Sunny 46

  Our family had a rough week. After discussing it with Wendy, I decided to take a day off from work to get my head straight. I left Wendy with supplies for the day, dropped Quinn off at school a little later than usual, then headed North with Sunny. My plan was to hike Crane Mountian in Johnsburg, then possibly hike Hadley on the way home. I'd been told by Joel, who I'd met at Dwaaskill a few weeks ago, that Crane hiked quite like a High Peak. Looking at pictures and trail reports, that seemed very beleivable. The road to the trailhead is narrow and develops some fairly deep ruts towards the end. The drive up this road affords views of the mountain and some verdant marshland. It's pretty country even though Spring is still in its nascent stages there at this time of year. Sunny was raring to go.  The climb up the South side of the mountain began in earnest. This side of the mountain features several impressively steep sections. Sunny mountain goated most of these with ease...

First Trip I had a day off after our annual gaming retreat and I wanted to get a hike in. We never had a decent chance of getting the Tongue Range before Winter ended. To be clear, nature decided that we should have more Winter after March 18, but the peaks would not have counted for the official challenge. I know it's a little silly to have that be a factor as to which hikes we do, but I'd already bagged all the other ones save Buck, and I have no intention of Sunny hiking the Tongue Range with Rattlesnakes, so I decided to save it for December. Instead, I stayed home and worked on house projects all morning, then I drove to the Dwaaskill Nature Preserve for the afternoon. I'd been there once before with Quinn, but we'd been immediately innundated with ticks, so we'd turned back. This time, I liberally sprayed myself down for it. I thought the trail would be part of the Saratoga Plan, but it isn't. Here's the description from the Dwaas Kill Nature Preserve ...