alspal
New member
It seems like Al and I are picking off little bits of the AT when we hike, and this weekend was no exception as we hit the two highest points on the trail in Massachusetts. I cajoled Al into joining me for a snowshoe race at Greylock Glen with the promise of a hike after the race. Al hadn’t summited Greylock and after passing on the Presi traverse he was in.
We met up at 5:30 am and hit the local D & D. I was amazed at how fast Al “absorbed” about 10,000 calories. Soon he was in and out of consciousness for the rest of the drive. When we hit Route 2 and started East we had the unusual site of the full moon setting in front of us while the sun rose behind. The 150 mile drive was uneventful, with the best part (besides the excellent tunes) being the view of Greylock as we drove over the Whitcomb summit.
We ran the 3.5 mile snowshoe race and took the top two spots with only four seconds between us. It took a good 30 minutes to remove all of the wet clothes and get into dry clothes for the hike. I have reached the top of Greylock twice, once in the 9 mile road race and once by car, I’d never been up on the trails. I thought Al would bring a map and he thought I would, so we started a bit behind the 8-ball as I only had a partial map that just showed the upper reaches of the mountain. We got some advice from the race director and were off. Temps were in the mid 30’s and there was very little wind but the skies had clouded up.
We headed out on the Gould trail from the Greylock glen. The trail was well trod and the going very easy, despite both of us being pretty beat. After less than a mile we started climbing, but the trail was broken out and packed well. Al changed into snowshoes while I snacked on a pop-tart; it was my turn to absorb some calories. It started to snow as we got higher up and it would snow the rest of the time we were hiking.
We hit Rockwell Road three miles into the hike after gaining just under 1,900’ in 1:24. We were greeted by a pack of snowmobiler’s cruising to the summit. We also met up with a couple of hard working skiers who had almost reached their goal. Although the lion’s share of our climb was done we were just getting to what would be the toughest part of the day. We turned South onto the AT heading for Saddle Ball mountain. The trail was unbroken and looked to have not been hiked at least since the Valentines Day storm. There were a couple of inches of loose snow then a hard crust and then another foot or two of snow. The going was pretty slow as we took turns breaking trail. The map was hard to read but we worked out pretty much where we were and made for the summit. It took us nearly an hour to go from the Rockwell / AT junction but only 35 minutes to come back in our tracks.
We reached the summit of Greylock 3:11 into the hike and were met with a lot of grey. This was not a day for any views. After a couple of pictures we worked our way over to the Thunderbolt shelter and the trail of the same name. This was the part I’d be looking forward to! We started down at a slow run and quickly moved into a free fall down the trail. The t-bolt was not as well packed as we’d hoped and the going was not quite the wild ride I’d hoped for. We passed a hiker and his dog working hard to climb one of the steeper sections and then met another hiker a bit further down. He called out something about us having more fun than he was having. We did some butt sliding but the crust made this difficult. We reached the bottom quickly (with Al calling out his altimeter readings as we went) and continued our run back to the glen. We did the last section losing about 2,400’ in the 30 minutes it took us to go from the summit to Gould road. Total for the hike was 3:41 with +-8 miles and 2600’ climb and descent .
Photos: http://s153.photobucket.com/albums/s209/davedunham/
We met up at 5:30 am and hit the local D & D. I was amazed at how fast Al “absorbed” about 10,000 calories. Soon he was in and out of consciousness for the rest of the drive. When we hit Route 2 and started East we had the unusual site of the full moon setting in front of us while the sun rose behind. The 150 mile drive was uneventful, with the best part (besides the excellent tunes) being the view of Greylock as we drove over the Whitcomb summit.
We ran the 3.5 mile snowshoe race and took the top two spots with only four seconds between us. It took a good 30 minutes to remove all of the wet clothes and get into dry clothes for the hike. I have reached the top of Greylock twice, once in the 9 mile road race and once by car, I’d never been up on the trails. I thought Al would bring a map and he thought I would, so we started a bit behind the 8-ball as I only had a partial map that just showed the upper reaches of the mountain. We got some advice from the race director and were off. Temps were in the mid 30’s and there was very little wind but the skies had clouded up.
We headed out on the Gould trail from the Greylock glen. The trail was well trod and the going very easy, despite both of us being pretty beat. After less than a mile we started climbing, but the trail was broken out and packed well. Al changed into snowshoes while I snacked on a pop-tart; it was my turn to absorb some calories. It started to snow as we got higher up and it would snow the rest of the time we were hiking.
We hit Rockwell Road three miles into the hike after gaining just under 1,900’ in 1:24. We were greeted by a pack of snowmobiler’s cruising to the summit. We also met up with a couple of hard working skiers who had almost reached their goal. Although the lion’s share of our climb was done we were just getting to what would be the toughest part of the day. We turned South onto the AT heading for Saddle Ball mountain. The trail was unbroken and looked to have not been hiked at least since the Valentines Day storm. There were a couple of inches of loose snow then a hard crust and then another foot or two of snow. The going was pretty slow as we took turns breaking trail. The map was hard to read but we worked out pretty much where we were and made for the summit. It took us nearly an hour to go from the Rockwell / AT junction but only 35 minutes to come back in our tracks.
We reached the summit of Greylock 3:11 into the hike and were met with a lot of grey. This was not a day for any views. After a couple of pictures we worked our way over to the Thunderbolt shelter and the trail of the same name. This was the part I’d be looking forward to! We started down at a slow run and quickly moved into a free fall down the trail. The t-bolt was not as well packed as we’d hoped and the going was not quite the wild ride I’d hoped for. We passed a hiker and his dog working hard to climb one of the steeper sections and then met another hiker a bit further down. He called out something about us having more fun than he was having. We did some butt sliding but the crust made this difficult. We reached the bottom quickly (with Al calling out his altimeter readings as we went) and continued our run back to the glen. We did the last section losing about 2,400’ in the 30 minutes it took us to go from the summit to Gould road. Total for the hike was 3:41 with +-8 miles and 2600’ climb and descent .
Photos: http://s153.photobucket.com/albums/s209/davedunham/
