Sunny 46

  I started a new schedule this week. I realized I was taking tons of time off for hiking because I prefer to reserve weekends for family and friends whenever possible. I am hoping that switching to 4-day work weeks with Mondays off will alleviate this. It will be annoying to work over 9 hours a day, but I think this'll be a good move overall.  For the first hike, I wanted to knock out Seymour, but I had to be home in time to take Quinn to hockey. Also, with a Warhammer event and Halloween coming up, I kind of needed a little time at home to work on models and a costume. As such, I asked Google what the prettiest views on the Taconic Crest Trail were and it spat out Berlin Mountain. I'm not super convinced it was the correct answer, but it was a nice hike. Trail reports warned that the road immediately after the Berlin State Forest turn-off is pretty rugged. They were correct. As one progresses up the road, areas where it climbs up or down have deep ruts which can bottom out y...

I really wanted to get a hike in with Quinn while Autumn was still in full swing in the Southern Adirondacks. I figured he'd like to hike another fire tower hike, one shorter than 4 miles. I decided on Hadley which is fairly close to home. I gave him his tablet to watch while I enjoyed a gorgeous one hour drive to the trailhead. The day started off chilly; we had hats and gloves on. They came off real quick, though. This is definitely a Sasquach track and not a displaced rock. The elevation gains begin early, but it's never terribly steep. There is a lot of exposed rock on this hike. I'd read that there were a lot of fires on this mountain in the past, so the soil is thin. That, coupled with the popularity of the trail, meant that much of the hike was basically a lumpy sidewalk.  Quinn didn't have much trouble with the bare rock covered with leaves on the way up, but he fell a few times on the hike down. It didn't help he was Naruto Running from time to time. Quinn ...