills.
The far end of the lake looking due south towards the swimming beach. You can’t actually see the beach from here, because the lake turns slightly to the west from here.
After going around Long Pond, I headed along the Second Lake. This lake was frozen unlike the other pond. It was a bit too thin to dare cut across it.
Here is a map of the snowshoe hike in blue.
I was up in Addison, Vermont to watch the demolition of the Champlain Bridge and I figured while I was up there I would go for a hike in the afternoon to see some of the beautiful vistas of the Champlain Valley. I have only been hiking once before on the Vermont side of the lake, and never down in this part of the Champlain Valley.
I really was hoping for a nice clear day with blue skies. What I got instead was heavy snow squalls and cold winds whipping along the mountain. I am sure things would have been quite beautiful if that was the conditions. Yet things where just a bit snowier throughout the day. This is what it looked like 3 PM when I was done hiking and reaching my truck to return back to Albany.
Regardless, it was a beautiful hike up the mountain with the trees being snow covered and the trail easy to follow. Everything looked so fresh from the morning’s snow, and the on-and-off sometimes very heavy snow throughout the day. As you can see, the trail is easily accessible on foot in the summertime, and in the winter by cross country skis or snowshoes.
There are occasional trail markers up the mountain, including signs on turns for the Summit, but a few side trails so you will want to make sure you have a map. Fortunately, you can get one from Vermont DNR with on Snake Mountain WMA. One thing with that map is it doesn’t include a lot of the switchbacks, so you might think you have gotten off the trail even though you haven’t. For the most part, it’s not bad, as it’s an old woods road.
The view off the summit of Snake Mountain is one of the most remarkable ones (so I’ve been told on the Internet), but not a day when it’s snowing. You can see a little of the farm fields below when the snow let up a little bit, but it pretty much was a blind view. I was seriously disappointed, after driving up to Addison from Albany, NY and seeing neither the demolition of the bridge or off Snake Mountain from the snow.
At times walking around the Summit of Snake Mountain I couldn’t really tell if it was snowing as much as I was up in the clouds. It was cold and the wind was whipping around, and visibility was really poor.
It’s winter out, and it is snows in Vermont. The moral of the story is while hiking is delightful in fresh winter snows, it also means that visibility off the mountain really isn’t all that great.
When you climb above 3,500 feet elevation in the Catskill High Peaks, a special set of regulations is in effect that prohibits camping except in the winter, and bans open fires throughout the year. This is because the eco-systems above this elevation on the 35-high peak mountains are viewed by the Environmental Conservation Department as ecologically sensitive.
I didn’t take the 3,500 feet signs on every mountain I climbed, most notably skipping over the sign on Hunter Mountain, Windham High Peak, and Black Dome.
Hiking up to the Balsam Fire Tower, about a 1/4 mile or maybe 200 feet below the tower.
Climbing up the east face of the Indian Head Mountain, this sign is maybe 3/4 of the the westerly face of the mountain.
You see Panther Mountain‘s 3500 feet sign about a 1/4 mile and 200 feet more of climbing before you reach the final ascent.
The sign on Plateau Mountain is about a half mile from the top, although the last portion is relatively flat.
Slide Mountain, the tallest mountain in the Catskills at over 4,200 feet. The sign is probably a mile away from the final ascent.
The sign is the second of two signs on the way up to the top of Twin Mountain on Devil’s Path.
For about two months now I’ve been really itching to go out hiking on Mount Greylock. I have wanted to say I’ve “conquered” yet another peak. Last Sunday I decided it was time to go. I realised though with the short days and the snow predicted for the afternoon, I would not be able to make it all the way up Greylock, but would have to settle for Stony Ledge from the Hadley Farm.
Hadley Farm is a working beef cattle farm, and while the cows where in the barn, you can smell the livestock in the barn. The farm is privately owned, Massachusetts Department of Conservation Resources (DCR) owns a parcel of a land directly to the south of the barn, an old field that is snowploughed to allow parking.
One of the first views directly to the west of the trail-head is the beautiful Deer Ridge, a set of lower mountains directly to the west of Mount Greylock.
For a while the Hopper Trail is co-signed with the Money Brook Trail. Along the Money Brook they allow dispersed camping, which is not allowed in other areas. This portion of the Hopper Trail is relatively flat, with some climbing, but nothing too major.
The trail I took up with the Hopper Trail, an old woods road that connects up with the camp ground on Stony Ledge. As I had gotten a fairly early start hiking up, the sun had yet to rise over the high mountains, so things where still in a shadow. The deep valley I am in is called the Hopper.
When you reach the Sperry Road Campground (free primitive backpack/horseback/snowmobile campsites), here is the sign for The Hopper / Hoper Trail. In Massachussets they sometimes get a bit carried away with all the words they use on their signs.
Here is Sperry Road / Campground. Right now it’s being used as a snowmobile trail. In the background is the side of Mount Greylock, some 1,000 feet above Sperry Road.
Here is Campsite R6 at Sperry Road. All of the campsites have picnic tables, the tiny little fire pits that are standard issue by MassDCR, and a hitching post for horses.
Reaching Stony Ledge. I’m tired. I sit down at the picnic table, and take off my snowshoes, and look down at the Hopper and the Taconic Mountains in the distance. The snow had largely blown off the face of the mountain.
Here is the pass between Mount Greylock and Mount Prospect. The “wrinkles” in the mountain, and the stony-nature of Stony Ledge just seemed so perfect for this rapidly greying day.
I didn’t spend much time at Stony Ledge. Shortly after reaching Stony Ledge, it started to sleet (ice pellets) pretty hard. My left-cleet came apart on my snowshoe, so I decided I’d better head back. I wanted to find the pieces that fell off my snowshoe, so I returned the way I went up the mountain.
Part of the descent down on Hopper Trail was quite steep and icy. With my broken snowshoe, which I later found the parts for on the trail, it was a slippery descent. The old roadbed was covered with a thick layer of ice, made slipper from the sleet, and at an almost 45 degree angle to the roadbed, because of drifting snow.
Looking up towards the Cut Off to Money Brook around 1:30 PM as the snow was rapidly flying around and coming down. It wasn’t quite whiteout conditions, but it was very white. It would change from ice pellets/sleet to snow then to ice pellets, and finally back to non-freezing rain.
By the time I made it back to my truck, it was pouring rain out. Much too wet to get the camera out for sure. I hopped in the cab of my truck, took off my thermal overalls, and got warm. It was a long drive home on very slippery roads, but it was worth it.
Here is a map of the route, in blue.
View Hikes of 2009 in a larger map
This past year I have spent a great deal of time hiking up mountains and visiting fire towers. Here are pictures of the second five fire towers I visited this year, along with a short description and maps in the second part of this series.
Make sure to all check out Eleven Fire Towers I’ve Visited This Year, Part 1 featured on Monday, November 16, 2009.
The Sixth Tower I visited, was Sugar Hill State Forest / Horse Camp is located outside of Watkins Glen. It’s an equestrian facility with 50 miles of trail, along with a small hiking/no horses area. They have free camping, and 3 equestrian lean-tos and one hiker lean-to on the Finger Lakes Trail. A definitely cool place to visit if your in the Finger Lakes.
Information and Pictures from my visit to Sugar Hill State Horse Camp.
The seventh tower I visited, Red Hill Fire Tower is located south west of the Catskills, barely in the park, with views of the south-western Catskills, the High Peaks, and down towards the Delaware River in Pennsylvania.
Information and Pictures from my hike up Red Hill.
The Eightieth Tower I visited, was Balsam Lake Fire Tower is located in about 10 miles south east of Margretville in a very rural portion of the Catskill Mountains. It is the only tower in the Catskills actively staffed by DEC Fire Rangers on weekend (mostly acting as guides).
Information and Pictures from my hike up Balsam Lake Mountain.
The Nineth Tower, Leonard Hill Fire Tower is currently inaccessible, pending renovation. They have removed the bottom to flight of stairs to discourage people from climbing the tower. That said, the DEC Forest Ranger has cleared out a camp site/viewing area directly to the west of the Tower for those who want to enjoy the amazing view due west of the Western Catskills and Upper Schoharie Valley.
Information and Pictures from my trips to Leonard Hill.
Mout Utsayantha was the Tenth Tower I visited. This fire tower is on a public village park, above Stamford, NY. You can drive right up to it — I visted it twice one weekend. It gives you amazing views of the western Catskills, the area around Summit and Emmenece State Forest, the Upper Schoharie Valley, and on clear days out towards Oneonta.
Information and Pictures from my trips to Mount Utsayantha.
The Eleventh Tower: Rising 1,000 feet above the low lands of Pine Plains, this firetower gives you beautiful views of small towns, lakes, farmlands, mountains, and a five state region of the Hudson Valley on clear day.
Information and Pictures from my hike up Stissing Mountain.
If you like this, then make sure to see the next five on Eleven Fire Towers I’ve Visited This Year, Part 1.
