Thursday, February 28, 2008

Having a Ball


The temps started to rise and what happens is the snow of course gets sticky. This means the crampons ,on the bottom of the snowshoe bindings ,get full of snow and form a nice ball under your foot. Its like dragging five pounds of extra weight along and results in the snowshoe sliding around. So you have to "bare boot it" as we say. Lucky for us we were on the way down so we only had about a mile of bare bootin.

At the beach


The Beech trees seem to hang onto leaves a long time. It was cool listening to the wind rattling the leaves up here. The area had a pretty good population of Beech and Birch.

Shadow puppets


Just a shadow puppet show.

Monkey Man


Last weekend we did a quick run up the Robert Frost trail to a spot we call Monkey Man. There is a rock that sticks out of the cliff that looks like a monkey's head. It was covered with snow so I didn't shoot a picture of it. I will grab one once the snow melts some. At this rate it might be July. What a winter!

Thursday, February 21, 2008

What time is it anyways ?


No watch no problem. If we assume the sun is due south at high noon or there abouts. You can use a compass to tell what time it is. The stick is due south ( its actually a little off after I looked at the picture) and the shadow is the time. The key is the fact that the sun sets in the west so you just kind of slice up the degrees until sunset and away you go. You do need a rough idea about the time the sunsets. It was about 12:30. It works good enough in the woods where I don't really care what time it is anyways. Another trick to tell how much daylight is remaining is to put your hand up horizontally. Then use your fingers to measure the number of them that will fit between the sun and the horizon in the west. Every finger is about 15 minutes of daylight remaining before the sun goes below the horizon.

I suppose you could just wear a watch but then what would you Blog about ??

Older than Me !


Way older. This tree was certainly around to see some history.

Ice everwhere


You wonder how the trees can rebound from this. The good news is there was very little wind. But still the tree damage was amazing.

Savoy State Forest


We did a quick trip up to Savoy State Forest. Its a nice spot but we were surprised to see ice everywhere . I was approaching 1/2 on all surfaces. You needed crampons on this trip. For the most part you could walk on top of the snow anywhere.

Saturday, February 16, 2008

The view from The Ledges



There was a cabin here recently that has burned down . I don't know who owned the land originaly but this spot cetianly has a nice view of Shelburne and we could just make out Greylock in the distance. It was a little hazy as the temps were rising and things were melting.

No Jogging!


It was a nice place but you had better watch your step ! No monkey business here mister..

The Ledges


We were told about an area called the Ledges in Shelburne Falls. We managed to locate the spot and found everything covered in ice. It has rained the day before and at this elevation it must have been below freezing. When we arrived it was still about 25 degrees.

Sunday, February 3, 2008

Lone Ranger


We always meet the ranger when ever we go up Greylock in the spring of fall. I was surprised to see him up there today. They are working on the road and he comes up to check trails etc. He said the day before he hiked in 3 miles with a chain saw ,to clear out a blow down ,on one of the trials ! He is amazing in my opinion. Today its about 3 below at the campground and he is out going about his business, fixing a sign down the trail. He is dedicated and loves this mountain,we talk at length about the campground and the changes he has seen over the years. He said the road is coming along nicely with repairs at one problem spot taking a while. I told him I have never been up the road and he laughs. We hike up to see the new bridge repairs and check out the concrete they had poured the day before. The road is covered with solid ice and the equipment has huge chains on all the tires. It must be like working in Alaska some days up here in the winter.

Snowing.


It snowed pretty much the whole day. Here is a view down the Hooper.

Creepy


Ice is the rule of the day. This is Greylock's western slope and is a C shape that contains the area known as the Hooper in its center. The Hooper has Money Brook Falls and March Cataract Falls. Money Brook legend has it was home to a band of counterfeiters, the trail climbs along one side of the C. You need creepers or crampons to get up the trail here . Creepers will work but once you hit the AT is crampons ! The temp is around 10F at the bottom.

Gray at Greylock


Its was a dark and stormy night. Mostly a gray and snowy day. We decide to do a trip up the Hooper to Sperry Campground . It was cold and not much snow at all in Williamstown to our surprise only about 2 inches.