Road Trips and Hike Reports

This is one of my top 5 hikes in NY state.  We did it in a very memorable challenging snowy hike back in April of 2018 .  I returned alone in December of 2021 .   This visit was on the way home from a Vermont visit.  We took NY-191 and US-11 from Plattsburgh to Gouverneur and then NY-812, allegedly the quietest state highway in NY down to Lowville.  There were just 1 or 2 other cars in the lot as we headed up the steeply uphill South Rim Trail.  The weather was mild but a little humid.  I'm glad we changed into shorts before heading out.  Visibility into the gorge is better in the winter and it's a little bit early for fall color but this is still a great hike. It was a gratifying end to a very good long weekend.

The original plan today was to head into Burlington and just spend the day revisiting Brian’s old haunts.  By the time we had breakfast (Panera Bread) and were ready to get on our way, Google Maps was already reporting that there was a delay at the ferry crossing point.  So, similar to last night, we had to choose between hanging out in a potentially long line of cars inching forwards to get on one of the next 2 or 3 ferry’s crossing the lake, or take the long meandering drive north up to Rouse’s point then back south to Burlington. The drive time was nearly 2 hours by the time we asked Google Maps to avoid the interstate as we often do.  Even without that request we were looking at at least an hour forty five minutes there and probably similar coming back to our hotel in Plattsburgh in the evening.  It seemed like a lot of driving to walk along Lake Champlain and have a maple soft serve (called Creemee in Vermont speak) ice cream which were Brian’s 2 main wishes for the day.  So we op

A few weeks ago, a cousin of Brian’s and the cousin’s grandson were killed in a freak accident while at their vacation home in Maine.  I never met the people who died but I have met some of their siblings etc.  We came to Vermont to attend the celebration of life that was held for them.  The celebration was an ENORMOUS gathering with hundreds of people in a field near an Organic Dairy in Vermont and it was a touching presentation but it’s really family business so it is not something I’ll describe farther. We started our trip after work on Friday and drove to Clifton Park (suburban Albany) in a fairly easy 190 miles for the first night’s hotel.  The next morning we got a pretty early start, partially because we didn’t sleep all that well.  The upside was that we had a little more time to spare than we might have guessed before need to get on the road to arrive at the celebration at 2 pm in Vermont.   One attraction that I’ve been wanting to see is Ausable Chasm which is quite near whe