March Newsletter 2022
White Lily Pond, Grafton Lakes State Park. Pic by M Waldman
END-TO-END, MAY 14, 2022, VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES!
After having to postpone the event for the past two years we are finally able to go ahead with it. We have a full roster of participants who are eager to meet at Berry Pond and start the day-long trek of 30 miles. We are looking for equally eager volunteers to help make this day the fabulous event it has been in the past.
To hold this event, we are requiring that all participants and volunteers at the event be fully vaccinated against Covid 19 following the CDC, NYS, and MA state recommendations at that time. We are sure that will include booster shots.
We have several rewarding volunteer opportunities available for the day of the event from early in the morning (around 5:30 a.m.) to later afternoon (around 5:00 p.m.) We’re happy for any amount of time you can give.
Sweeps follow the participants on the trail for one of the four sections: Berry Pond to Madden Rd, Madden Rd to Mattison Hollow, Mattison Hollow to Rte. 2- Petersburg Pass or Rte. 2- Petersburg Pass to Rte. 346. (We have more than enough volunteers for the final section.)
Shuttle drivers drive sweeps back to their cars after the sweeps finish. We are looking for additional shuttle drivers this year to keep the occupancy low and are encouraging sweep partners to spot cars.
Hospitality volunteers help at the hospitality sites at Petersburg Pass and Rte. 346.
Just as important are these opportunities the day before the event:
Deliver water supplied by the THC to the TCT & Mattison Hollow junction the day or two prior to the event. This is a 2.75 mile hike up the trail with a bit under 1000 feet gain.
Help in organizing the sweeps and shuttle drivers well before the event or aid in organizing other parts of the event.
Trail workers to help clear the trail of blowdown prior to the event.
If you are interested in helping in any way, or if you had previously said in 2020 that you would volunteer and you are still available, please email us at taconichikingclb@gmail.com (no u in club).
We look forward to hearing from you!
HEMLOCK WOOLLY ADELGID MONITORING
March is the best time to inspect hemlocks for Hemlock Wooley Adelgid (HWA). The cottony egg sacs are at their largest and easiest to see and it is warm enough to take off your gloves! If you have had the training and the time, you should take advantage of the conditions and get out to monitor and report your findings on the NYS IMap Invasives app. Remember, do not inspect for HWA in April, as the eggs will be hatching and the inspector can become a vector, spreading the nymphs from one tree to the next.
Hemlock Woolly Adelgid threatens the health of the beautiful and important hemlock stands on the Taconic Crest, the Rensselaer Plateau and elsewhere in the region. For more information see: NY's invasive species database and mapping system | NY iMapInvasives www.capitalregionprism.org https://blogs.cornell.edu/nyshemlockinitiative/ and https://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/4969.html
HWA on hemlock, photo from blogs.cornell,edu
HIKE, BIKE OR PADDLE THROUGH THE PAGES OF A BOOK!
March brings trails that might be icy or mucky or full of deep wind-blown snow. It’s a good excuse to settle down with a book about hiking, biking, or paddling and do some vicarious excursioning. With unlikely heroes and heroines and their tales of heroic survival, both nonfiction and fiction provide an outlet for dreams of our own outdoor adventures, at least until the trails clear up, the bike paths de-ice, and the ponds and rivers warm up. Each of these travelers was seeking something, some with the odds stacked against them, but all were hiking, biking, or paddling furiously in an attempt to add meaning to their lives and find greater happiness. Here are some titles to take you on trips real and fantastical.
Hiking
You’ve likely read Bill Bryson’s entertaining and outdoor classic A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail. If not, prepare for some very humorous scenes.
Cheryl Strayed in Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail throws caution to the wind as she heads off alone and mostly unprepared for the rigors of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State.
Grandma Gatewood's Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail by Ben Montgomery. If this grandma can head out her door with only a change of clothes and in sneakers and proceed to hike — again alone -- the whole A.T., mostly without maps, why can’t anyone? Her determination and motivation are inspirational.
Happy Trail (Park Ranger Series #1 by Daisy Prescott transports you to the Great Smoky Mountains and a character who prefers to be a loner. Will he be smitten not by a great black bear but by a feisty hiker? Ro-Com here.
Here again in Becoming Odyssa: Epic Adventures on the Appalachian Trail by Jennifer Davis is that long distance footpath that calls to old and young alike. Hiking alone, she finds the trail is full of unexpected kindness, generosity, and humor.
AWOL on the Appalachian Trail by David Miller tells a true account of this 41 year old engineer’s hike from Georgia to Maine after quitting his job and brings alive the life of the towns and the people he meets along the way.
Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon by Michael P. Ghiglieri. Tap into your ghoulish side with these gripping accounts of all known fatal mishaps in the most famous of the World's Seven Natural Wonders. These episodes of how 550 people met untimely deaths span the entire era of visitation from the time of the first river exploration by John Wesley Powell and his crew of 1869 to that of tourists falling off its rims in Y2K
The Man Who Walked Through Time is Colin Fletcher 's 1963 chronicle of the first person to walk a continuous route through Grand Canyon National Park. As he touches on the physical and spiritual rewards of backpacking, the book also describes the Grand Canyon as it was before the massive influx of tourism.
The Last Englishman is an account of author Keith Foskett’s punishing 2,640-mile hike from Mexico to Canada. In a six-month journey along America’s Pacific Crest Trail, he battled California’s deserts, Oregon’s volcanic landscape, and the dense forests of Washington.
Biking
Following the Sun: A Bicycle Pilgrimage From Andalusia to the Hebrides by John Hanson Mitchell tells of the author’s 1500 mile ride on a trusty old Peugeot bicycle from the port of Cadiz to just below the Arctic Circle. He follows the European spring up through southern Spain, the wine and oyster country near Bordeaux, to Versailles, Wordsworth's Lake District, the Scottish Highlands and finally to a Druid temple on the island of Lewis in the Hebrides.
The Rider, by Netherlander Tim Krabbe, is no dry history of the sport of bicycle racing. In 150 pages, you’ll ride breathlessly inside the author’s head during a furious 150-mile race.
Old Man on a Bicycle: A Ride Across America and How to Realize a More Enjoyable Old Age, by Don Peterson, a former ambassador, describes how a man in his seventies who hadn’t been on a bike in years headed west from New Hampshire to reach his goal—riding across the Golden Gate Bridge. This 3600-mile journey explores the challenges and beauty of crossing the country by bike and offers some insight on dealing with the physical changes aging brings.
Why stop with just the US? In Miles from Nowhere: A Round-the-World Bicycle Adventure, Barbara Savage recounts her two-year 23,000-mile around the world bicycle trip through 25 countries. Who and what they encounter make for an interesting look at the world from a bicycle seat.
Paddling
For Grand Canyon fiction, try In the Heart of the Canyon by Elizabeth Hyde, a novel about a rafting trip that changes the lives of each of the participants.
The River, a novel by Peter Heller, is a fast-paced, breathless trip down a wilderness river in northern Canada. It starts out innocently enough as two good friends, students at Dartmouth and trained NOLS instructors, head out at the end of their summer vacation for a trip through a series of lakes and then difficult rivers with terrifying rapids to their destination at Hudson’s Bay. Do they make it? The descriptions of the landscape, of the nature of an apocalyptic wildfire, and of the challenges of staying alive in a harsh environment keep this story tight, intense, and often beautiful. It’s a wild ride with good gear talk too.
Kabloona in the Yellow Kayak: One Woman’s Journey Through the Northwest Passage by Victoria Jason traces a trip a grandmother with little kayaking experience makes as she braves the Arctic.
In The Pacific Alone: The Untold Story of Kayaking’s Boldest Voyage by Dave Shively, we share Ed Gillet’s 1987 solo crossing from California to Hawaii. Gillet, at the age of 36 an accomplished sailor and paddler, navigated by sextant for 63 days of physical abuse, suffering, and other calamities.
In Escaping The Madness: A Circumnavigation Of Ireland By Sea Kayak, Paul Alexander leaves the modern-day stressful world of work and the daily rat race and attempts to recapture some of the richness of face-to-face human interaction and the beauty of nature during 1200 miles of difficult paddling. He seeks a simpler more sustainable life as his answer to how one finds happiness.
Without a Paddle: Racing Twelve Hundred Miles Around Florida by Sea Kayak by Warren Richey describes his flight from a broken marriage to his entering the first Ultimate Florida Challenge, a twelve-hundred-mile kayak race around Florida. The thirty-day deadline sets a grueling, twenty-four-hour-a-day pace through shark-, alligator-, and even python-infested waters. This memoir also explores this Iraq war veteran’s search for answers about what it means to be a man, a husband, and a father.
Fearless: One Woman, One Kayak, One Continent by Joe Glickman. Freya Hoffmeister, a forty-six-year-old former sky diver, gymnast, marksman, and Miss Germany contestant, left her twelve-year-old son behind to paddle alone and unsupported 9,420 miles around Australia faster than any other paddler had done—a year-long adventure that virtually every expert guaranteed would get her killed.
Hudson Bay Bound: Two Women, One Dog, Two Thousand Miles to the Arctic by Natalie Warren follows the 2,000-mile route made famous by Eric Sevareid in his 1935 classic “Canoeing with the Cree.” Two friends face unrelenting winds, carnivorous polar bears, snake nests, sweltering heat, and constant hunger.
OUTINGS: Refer to the THC website outings page for details about the outings and how to register. We are scheduling on a short-term basis rather than seasonally, so check the website periodically.
Thursday, March 3: Thacher State Park B-
Thursday, March 10: Hike Elm Ridge Mt Bike trails B (B+ if we need to break trail)
Wednesday, March 16: Taconic Crest Trail, Rte. 20 to Potter Mtn. Rd. B
Friday, March 18: Sarah Tenney/ RRR Brooks & adjacent trails B-
Old homestead foundation on Burbank Trail
Prospect Mtn ski. Pic by K Ross
Grafton Lakes State Park, Spruce Bog Trail. Pic by M Waldman
View of Parsons Marsh and beyond. Pic by J Berninger
Kennedy Park “Stonehenge”. Pic by M Waldman
White Lily Pond, Pic by T Rodrigues
Grafton Lakes State Park, by Second Pond. Pic by M Waldman
Burbank Trail, through the hemlocks. Pic by M Waldman