[at-l] Taconic Crest Trail

[hudsom at us.ibm.com (Mark Hudson)]

Spent the weekend doing the TCT with MrsGorp and Cobweb.

MrsGorp took some great pictures : <<http://gallery.backcountry.net/TCT>>

I met up with the Vermonters at NY 346 near North Petersburg Saturday
morning, and then we drove down to Mass Rt 20 where we started back north
by foot. I think when Stitches and I hiked the first section we got
ourselves detoured onto the ATV track where there were lots of mudholes,
this time there was some quite nice hiking trail up to Berry Pond. Lots and
lots of orange newts in the trail, but not much else in the way of
wildlife. Hiking under high clouds in cool weather, just about perfect.
Gently rolling ridgeline, our first really good view was when we stopped
for lunch just north of Berry Pond, looking west over Stephentown across
the Hudson Valley to the Catskills. A few drops of rain managed to fall on
our lunch, but didn't manage to amount to anything. We also got some
entertainment out of a couple flying a stunt kite.
Things got a bit more interesting after lunch. We found a fake turn where
Stitches and I had gone wrong last year, the blazes were supposed to turn
but also continued ahead for a short distance, where some hunting around
would put you on an ATV track with no blazes. This time we managed to find
the turn and stay with the blazes, but the trail had also come in for some
ATV abuse. We followed this down to Potter Mt Road and road walked through
Hancock Ma, stopping at an inn to tank water for our dry camp up on Round
Mt.
Eight pounds of water apiece was taking it's toll on the climb, and I think
they lied about all the mileages <g>. We stopped for a break and then
pushed over a really steep section to reach the ridgeline. There we picked
up some of the music drifting up from a party in one of the campgrounds in
the valley below, then we followed the ridge down to Round Mt where we
planned to camp. There were ATVer's camped in one spot there, and quite a
bit of traffic from other riders passing through. There was another
wonderful view west from the summit, but it was also quite windy, so we
went down a ways to camp in the woods. The clouds had started to move out,
and we had dinner on the summit before watching a beautiful sunset. There
was a fair bit of ATV traffic that night, but I think I managed to sleep
through most of it.
Sunday morning we were up early and ready to go, most of the day turned out
to be ATV trail and frequent mudholes, but at least the weather was
perfect. During the morning we were having a running discussion about
Cobweb and Swiss Miss's four month old daughter... that he'll be able to
lip sync the entire "Little Mermaid" movie in both English and German in a
couple of years <g>, and Cindy brought up that some of the "old" toys were
making a comeback; Cabbage Patch kids, CareBears, etc... and at this point
she pulled off her fleece hat, and we decided her trailname should be
"ScareBear", but I don't think it will stick...
We also started meeting up with Williams College orientation groups, we saw
a lot more people on the trail than I ever expected. We leapfrogged with
one group up to our lunch stop, and later met another group along with a
bunch of dayhikers on top of Berlin Mt. Great views all the way around from
there, including Greylock on the east.
Rocky descent down to Petersburg pass where we had cached water (good call
MrsGorp!), lots of people stopped at the overlook.
A short two mile walk on real foot trail to camp at an overlook. Nice view
to the west again, but some clouds on the horizon obsured the sunset.
Managed to stay awake long enough to see Mars rise, and had a view of it
crossing the sky when I awoke several times during the night. The last time
I awoke the stars were obscurred by clouds, and at about 4 am it started
raining. Up and out about 6:30 for a long, wet walk up to 346. Some broken
views over Vt, and on and off rain. A really long drop, some more lies
about the mileage <g>, and we finally arrived at the trailhead...

Over all a pretty nice weekend. Hope you were all out someplace too!

skeeter