Road Trips and Hike Reports

We did this hike once before , in deep snow and bitter cold back in 2023.  It was a great snow hike and I'm not sure how it eluded a revisit for so long. It's kind of a long drive but it was again a hike that delivered more than the pictures will probably convey with lots of ups and downs and some good water features here and there. We saw one other hiker and crossed paths with one other but it was very peaceful and secluded feeling.

Monday morning we packed up from the state park cabin and had breakfast and did laundry and had breakfast at a charming cafe in Camden TN.  The rest of the day was spent having fun and getting to Nashville in the evening.  We had a really adventurous dinner at Inchin’s Bamboo pan-Asian cafe near our hotel. Savage Gulf (or as I more often think of it, the Stone Door) is an amazing area in SE Tennessee where the elevated Cumberland Plateau gives way to a deep river valley.  With our friend from Vermont not joining us on this trip we’ve juggled our to-do list to fit our solo trip.  This hike would have otherwise probably happened the day after we left Memphis but going as a day trip from Nashville meant going when there were only a few cars in the parking lot instead of weekend crowds. The drive there took us out along US-70S, much of which is an expressway now.  I don’t remember the route I used to take but this was a different way to go and it was nice seeing t...

The weather forecast wasn't great for today.  But the rain started later in the day the farther East we looked. So I looked at trails that were East of us.  This area, about 85 miles SE of our house, was someplace we'd never been. When we arrived it was a very steep initial climb from the road up to the top of the ravine the road was in.  There was one other hefty climb in the first mile or 2 then a lot of ridge walking with less severe ups and downs.  In addition to being brutally steep at first going up the side of a hill, it then went sideways along a steep slope but lacked any sort of flat shelf for the trail so every step was uneven and challenging plus very rooty.  Thankfully, after the big initial climb which made up the stem of this balloon hike, conditions improved on the loop itself.  There was a good variety of environment from super deep crunchy fall leafy hardwood areas to pine needle covered pine tree areas.  There was also a fair amount ...

After our lackluster urban hike the day before, I wanted to make sure our 2nd hike was a banger.  This hike started about 60 miles after the A-15 peters out some 55 miles NW of where we were staying in Laval.  It was interesting seeing a more northern (relatively) of Quebec.  The Autoroute ends very smoothly and dumps you onto QC-117 which parallels the A-15 almost all the way back to Montreal.  Basically, it looks like A-15 was the 'freeway' version of QC-117 which is surely a much older road. I'm guessing that the tourist season starts later this far north than it does in the US.  We were driving and hiking on a very nice warm Sunday at the end of May and yet there was basically no sign of tourism activity. We did see some work crews painting the picnic tables and deck at an overlook etc but only maybe 3 small groups of other hikers. This trail was an interesting sort of double balloon.  It started off intimidatingly hardcore with a rope assisted super st...

We've been getting in a fair number of hikes all throughout the winter and early Spring but we are headed into summer and want to kick our activities up a notch.  So, today, we got up early and headed out with just a general idea of what we were doing. Usually we carefully read about every trail we might do and try to pick out something that is precisely a certain length and a certain, usually modest, amount of elevation gain. I've been to Spruce pond 3 times I think, once with Brian, once with our friend Fred and then today.  The other times I've gone there we've done a 4.5 mile loop that goes up the side of a hill across the road from Spruce Pond, along a ridge then crosses the road the pond is on and comes in through a particularly charming stretch of deeply forested land with many little streams that converge and meander around before ending up on the far side of Spruce Pond and back to the car. One thing I've wanted to do but until today, hadn't, was to hik...

We were at this surprisingly impressive state park just minutes from Syracuse once before back in October 2022 .  It snowed lightly most of last night and daytime temps remained well below freezing so this was a great chance to walk on some nice fresh clean snow.  The drive to Syracuse went well and while there was blowing snow in spots, it was pretty early and traffic volume was very light.    There were only about 4 cars in the large main parking log.  We headed off in the opposite direction from our previous trip which meant going through the woods and valleys first rather than starting off along the bluff above the lake. We also TRIED to walk around the lake this time, something we didn't attempt the other time we were here.   Other than the Lake trail, everything was in great shape and very easy to walk along.  The Lake trail was intimidating from the moment it left the other trail we had been on. It clung to the side of a hill with a ve...