Nice day!

What a nice day today! Too bad I didn't have my car to get somewhere to hike to. So I settled for walking from home to the trail. Not really that far, but what a new concept...walking to go walk some more, lol.

I hit up the HCC ridge of East Mountain and checked out the trails. No matter how many times I go back there I always find another trail to explore. Some are old paved roads, one is what I suspect to be an old rail or trolley bed, others are abandoned fire roads. Quite the place back there.

Nuts!

First it's peanuts. Now pistachios? How exactly are these salmonella outbreaks occurring, and why is this a problem now? Why wasn't it such a big problem in the 70s, 80s, or 90s?

I want my pistachios, dammit.

Nice weather

The weather decided to turn more springlike today. A high of 63 degrees combined with me getting out of work when it was still daylight resulted in me hiking at Mt. Tom for the third time this week. I park along 141 and head up the steep side to the radio towers.

On a good day you can make it up to the top in 15 to 20 minutes. The view, when not hazy, is spectacular! Hartford to the south, Berkshires to the west, and the college towns to the north. You can even catch a glimpse of the dome-shaped Mt. Monadnock approximately 70 miles NNE. Occasionally you can also see Mt. Greylock to the west.

Surprisingly I always see a large number of cars parked up and down 141 at the various trailheads...yet I rarely run into more than one or two people on the actual M&M trail. I suspect that those people, like myself, want to take a stroll in the park past it's closing time of 4pm. They don't mind if you stroll along the road after the park actually closes, but you better make sure that your car is outta there by the time posted on the gate.

H&H Canal update

For those of you who are following my pursuance of recreating the old Hampshire & Hampden canal route; I have taken several more pictures and completed a beta version of a Google Earth layer.

I recently explored the area where a feeder canal to the main H&H started up by the old Strathmore building, in Westfield/Montgomery. The majority of the route is now the rail bed around the mountain, then it diverges and crosses private property through the Pochassic Hills of Westfield.

Whilst I was staring at a map by the Lane Construction quarry, an older gentleman came out of a house to ask if I needed help. He was a wealth of information on the area and I made note of every story he told me. Now I have some more non-canal investigation to do, including tales of Revolutionary War ties. Up by the Tekoa Reservoir there was a hidden spot used to make rifles; The British never found it and were stumped by where all the munitions were coming from. There was also a tale of the Grindstone Hills that I would like to share as well.

I will post some pics when I get them upped. For now, how about a video of the CSX train coming by? This video was shot from where the old H&H feeder canal intersected with what is now the rail line. This section of the feeder is no longer visible, covered up by the parking lot for the Strathmore building. As a note: some CSX maintenance crew showed up whilst I was there and had no problem with my presence. But as always I must say that the rail lines are private property and don't walk along them.

Winter Hike

Today I decided to go up to Mt. Tom for a hike. Well, at first I thought maybe just a walk, but knowing myself I packed all-terrain equipment. What I did not pack, however, was a lunch.

Equipment:
* EMS Hiking pants, zip offs.
* Pack with standard winter survival stuff
* Wool socks, thinsulate semistiff hiking boots
* Gaiters
* Hiking pole aquired from ground
* Yaktrax
* Flannel, techwick, and my German winter army jacket (that thing is HEAVY but totally windproof)


I got up there about 9am and aside from one dude reading a newspaper in his car, I was the only one. The gate was closed as it normal the day after big snow (we got 12" yesterday) so a walk in was needed.

Base temp was 13 according to the car gauge which I have tested to be accurate during a drive. Windspeed was between 16-25, gusts a big higher, according to the internet. That makes the windchill about -5 I think. I have discovered, however, that when you get up top the mountain face channels and accelerates the wind to higher than that. Although I don't know the exact windspeed it was strong enough to knock me over during gusts.

As I was gearing up another car pulled in with two guys that I have met before up here. They climb ice at an undisclosed location at the mountain. I've been up to the ice before to take some pics. My brain had considered that perhaps I would go up to the ice and take pics, but with other guys around I didn't want to be in the way. I also thought that without crampons the final portion of the trip to ice base might be a little difficult.

I greeted the guys and we all left our way. I turned in much farther down than they did, by the maintenance shed to hit up the M&M. That's only 2 miles in down the road.

At the trail head I saw some prints from afar and thought "Great, someone else broke trail already" but it turns out it was just a deer. Very fresh too because the wind had not blown any snow in the prints yet. It looks like he was following the Quarry trail to the shed. He stopped at a tree, turned around a few times, and then ran off in the same direction from which he came. You can tell all this from the prints if you know how to read them. He probably got startled by the guys at the maintenance shed working on the plow trucks.

The M&M at this location is very unforgiving. Within the first 100 feet you are greeted with the steeps of whiting peak. Not so bad in the summer. Defnitely different in the winter with a foot or more of snow.

For added special effects I soon found that the steeps held a surprise. Under the foot+ of snow there were sheer sheets of glare ice. Some spots were ok, the majority was an ice skating rink. Hmmm....I didn't see this possibility.

Being the stubborn head that I am, I decided to see if I could make it up. Now I don't know if you have every tried to go up 45 degree or more slopes with ice on them, with no crampons and just yaktrax, but it certainly is entertaining. I could kick in ice steps in some areas, but in other areas the ice smears atop rock offered no purchase.

Through creative use of trees, smashing the ground with my walking stick, and some interesting acrobatics I managed to make it up the steep part of whiting peak. It was probably only about 600 or 700 feet but it took me a good 45 minutes.

The view up top was worth it though. Rolling ground of completely untouched powder, drifts shaped by the winds, begging to be crossed. I found that some of the drifts were butt-high. Totally awesome to hike through.

Because the M&M follows the cliffline and I could not see what was under the snow (like ice, deadfall, etc) I decided to stay in a bit, less one trip to take pictures. After about an hour I decided it was break time. My gloves were frozen stiff from getting wet during the ice-escapade earlier. I hit up one of my shelters I frequent in the summer (Well off the beaten path) and made a small warming fire. I even managed to get it going by using just flint 'n' steel.

After warming up for a bit I continued on for a few. I heard the voices of the guys ice-climbing, who were ironically below me now. I looked at my watch and decided to head back, so I could get some lunch. By "head back" I mean another two hours of hiking before getting to the car.

When I got back to the ice-capades I decided to take the easy way down and glissade. I hunted around for a branch that I could use as a primitive ice-axe. (you can use a sturdy branch that has another branch coming off it, flip it upside down to look like an ice pick, and whala, it works well.

I picked a different way down than the way I came up. A few less trees to hit should I go out of control, and given the sunlight, less chance for sheer ice to be under the snow.

Grab primitive ice axe and WHEEEEEEE. Damn, did I get a wedgie on that one. Only took about a minute and a half to get down what it took me 45 minutes to get up. How nice.

Pics to be posted later!