on saturday, we decided to revisit bash bish falls in mt. washington state park. it was a favorite of ours last year, and we hadn't visited yet this season, so we thought we'd check it out. we always park at the bottom outlet in NY because it's a longer hike to the falls, and we enjoy the scenery. too bad the place was a zoo. in the fall, we usually only shared the trail with a few others. but this time, we barely found a parking spot. it was just mobbed with teenagers and tourists and tons of children and dogs. hiking up was bad enough when we had people walking slowly four or five across, but once we actually got to the falls, we couldn't even enjoy it because there were people sprawled out on every rock surface available.
we did manage a few decent photos, though.
sunday was, by far, the best day of hiking. it was around 68 degrees, sunny, and breezy. we decided to hike the shaker mountain trail. that was our first real hike last year, and trust me - back then, we were in much worse shape than we are now. and since we were able to make it up the 700 foot change in elevation back then, i had no doubts about our ability to finish the 4 1/2 mile trail on sunday.
what i love about this trail is that it has that historical element to it. you get to pass by several ruins and archeological areas from the now-defunct north family shaker community, just up the hill from the hancock shaker museum. the sites and trail (once a cart-path the shakers used to get to their homes and mills along the stream, and up to their holy area on the summit of shaker mountain) were uncovered in the 1960's, and then the boy scouts helped clear and mark the area for a historic trail.
it's one of my favorite trails. and we made exceptionally good time getting up to the summit. unfortunately, since the last time we visited, the trail has become fairly overgrown (especially the
archeological sites), and we were lucky the stream was pretty dry, because one of the bridges had collapsed (see photo to the left) -- and one area of the stream looked as if it never had a bridge to begin with. unfortunate also was the fact that there were several people on ATVs roaring up the trail. motorized vehicles are prohibited from the trails, but people ignore the rules. not only are they tearing up the trail, and spoiling the hiking experience for people like me, but they're riding those things over sensitive archeological sites.still, though - it was a great hike.
the lower dam and pipeline system, used to pump water over to the hancock shaker village downhill:
a neat tree we found:
and a gift from mother nature inside:
the footings of the original bridge to the north family shaker residence:
the stone wall which separates the north family shaker land from the mt. lebanon shaker community:
spotted a lot of wildlife today. we came pretty close to a deer, and we saw two frogs and lots of birds. also a flock of moths drinking from a patch of mud. most flew off when we approached, but we managed to catch a few on film:
all in all, we had a great weekend of hiking. tomorrow we're off to explore a new section of the AT, hopefully. that is, if the weather holds out...
*n.b. - the bottom of each post will now be home to a brand-spanking-new feature from your neighborhood cardboard hiker: the toad counter. on almost every hike, we see a number of frogs and toads, and we figure we ought to keep track of that somehow. for some reason or another.
No comments:
Post a Comment