About two weeks ago on Presidents Day I went out snowshoeing at Rensselaerville State Forest. Previously one of my favorite places to camp and explore, I haven’t spent a great deal of time up there lately.
I parked off of CC Road. Going along Scutt Road you come to the point where it becomes plowed, and you can see Gensing Mountain (just north west of the Catskills) in the distance.
It used to be there was no designated campsites up there until 2007, when the state started posting four sites along main roads, along with “Camping By Permit Signs”. I used to camp off one of the truck trails in one or two places, and spent a great deal of the summer out there.
Snowshoeing along a truck trail. The truck trails up here are a lot of fun to drive in the summer, although they are bit overgrown and tight to drive, even with a compact pickup.
Looking North Towards Dutton Ridge, you can see a clearing where Livingstonville is located.
Here is the section where the field is reverting back to woods. I used camp out back here a lot in the past.
The C.C. Road sign recognizing the history of this preserve as an old CC Camp. The camp facilities where later developed into a youth treatment center, and now a training center for state park rangers, that currently is unused.
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.
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.
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.
Two Sundays ago I decided to go for an hour hike at Five Rivers. Nothing fancy, I just wanted to try out my snowshoes for the year, get a little pratice, and get some pictures of the first fluffy white snow of the year.
It was a cloudy day, a pretty quiet day. There was a lot of people out walking around, and in many places the trail was quite slushy.
Some of the ponds at Five Rivers where very much frozen for the first time this year.
The trees where all covered with a pretty layer of snow, as seen with this pine tree against a grey sky.
As I walked around the back field it was truly a beautiful winter wonderland.
Heading past the DEC Barn off the North Loop Trail / DEC road.
