Long Trail, Vermont

Long Trail
Where: Mid-Vermont
# Days: 2+
Mileage: 25

Six months after her death, we were finally able to bury Oma.  It was bittersweet saying goodbye one more time to such an amazing, selfless and loving woman - of course we all miss her very dearly, and wish more than anything she was still here - but she is finally next to Opa.  Miss you both dearly.

Obituary for Marjorie Shonio Arkley

So being in Vermont, naturally I wanted to go backpacking.  Since David was not able to take off from work, I decided it was time for my first multi-day solo trip.  David was not thrilled for me to be going off by myself, and for him to not be able to join the hiking...but he let me, and I had a wonderful trip.

Started northbound on the Long Trail bright and early Thursday morning from Appalachian Gap - lots of fog, clouds, and wind!  Hit the summits of Lincoln and Abraham, which I assume are amazing, but my view was really just more foggy clouds - which was still very cool!

view from atop Lincoln (or Abraham?)

Around lunchtime, I came across one of the ski slopes, and since I was very hungry, I decided to test my luck on one of the control huts, crossing my fingers that it would be unlocked in hopes I could enjoy my lunch in there.  Amazingly it was!  I couldn't believe it.  Got myself settled inside out of the chilly wind and wet air, and enjoyed a lunch of bread, cream cheese, peanut butter, and honey - which I must add I highly recommend as a trail lunch/snack.  

view from inside ski control hut

I actually ran into a southbound thru hiker here, and enjoyed a short visit discussing trail conditions and cool things each of us would run into on our respective hikes.  Finished my lunch and went on my happy merry way.

I should add that the night before it had poured.  And the area has seen excessive amounts of rain this spring.  So the trails were exceptionally muddy and WET.  Wet mud.  Wet rocks.  Wet roots.  Wet Grass.  Which was fine, except I promised my aunt I would be very very careful, and every time I reminded myself to be careful, I slipped and/or fell.  Oh the power of our minds!

So around 1pm, the sun starts to poke out, and the rest of the day was an absolutely fabulous day of hiking.  I arrived, 15 miles later, at my shelter, where there were already two other women - Wendy and Bet.  They were expecting friends to arrive, who unfortunately, did not.  So the three of us enjoyed fantastic trail talk about gear and food and trails we'd been on.  After hearing about some of their successes dehydrating food, my desire to dehydrate trail food was reignited, and I am excited to pull my dehydrator back out and try some more recipes/foods.  Wendy recommended a backpacking dehydrator book that she has found very helpful, 'Trail Food'.  I have found a few books with similar names, but am hoping it's this book: http://www.amazon.com/Trail-Food-Cooking-Backpacking-Paddling/dp/0070344361.  (Wendy if you end up reading this, can you please leave a comment and confirm if I have the correct book!)

Saturday morning was brought in properly with breakfast, coffee, and my first every trail tea!  It was made with needles of...spruce (I think?! I forget!)  It was delicious and I will absolutely be doing that again.  All it takes is seeping coniferous needles in boiling water.  Make sure you strain all the needles out!  I have heard other hikers talking about this lovely trail treat, and had never had it.  Trust me - you must try it if you have not.

The hiking Saturday was so fantastic.  I only hiked 8 miles, but those 8 miles were as rewarding as they were challenging.  I spent almost an hour on top of Burnt Rock Mountain, which Bet had told me I would enjoy - boy did I!  The hike up was SO cool, lots of hand over hand action up the rocks and boulders.  It was very tough and slightly technical, but very interesting and fun.  And the view from the top was mind-blowing.  The mountain isn't tall enough to be a true treeless summit, but the rocks prohibited large trees from growing, so there were ample views in all directions.  Note:  do NOT do this climb in inclement weather if you can help it.  The exposure near/on the summit would be very dangerous if the rocks had been slippery.

While the trail was beautiful and I might also add that this was a challenging section of Long Trail as well.  I am not in the best of shape, and being alone made me much more aware of slowing down and being extra diligent.  Which is why when I ran into several sections of re-bar in the rocks and ladders on both days, I was maybe slightly more nervous then I normally would have been.  Nevertheless these sections, as always, are a challenging and pleasant surprise to the normal expected-ness on the trail.  It's always fun when you get to use some brain while hiking, and not only rely on your legs :)

My second and final night landed me at Montclair Glen Shelter, which is one of the fanciest shelters I've every stayed at.  Instead of a platform, 3 sides, and a roof, this shelter had *4* sides, a door, windows, and a built in table inside.  This would be a wonderful place to stay if the weather was less than desirable.  Thankfully, my evening was filled with sun and quiet solitude, and I was able to enjoy the sunny grounds outside until bedtime.  Then this wonderful shelter protected me while it POURED all night.  Best of both worlds, if I do say so myself :)

After raining all night, I woke up to it still raining, though not nearly quite as hard as it had while I was sleeping.  After breakfast and morning coffee (at the table inside the shelter - how wonderful!) I gathered my things, and made my way the last 2 miles to meet up with my cousin to pick me up.  I finished just shy of Camel's hump, and was glad, given the rain, not to have to hoof it over with the trail being extra wet and slippery again.

I wasn't sure how I would handle more than one day out by myself.  There were certainly times I was bored (next time I will bring a book!) but in general I truly enjoyed myself.  Which was a pleasant surprise.  Now if I can convince David to let me do this once or twice a year! ;)

David and I decided after this trip that we would begin section hiking the Long Trail together, starting at the Massachusetts border.  I am very excited to go back and re-do the sections of the Long Trail that overlap the Appalachian Trail.  I am excited to walk those steps with the intention of completing the Long Trail (as opposed to the freebie of hiking those miles while thru-hiking on the AT).  I am especially excited to walk the entire 272 miles with David.  And excited to finish the trail with him, knowing we did it all together.  So as always, stay tuned!

'Into the woods,
The time is now,
We have to live,
I don't care how.'

4th of July

Black Forest Trail
Where: Tiadaghton State Forest, PA
# Days: 3
Mileage: 42

Nothing says 4th of July like being out on the trail!

After Tania, Dave, and I went to Black Forest Trail over Memorial Day weekend, I decided I still wanted to finish the loop.  Enter long holiday weekend.  Dave and I decided to finish the 42 mile loop.  And since we knew we'd really be pushing ourselves, we decided the pup should stay behind.  Poor Sheldon.

 Headed out Thursday, got started on the trail around 1pm.  Of course as soon as we started to hike, a thunderstorm rolled in.  We kept pushing, hoping it would quickly pass, and thankfully, the storm must've gotten stuck in a valley between two ridges, because while it was certainly very close, it never quite came on top of us.  Got about 8 miles in that day, before settling in on a nice river campside just as it started to rain again.

Friday morning we woke up, and just started cruising out some miles.  The day was pretty mild, in terms of elevation gain/loss, and we manged to squeak out around 16 miles before settling in to camp, at another riverside site.  Unfortunately, since neither of us had remembered to bring a watch, we didn't know, until another camper arrived to pitch a tent with us, that we had finished hiking somewhere around...4pm.  Too early if you ask me! 

Also too early was our wake up the next morning!  530am David wakes me up, blegh.  Not such a bad thing, though, because we had another big day ahead of us.  17 miles later, after trekking through the WORST many mile long unavoidable patch of stinging nettles I've personally encountered, we landed at a pretty dry river camp site, much buggier than previous nights, and long story short, decided to proceed another mile up the trail to the next campsite - so glad we did!  Beautiful little spring fed pond, clear as can be, and we fell asleep to the (very annoying) peepers greeting the night.

Technically, we took 4 days to complete the loop, but the last day, we had fewer than 2 miles to the car, so I'm not counting it :)  I will add, however, that the last day was most certainly the most spectacular view of the trip.

Hiking in PA isn't always the most visually rewarding (few views - all of the same two valleys) and the terrain is just challenging enough to not be totally boring, but not exciting enough to feel really proud of yourself after a long hard push.  Those were the longest days I'd pulled since the AT, though and it gave us a little confidence for our trip coming up to Vermont next week - an attempt of another 100 miles on the Long Trail.  I can't wait!

Black Forest Trail

Black Forest Trail
Where: Tiadaghton State Forest, PA
# Days: 3
Mileage: 16ish

 Decided to spend the holiday weekend on a little backpacking trip this year - me, Tania, David, and Sheldon the dog.  It was the dog's first backpacking trip, and David's second trip (we spend Halloween in the Catskills last year).  I must say, the trip was a huge success, mostly of course measured by Sheldon's ability to keep trucking, not leave us (he was off leash 98% of the time) and stick around camp.

We arrived at the trail head of a cross country ski trail on Saturday, and began hiking around noon.  We hiked somewhere around 6 miles, meeting up with the Black Forest Trail, before settling at a campsite near a small creek. 

even had a little time for Skip-Bo hehe

sleepy sleepy guy

Sheldon was a little anxious, but mostly did really great.  Tent situation - girls in one 2-person tent and boys in the other 2-person tent.  I got to test out my new REI ultralight tent, which was pretty cool.  Much smaller than the quarter dome, but a heck of a lot lighter - at 2 lbs 7 oz, the new tent is a pound and a half lighter than the old tent.  May not sound substantial to most people, but anywhere more than a pound can be shaved is a huge success in the backpacking world :)

Day two, Sunday, we hiked about 9 miles, all along the Black Forest Trail.  We had a few really nice views, LOTS of stream crossings, including a few we needed to de-boot for.  The exact reason I carry crocs as my camp shoe - lightweight, airy, but strong/protective enough for river crossings.  Tip to anyone who wants to hit up this trail - be prepared for water! 

Camp Sunday night was a much nicer campsite, a little more secluded, and along another stream.  The sound of the water all night was so great.  Sheldon slept like a rock the whole night the second night, and you could tell he was starting to understand the tent boundaries.  Great improvement over the first night where he kept trying to walk through the mesh parts of the tents!

he went right to sleep as soon as we stopped for the day

Monday we only had about 2 miles back to the car.  Passed a fire tower on the way, but it wasn't open to climb.  Stopped to have lunch outside along the way, and everyone was able to relax before heading back to work on Tuesday (except not me - I had to work Monday night!). 

Looking forward to the next trip, have a few bigger trips planned this year, so look for that! 
 

Review - Vasque Snowblime

Figured since this blog is supposed to be a place to not only talk about my trips, but also provide gear reviews, here's a link to a review I did on the Women's Vasque Snowblime winter boots.

http://www.trailspace.com/gear/vasque/snowblime-ultradry/review/30242/

Panther Mountain

Panther Mountain
Where: Catskill Park, NY
# Days: 3
Mileage: 10ish
Mountains Bagged: Panther Mountain

Ack!  Slacking on the trip reporting department!!  First trip of 2013, another Catskills trip, nice and cold, 20 degrees +/- with a serious serious windchill!  Glad to have the access to the gear I have, and glad to be able to continue to add to my collection.

So anwyay, yellow path is our path we actually took, dashed path, if you can see it was our plan.  We ended up having to change the trip halfway in due to traveling conditions being slower than expected, as well as some group un-wellness.  But we had a fantastic trip, and the other mountains will always be there :)

Friday night, we arrived at Fox Hollow lean to late, made a little fire, and were just so excited to all be in the mountains.  Saturday night we camped out at Giant Ledge primitive campise, which I highly recommend!  Made our own campsite next to a small rock wall, built a fire against the wall to bounce some heat back out to us.  Drew carried out two freaking whole chickens, and we cooked them over the fire.  SO AMAZING.  Holy cow.  Tented that night, which was windy and chilly, but my Marmot Coloir kept me cozy as could be. :)

Sunday we decided to alter our trip, due to a variety of reasons, and we hiked out to the cars, and in to a shelter about half mile off the trailhead a few mile up the road.  Fun fact - winds blew a tree down that almost fell on the lean-to and 3 of the guys!  Eeek!  We made a huge fire, cooked lots of food, and had a great time hanging out in the cold mountains of New York.

This trip might not have covered huge miles, but it was a lot of hard work, was a few nights out in the snow, cold, and wind, as always, I walked away with a few lessons for colder weather trips, which will help prepare me for some of the big mountains in fully intend to climb, and was just an all around fun trip sprning the weekend in the woods with my boys.  Excited to go back and hit Slide Mountain in a few weeks.

summit of Panther Mountain with the gang!

Family

This isn't my usual adventure post, but I felt compelled to write anyway.

So much of who we are as individuals is influenced by who our family is.  Each person in our family shapes us to help us realize who we want to become (or don't want to become).  If we're lucky, there are people in our family who are honest, committed, and hard working, and show us how to always aim for a better version of ourselves.  Today, my family lost one of the strongest, most intelligent, and most respected men I've ever had the pleasure of knowing, and my heart grieves for our loss. 

I am fortunate enough to carry inside of me all the lessons you taught me on who I can and should be as a strong independent woman.

But boy will we miss you.

I love you Opa.

Obituary For Robert James Arkley

Overlook Mountain

Overlook Mountain and Echo Lake
Where: Catskill Park, NY
# Days: 3
Mileage: 10ish
Mountains Bagged: Overlook Mountain

This time we decided to plan a more relaxing trip than what we usually do.  During our planning meeting, Justin, Kyle, and I (Tania joined our group later) decided to choose a hike that wasn't as many miles, we weren't looking specifically to climb a 3500' peak, and we thought it would be really nice to be able to camp at a lake.  We decided on Overlook Mountain to Echo Lake, a 4 and some change mile hike each way that would take us to some old house/lodge ruins, a fire tower, and Echo Lake, one of only two named ponds protected as wilderness in the Catskill Park.

Friday night the 4 of use pull into the parking lot around midnight, which is right across from a beautiful Buddhist Monastery with prayer flags everywhere.  We had read the trail was a popular trail, and that was confirmed by how many cars were in the lot.  We got our stuff together, and decided to just hike about 10-15 minutes in and try to find a mountain flat spot of land to pitch our tents.  The boys were in a 3 person tent, and Tania and I were in her new 2 person tent.  After we got everything set up, we all crowded into the 3 person tent, and played rummy, drinking some wine and Washington Apples (a whiskey mixed drink that was amazing).  Around 2am, we snuggled into our respected sleeping bags, and snoozed while it gently rained outside.  Happiness :) 

Saturday morning we lazily got out of our tents and packed up, with day hikers already marching up the hill.  The climb up Overlook Mountain was well graded and easily traveled.  Near the summit of the mountain are the ruins over Overlook Mountain House, an old hotel built 3 times, in 1833, 1875, (both times the structure burned down) and again in 1923.  The final attempt, the building was never completed due to financial difficulties. 

I cannot put into words, or pictures, how absolutely amazing it was to see these ruins.  The size of the buildings (there were 2), and the details, even though most of the building was either gone, or never built, were unbelievable.  The house was intended to be a hotel for tourism, for people to arrive to from cities and spend time in nature, which really excites me, especially with all the research I did for my thesis on the whole nature-human experience.

 Nature has completely overtaken these ruins, which astounds me.  Nature always finds a way to thrive.

This is a view of the other structure, smaller, I suspect was the caretaker's and/or workers' house.  The inside was empty, and filled with plants, flowers, trees.  You couldn't really walk into this structure like you could the main lodge.

Crumbly staircase inside main building.  The main part of the hotel that you walk into has a huge fireplace, and these stair are to the right, taking you downstairs.  Stairs to the right of the fireplace took you to what would be the second floor, and to another entrance to the building.

Just past the ruins is the summit of the 3,140 foot mountain.  Atop the summit is a very popular fire tower on the west side, and a small cliff overlook on the west side.  There is also a small building with information about the history of the Overlook Mountain House, as well as the snakes in the area!  Overlook mountain is a protected habitat for Timber Rattlesnakes, but we were lucky and didn't see any snakes.  

About 2ish miles past the fire tower is Echo Lake.  The hike to the trail junction to the lake is pretty mild, more the hiking I like, though, with rougher terrain than the old jeep path up to the fire tower.  Once you get to the trail junction, however, the sign says 0.6 miles to the lake, and I said it going down, and again the next morning going back up - that was NOT 0.6 miles, no way.  At any rate, the steep climb down to the Lake was filled with loose rocks, which can be annoying, but once you get to the bottom, the lake is beautiful.  It's small, with a trail all the way around the lake, littered with campsites.  We had 2 tents of course, and had brought a slackline, so we needed a larger site with 2 large trees about 20 feet apart, which we found easier than I expected.  Slackline set up, tents set up, as much filtered water as we could store, and we were ready for a relaxing evening.

The evening was filled with slacklining, eating a fabulous feast of fajitas, tortellini, salmon pasta, and brownies, more wine and Washington Apples, and since I'd brought my mp3 player and mini speakers, our evening was also filled with lots of good music.  We slept under the stars that night with no rainfly on our tent, and in the morning had another amazing feast of scrambled eggs with bacon, scallions, tomatoes, potatoes, and cheese mixed in.

We ended our weekend with the traditional beer and truffle frites at the Dutch Ale House in Saugerties, NY, which I highly recommend to anyone in the area.  I also would absolutely recommend this trip to anyone looking for a nice, low key backpacking route.  I think I will probably go back again sometime :)

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More photos on my flickr page www.flickr.com/photos/theashface