We were hoping to get out with Jay H and Rik yesterday, but I was concerned about a strep throat.
Dick and Joanne Hihn, Bookah, and I reloaded today, grabbing 3 of the Cat100's and a ton of scouting trailhead locations for further adventures.
We began our morning with a jaunt up Utsayantha. The summit is an antenna farm, closed tower, and observation bldg. With the high gusty winds, we took a few pictures, checked out the hand glider launch sites, and then beat a quick retreat back to the car.
On deck was Churchill. While we had some backup routes in mind, we decided to approach a property owner. He said he appreciated our asking for permission, and then hooked a thumb toward the mountain and told us to 'head on up'. We leashed Boo as we went thru his property, and as usual, she shot off like a rocket up the slopes behind his home. While the woods were OK by ADK bushwhack standards, there were quite a few downed trees and lots of the nasty red thorn prickers most of the way up. I'd imagine this would be an umpleasant mountain to b'whack in full summer. After a couple of obligatory summit pictures, we took in what we could of the screened summit views, and basically reversed out route to the car.
After a quick bite to eat and drink in Stamford, off we went toward Hobart. For the next couple of hours, we drove up and down the back roads and notches, checking for places to begin bushwhacks and homes to visit for permission. We did drive up Cronk Rd to ask the landowner if we could park somewhere and hike Meeker Hollow. Instead, we ran into a caretaker who said he'd been instructed to tell anyone "NO" who wanted to cross the land. Since there were no posted signs anywhere, we assumed he had been hounded by hunters asking the same thing. A little gruff at first, he warmed up and gave us instructions on how to access Meeker from the other side....
So off we went, back around its other side. This time, another nice property owner gave us the OK to drive the dirt road, and even pointed to where there was a private trail heading to the summit. After parking the car, we headed off smartly given that we were racing the sunset. We found the marker, but the trail was buried under leaves and we bushwhacked the Meeker's summit, by combining old tote roads and the completely open woods. Meeker's woods had almost no blowdown, undergrowth or prickers - a picnic to bushwhack in. We hit the summit ridge about 0.2 miles from the top and followed the open woods up and over the summit. There was a ladder tree stand on one end of the summit ridge, and a climber tree stand on its opposite side.
Thinking that we wanted to hit a dirt road that went a good way in, we came down a slighty steeper but shorter route down than we took up, but again came on a glorious woods road that led to within a short distance to the car.
Given the amount of private land in the area, its impossible to guesstimate where a starting point might be. What I've taken to do is load in the summits as routes and in that way we'll have them marked and follow the course of 'up'.
A really satisfying day, as we finally broke into the Delaware County area in a big way. There are beautiful little back roads everywhere, loads of trailless HH peaks, and the landowners we've met have been uniformly nice and helpful. We're heading back on Wednesday to see if we can grab a couple more.
Dick and Joanne Hihn, Bookah, and I reloaded today, grabbing 3 of the Cat100's and a ton of scouting trailhead locations for further adventures.
We began our morning with a jaunt up Utsayantha. The summit is an antenna farm, closed tower, and observation bldg. With the high gusty winds, we took a few pictures, checked out the hand glider launch sites, and then beat a quick retreat back to the car.
On deck was Churchill. While we had some backup routes in mind, we decided to approach a property owner. He said he appreciated our asking for permission, and then hooked a thumb toward the mountain and told us to 'head on up'. We leashed Boo as we went thru his property, and as usual, she shot off like a rocket up the slopes behind his home. While the woods were OK by ADK bushwhack standards, there were quite a few downed trees and lots of the nasty red thorn prickers most of the way up. I'd imagine this would be an umpleasant mountain to b'whack in full summer. After a couple of obligatory summit pictures, we took in what we could of the screened summit views, and basically reversed out route to the car.
After a quick bite to eat and drink in Stamford, off we went toward Hobart. For the next couple of hours, we drove up and down the back roads and notches, checking for places to begin bushwhacks and homes to visit for permission. We did drive up Cronk Rd to ask the landowner if we could park somewhere and hike Meeker Hollow. Instead, we ran into a caretaker who said he'd been instructed to tell anyone "NO" who wanted to cross the land. Since there were no posted signs anywhere, we assumed he had been hounded by hunters asking the same thing. A little gruff at first, he warmed up and gave us instructions on how to access Meeker from the other side....
So off we went, back around its other side. This time, another nice property owner gave us the OK to drive the dirt road, and even pointed to where there was a private trail heading to the summit. After parking the car, we headed off smartly given that we were racing the sunset. We found the marker, but the trail was buried under leaves and we bushwhacked the Meeker's summit, by combining old tote roads and the completely open woods. Meeker's woods had almost no blowdown, undergrowth or prickers - a picnic to bushwhack in. We hit the summit ridge about 0.2 miles from the top and followed the open woods up and over the summit. There was a ladder tree stand on one end of the summit ridge, and a climber tree stand on its opposite side.
Thinking that we wanted to hit a dirt road that went a good way in, we came down a slighty steeper but shorter route down than we took up, but again came on a glorious woods road that led to within a short distance to the car.
Given the amount of private land in the area, its impossible to guesstimate where a starting point might be. What I've taken to do is load in the summits as routes and in that way we'll have them marked and follow the course of 'up'.
A really satisfying day, as we finally broke into the Delaware County area in a big way. There are beautiful little back roads everywhere, loads of trailless HH peaks, and the landowners we've met have been uniformly nice and helpful. We're heading back on Wednesday to see if we can grab a couple more.
