What a great day to be outdoors in the mountains.
We began with an experiment - parking way uphill from the hairpin turn to see if the old road that starts in the private Winnisook Club is still there and intersects with the usual route to Giant Ledge. We parked on the shoulder and headed up through completely open woods, staying on the DEC side of the line. We hit the woods road and followed it thru large, mature hardwoods over to the trail. There are some spectacular trees in this section.
My nephew was on his first real hike and was facinated by the different fauna at different elevations. The trail all the way to Panther was bone dry except for a handful of damp spots. We enjoyed the numerous overlooks on Giant Ledge and explored many of the fern glades and open woods to the side and above the trail over the summit. This was my 4th trip over Giant Ledge and I may have never paid close attention to the fact that by just walking the trail, you bypass the summit by 20' - 30' vertical feet and a couple of hundred lateral feet. And how nice those places are.
After the drop in the col, we had lunch of Panther's first summit at the great overlook. We then hit its farther summit, with another open ledge to enjoy.
The trip back to the car was uneventful, except for the spectacular dappled forest of the Winnisook dirt road.
Bookah had her usual time chasing small stuff. These 48 & 49 for her.
We began with an experiment - parking way uphill from the hairpin turn to see if the old road that starts in the private Winnisook Club is still there and intersects with the usual route to Giant Ledge. We parked on the shoulder and headed up through completely open woods, staying on the DEC side of the line. We hit the woods road and followed it thru large, mature hardwoods over to the trail. There are some spectacular trees in this section.
My nephew was on his first real hike and was facinated by the different fauna at different elevations. The trail all the way to Panther was bone dry except for a handful of damp spots. We enjoyed the numerous overlooks on Giant Ledge and explored many of the fern glades and open woods to the side and above the trail over the summit. This was my 4th trip over Giant Ledge and I may have never paid close attention to the fact that by just walking the trail, you bypass the summit by 20' - 30' vertical feet and a couple of hundred lateral feet. And how nice those places are.
After the drop in the col, we had lunch of Panther's first summit at the great overlook. We then hit its farther summit, with another open ledge to enjoy.
The trip back to the car was uneventful, except for the spectacular dappled forest of the Winnisook dirt road.
Bookah had her usual time chasing small stuff. These 48 & 49 for her.
