Hawks Mtn, Mohawk Trail State Forest - 12/14

[Barbarossa]

Sunday morning, Dr Wu and I checked out the ice storm damage in western Massachusetts. We parked at the State Forest HQ on Rt 2, and went south of the road in search of the Trout Brook Trail. We followed the trail in about 3/4 of a mile, then meandered east in search of the ridge. There were a couple impressive hemlock groves. The heavy ice was confined to the ridge above 1400'. As the sky started to clear, the sun melted the ice off some branches. We heard a couple crashes, so we tried to stay in the shade.

We got a spike in blood pressure early in the day when we walked over the top of a bear's den. We smelled pretty awful, because it scrambled out and galloped away at top speed.

It was gone too fast to take a picture. The trees were slower, so Dr Wu took pictures of them.

 

[rocket21]

Nice! Did you get to the highpoint of Hawks? That peak remains on my to do list, along with nearby Mt. Peak

 

[Barbarossa]

Did you get to the highpoint of Hawks?

I'm pretty sure we did. I haven't checked the waypoints yet.

 

[--M.]

We got a spike in blood pressure early in the day when we walked over the top of a bear's den. We smelled pretty awful, because it scrambled out and galloped away at top speed.

That's intense! What kind of structure was it?

 

[Darl58]

Nice hike and sounds like an interesting adventure...

Cool!!!

Is the bear what made Wu's hair stand up???

 

[Barbarossa]

That's intense! What kind of structure was it?

It was just a couple of large rocks, mostly buried in the earth. The small bump is going to disappear with this snowstorm.

I happened to look back and saw a dark, furry head poking out. "Bear den! Frank, look!" It was over in seconds. Fortunately, the bear wanted no part of our hike.

Lesson learned: Bears are fast

 

[dr_wu002]

It was pretty wicked cool -- I had never seen a bear before quite like that and up close. The structure was like a small, overturned tree stump with some rocks around it, maybe. I almost walked into it -- woulda kicked the bear -- but once I got around it, like he noted, Eric was like, "Bear's Den!" And when I turned around, sure enough, not more than 5' away a bear pops its head out of the ground, looks at us, and then takes off. Like, Italian Greyhound fast. It happened so quick that I didn't have an excuse errrr... chance to soil my undergarments. Very nice.

The rest of the hike was quite good. I liked this area quite a but although I was disappointed that we did not find any jar or register to sign in. I wanted to put my name as "Dirty Pajamas" and was disappointed to have wasted such an excellent opportunity. There were about 40 summit bumps at the top, each one nondescript from another, but very nice and pretty especially with the heavy ice coating. Less "through-the-tree" views than I expected but a nice, mellow bushwhack, which is what I had been hoping for. Hike down was steep at times but not stupid steep. This is where we were, for anyone interested.

I enjoyed this area... my third time hiking here (Mohawk SF). One the South side of Rt. 2, I was pleased that you didn't get noise pollution from the cars like you do on the North Side on Todd Mountain. But the woods are nice and open and Trout Brook is a very pretty stream to follow. Not too much human activity: saw no hikers; a few (probably outdated) state forest boundary markers and the remains of a stone wall on top of Hawk's Mountain. Other than that, just a pleasant day with a few surprises.

-Dr. Wu

 

[forestgnome]

Nice! Hope to see a bear in a den like that some day. Thanks for posting the TR.

happy trails