Category → Snowshoeing
Quick Snowshoeing
Baila was in school, so Trish and Mechel met me at the Rockleigh Borough Hall for a quick snowshoe in the Rockleigh Woods Sanctuary / Lamont Reserve (map). We took the Yellow trail up and the red trail back down, then walked around the Ice Pond and exited onto Rockleigh Road. We were the first people to walk the red trail, which is always nice:
Family Snowshoeing
We only got six inches of snow from the “big storm”, but it was enough to get in a little snowshoeing. Mechel used my old Readfeathers, and Baila used the youth Atlas snowshoes. Unlike last year, Baila did the whole two hour hike.
We started out on an old rail bed:
…then bushwhacked over to a gas line service road:
…then hiked on that for a while:
Mechel and Baila investigating a covered stream:
Snow angels:
It so great that the kids are old enough to go the distance!
Snowshoeing with the kids
We got a foot or so of snow, so I took Baila snowshoeing:
Go Baila!
Baila was quite a trooper, but after 100 yards or so she was tired, so we went home and I brought Mechel back:
We were walking on an old rail bed. We’re not sure what this means:
I’m not sure to whom Mechel is speaking:
Mechel used his trekking poles to make bear tracks:
Mechel’s impromptu snowman:
What a day!
Snowshoeing to the Timp
This winter has been a little strange. We had our only real snowfall this year, so I decided to go snowshoeing. Since I was by myself, I decided to do a known route, so I re-hiked the Bulsontown-Timp route I did two years ago.
This wake of Turkey Vultures were at the saddle below the Timp, no doubt waiting for me to make a fatal mistake:
I decided to ascend and descend via the Western face, as the Southern face is quite steep, and it seemed like a bad idea since I was alone.
I encountered these tracks near the summit. They were about three inches long. Wolf? Unlikely, they haven’t been seen in New York for a long time. Maybe a wild dog. There were no human prints on the route, so whatever it was, it was alone.
At the summit, the winds were incredible:
In the distance, a city on an island:
Haverstraw power plant:
Bear Mountain Bridge:
On the next peak over to the west, there was a shelter:
I was pretty tired by the time I got back to the car.
Snowshoeing in Talman Mountain SP
Snowshoeing Monday in Tallman Mountain State Park:
Snowshoeing in Harriman
Here are some pictures from Sunday’s Harriman snowshoeing adventure:
First snow of winter
Jason and I decided that last year’s snowshoeing went so well that we would try it again. I found a good looking hike online. We met up around 8:30am.
After a while, we found an abandoned mine shaft. The pipe was used to pump water out the mine. How deep is the shaft?
Jason commited the catastrophic error of plunging his pole through the opening in the front of his snowshoe. I didn’t get any pictures of the resulting fall.
On we went:
Eventually we got to the “Bowling Rocks” plateau:
After a while we took a brief detour to check out one of Harriman’s shelters. There was a group of about 15 people inside:
From there we rejoined the trail, but for about 100 yards we were on virgin snow:
The trail took us up to the top of Hogencamp Mountain:
Here’s a picture of us over Lake Skannatati, at the end of our hike:
After the hike, I took a picture of Harriman’s “Church in the Wilderness”:
By the time I got home, I felt really awful. Turns out I had Strep Throat, at by night’s end I had a temperature of 103.5.
Not fun, but the hike was great!
More snowshoeing
Jason and I went snowshoeing today. The cloud ceiling was at about 1000 feet, and the weather was bad enough that the GPS didn’t work.
I think we hiked 4 to 5 miles. From the Tuxedo train station, we hiked up the Ramapo-Dunderburg trail to Black Ash pond. The west end of the pond is built up by a natural rock wall, and from the other side it creates a small waterfall:
From there, we took the Blue Disc trail to the Tuxedo-Mt. Ivy trail. Near that junction is “Claudius Smith Den”, one of the mountain hideouts of Claudius Smith, a revolutionary-war-era criminal. Jason is in the lower left corner of the picture:
From there, we took the Tuxedo-Mt. Ivy trail back to the Ramapo Dunderberg trail, then hiked north along a gas pipeline easment to the Triangle trail, which met back up with the Ramapo Dunderberg trail.
Bulsontown to the Timp hike
This morning I went snowshoeing with Rob and Jason. Here’s the map and elevation profile:
Reading from left to right, the hike up is the first section, the hike up, onto, and off the Timp is the second section, and the hike down is the last two sections.
The hike we attempted was from Bulsontown (which seems to be a collection of ten houses) to “The Timp” and back. We started hiking at around 9:30am.
We started up Beechy Bottom “Road”, looking for the unmarked Woods “Road”:
We couldn’t find it, so we hiked cross-country back to Beechy Bottom “Road” (waypoints 2 and 3) (looking at the map above, we started in the lower left section of the map. Our outbound leg is the leftward track on the map.)
Up and up we went. We passed several unmarked trails which appeared on the map, and crossed a couple streams:
For most of the way, we were walking over prints made by other snowshoers. It took us about 2 hours to cover the 2.1 miles to the end of the “Red Cross” trail, which got us to Timp Pass. The last 1/3 of a mile was really steep:
Along the way we passed some nice ice formations:
At last, we made it to Timp Pass:
By now it was 11:45, and Rob really needed to get off the mountain, so we turned on the FRS radios, and Rob started down while Jason and I attempted to summit the Timp. Doesn’t look like much in this picture, but it was sizeable. We decided to go counter-clockwise (see map) by taking the Ramapo Dunderberg trail to the Timp-Torne trail to Timp Pass “Road” and back to the Red Cross trail at the Timp Pass. While hiking on the R-D trail, we were right under the timp. The trail had not been used since last week’s snowstorm, so we had to rely on the blazes to stay on course.
The ascent of the Timp was extremely steep – Topo USA reports a grade of 40% in places. We were worried that the descent would be as steep. Along the way we passed more ice formations:
At last we reached the top. Looking south, we could see the Hudson river. On a clear day the Manhattan skyline can be seen:
Here’s Jason at the summit:
As we began our descent, the Bear Mountain bridge was visible to the north:
More ice along the descent:
As the completed our descent of the Timp, Rob radioed us from down the trail that he had gone as far as he could without a map. It was 1pm, an hour past when Rob wanted to be off the mountain. I asked Jason to turn on his radio, and ran down the mountain (the third section on the profile above) until I caught up with Rob. We walked out to the trailhead, and Rob went down to his car while I went back to meet up with Jason. We ran in to each other about 2/10 of a mile from the trailhead. It was around 2pm when we got to our cars.
The trip was a success, I think, except for the whole “split up the party just asking for a mountaineering disaster” thing. The crampons on my Redfeather snowshoes each lost one tooth on this, their first real hike. You get what you pay for, I guess. I think I’ll buy a pair of Tubbs – Jason and Rob rented them from EMS, and they held up just fine.
A new sport for Ben
After the Sunday snowshoeing adventure, I bought a pair of real snowshoes. And my boots don’t fit (turns out that, as you get older, your arch flattens out, making your feet effectively longer.)
At least, that’s what the 17-year-old boot guy told me. “Not that you’re old,” he said.
Thanks kid, I’m only twenty-
Never mind.
Anyway, I bought some new boots. On sale for $105, they were. I went from a Vasque 9.5 narrow to a Montrail 10.5 regular. I will miss my old boots, though. We’ve been together since ’92. Back when they were made in Italy.
Tonight I bought some new gloves for snowshoeing. Ski gloves are great for sitting on the lift all day long, but when you’re hiking along, they’re a little too warm. My long fingered cycling gloves are great, but they’re fleece, so when they get wet, they’re wet.
I’m hoping for a lengthy snowshoeing trip on Sunday.
As a hold-me-over, I went snowshoeing over lunch a couple days this week. The Joseph B Clarke Rail-Trail is less than a mile from my work, so on Tuesday I started at the southern terminus on Oak Tree Road and went North to the Village of Sparkill. It was about 2 miles round trip:
On Wednesday, I drove to Sparkill and continued North to Piermont. Again, about 2 miles round trip:
I used my old boots, since I was still breaking in the new boots, but since the old boots are too small, I can only wear a single layer of socks, so I got a “hot spot” on my right heel. Hopefully by Sunday it will be better.