Monday, January 23, 2012
One Hundred Miles in 2012
It is my plan to hike at least 100 miles this year and I intend to stick to this. Mark my words: One hundred miles this year. Now who can I sucker into coming with me....
Middlesex Fells Reservation
I took advantage of the snow storm this past Saturday and went on a short adventure with Nicole to Middlesex Fells Reservation in Winchester, MA. It was only about a 7 minute drive from my apartment in Woburn, and instead of being scared of the snow we decided to brave the weather and go on a short hike there. Neither of us have proper winter clothing so we looked like two well layered rodeo clowns walking thought the woods, but that's besides the point.
From what I could gather there are plenty of hiking trails available in the park, and a good amount of parking at the trail head we went to. We started off hiking on the Willow Spring path and continued for a bit onto Wanapinaquin Rd. There is plenty of information on the park at the Friends of Middlesex Fells Reservation website and also Google maps has all of the major trails outlined.
It was a nice hike through the snowy woods on a trail that followed the coast of one on the lakes located in the reservation. Nicole lost her phone during a furious jumping session, but by blind luck she found in buried in the snow on the way back, which was one of the most epic finds in recent history. We saw plenty of people cross country skiing and hiking through the woods while out on the trek and all and all it was a fun hike and I plan on going back a few more times to check out some of the other trails available and I would recommend anyone else in the area to do so also. For a park that is located 10 miles from the center of Boston it has a very remote feeling with plenty of space to explore without running into many other people, which is otherwise quite impossible in this area. I took my new GoPro along and snapped a few pictures.
Mileage: 2 Miles
From what I could gather there are plenty of hiking trails available in the park, and a good amount of parking at the trail head we went to. We started off hiking on the Willow Spring path and continued for a bit onto Wanapinaquin Rd. There is plenty of information on the park at the Friends of Middlesex Fells Reservation website and also Google maps has all of the major trails outlined.
It was a nice hike through the snowy woods on a trail that followed the coast of one on the lakes located in the reservation. Nicole lost her phone during a furious jumping session, but by blind luck she found in buried in the snow on the way back, which was one of the most epic finds in recent history. We saw plenty of people cross country skiing and hiking through the woods while out on the trek and all and all it was a fun hike and I plan on going back a few more times to check out some of the other trails available and I would recommend anyone else in the area to do so also. For a park that is located 10 miles from the center of Boston it has a very remote feeling with plenty of space to explore without running into many other people, which is otherwise quite impossible in this area. I took my new GoPro along and snapped a few pictures.
Mileage: 2 Miles
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| Yeah..yeah. |
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| Complete Nerd. |
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| Hiking. |
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Pico Mountain
It's been forever since my last update due mostly to the fact that I've been busy with moving and starting a new job and all that fun stuff, also it isn't as much fun hiking in the winter.
So yeah new job and new living area lets talk about that, and since I'm not the best writer I'll sum it up in a list of pro's and con's.
Pro's: I get to live alot closer to some very close friends now which is great, I'm back in Mass so I never had to switch over my license cause I was way to lazy to do that, I get paid more at my new job and I don't have to deal with the handful of unfathomably stupid people I worked with, also I'm close to Boston which i guess is cool but I'm pretty indifferent about it.
Cons: Rhode Island was sweet, I'm going to miss having a kick ass city, the beach, and some fun hiking spots all within 20 mins of my apartment. I'm also gonna miss the good people I worked with and all of the good aspects about my last job. I now have to work with radiation which as you can imagine isn't that awesome or fun unless you like making your chance of cancer increase, annnnd I'm guessing you don't.
OK enough of the updates, back to the purpose of this blog: hiking. So right before moving and starting the new job I rented a cabin in Killington, Vermont with a couple of friends for the weekend. It was a great time filled with a shit load of food and plenty of hickish activities including sling shot hunting and tree tipping, which is a must if you've never done it. I was excited to go back to Killington because I had hiked there years before when I was a freshman in college with a couple of my friends and it was a blast. That trip was the first real hike I had done that wasn't a scout hosted event and the first over night hike I had done in awhile, and in a lot of ways it's why I got back into hiking as a hobby.
So anyways, we finally started the hike after an hour debate whether or not we could finish before sundown, because of course you can't expect a group of 8 hungover people to be ready to hike a mountain at even close to a reasonable time. But we did amazingly decide to hike it and took the same trail up I had done five years prior which is a section of the Appalachian Trail. It was a pretty cold hike since it was late October in Vermont but for the most part nobody complained too much and we got to the top rather quickly. The top of the mountain is part of the Pico Mountain ski area so there was a slope and ski lifts, along with a warming hut which I had insisted would be open and allow us warm up since it had been last time. I was wrong. After eating a lunch in the freezing cold it was more than time to hike down the mountain, and we decided this would be done by running down the ski slop to the bottom instead of taking the trail back. Completely awesome idea. After somehow evading broken legs or peaced out friends, except for Mark who obviously did fall, It was a pretty successful trip down.
At the bottom we hiked through the Ghost town of an off season ski resort, and along the road back to the cars. All and all it was a good hike.
Mileage: 5 Miles
So yeah new job and new living area lets talk about that, and since I'm not the best writer I'll sum it up in a list of pro's and con's.
Pro's: I get to live alot closer to some very close friends now which is great, I'm back in Mass so I never had to switch over my license cause I was way to lazy to do that, I get paid more at my new job and I don't have to deal with the handful of unfathomably stupid people I worked with, also I'm close to Boston which i guess is cool but I'm pretty indifferent about it.
Cons: Rhode Island was sweet, I'm going to miss having a kick ass city, the beach, and some fun hiking spots all within 20 mins of my apartment. I'm also gonna miss the good people I worked with and all of the good aspects about my last job. I now have to work with radiation which as you can imagine isn't that awesome or fun unless you like making your chance of cancer increase, annnnd I'm guessing you don't.
OK enough of the updates, back to the purpose of this blog: hiking. So right before moving and starting the new job I rented a cabin in Killington, Vermont with a couple of friends for the weekend. It was a great time filled with a shit load of food and plenty of hickish activities including sling shot hunting and tree tipping, which is a must if you've never done it. I was excited to go back to Killington because I had hiked there years before when I was a freshman in college with a couple of my friends and it was a blast. That trip was the first real hike I had done that wasn't a scout hosted event and the first over night hike I had done in awhile, and in a lot of ways it's why I got back into hiking as a hobby.
So anyways, we finally started the hike after an hour debate whether or not we could finish before sundown, because of course you can't expect a group of 8 hungover people to be ready to hike a mountain at even close to a reasonable time. But we did amazingly decide to hike it and took the same trail up I had done five years prior which is a section of the Appalachian Trail. It was a pretty cold hike since it was late October in Vermont but for the most part nobody complained too much and we got to the top rather quickly. The top of the mountain is part of the Pico Mountain ski area so there was a slope and ski lifts, along with a warming hut which I had insisted would be open and allow us warm up since it had been last time. I was wrong. After eating a lunch in the freezing cold it was more than time to hike down the mountain, and we decided this would be done by running down the ski slop to the bottom instead of taking the trail back. Completely awesome idea. After somehow evading broken legs or peaced out friends, except for Mark who obviously did fall, It was a pretty successful trip down.
At the bottom we hiked through the Ghost town of an off season ski resort, and along the road back to the cars. All and all it was a good hike.
Mileage: 5 Miles
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| The group at the summit |
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| Happy about frolicking |
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| Sasquatch Mark |
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| Hiking down |
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| Buds |
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| From my original hike 5 years ago, Ski chair at sunrise |
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Hopewell Rocks
It's been a wile since my last update, been a bit busy with nothing in particular. I've almost completed editing all of my photos from the Canada trip and I figured I should give a quick update and show off some of the pictures from Hopewell rocks.
I think pretty much anyone who's been to New Brunswick can attest that they've visited or at the very least herd of Hopewell rocks. The iconic picture of tide swept rocks in the Bay of Fundy is almost always one of Hopewell rocks. I had much excitement for this stop on the road trip as all of the pictures and websites I had seen of this place looked really great and I couldn't wait to get there and snap some pictures.
All and all it was a pretty cool place, pictures were difficult seeing as 10,000 other people saw the same photos and websites I did too and all happened to be there on the same day, but a bit of patients and some photoshop skills can get rid of any fat tourist. Definitely a tourist hot spot and the entry fee and trail to the rocks leading you through the gift store all proved that, but it was a very cool place and I'm sure off-season it's a million times better.
Mileage: 2 Miles
I think pretty much anyone who's been to New Brunswick can attest that they've visited or at the very least herd of Hopewell rocks. The iconic picture of tide swept rocks in the Bay of Fundy is almost always one of Hopewell rocks. I had much excitement for this stop on the road trip as all of the pictures and websites I had seen of this place looked really great and I couldn't wait to get there and snap some pictures.
All and all it was a pretty cool place, pictures were difficult seeing as 10,000 other people saw the same photos and websites I did too and all happened to be there on the same day, but a bit of patients and some photoshop skills can get rid of any fat tourist. Definitely a tourist hot spot and the entry fee and trail to the rocks leading you through the gift store all proved that, but it was a very cool place and I'm sure off-season it's a million times better.
Mileage: 2 Miles
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| Horses |
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| Ready to kayak |
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| Twisted |
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| Hopewell Rocks |
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| Low tide |
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Peggy's Cove
So while in Canada the weather was pretty crappy most of the time, but I was able to squeeze in a few hikes between all the rain. I have to say by far my favorite of the trip, and one of my all time favorites, was the hike we did outside of Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia.
We went into Peggy's Cove first, which is like, as the guide book put it,"The most picturesque fishing village in all of Atlantic Canada" yeah sick. It was cool if you like 8 billion fat tourists and 7 gift shops. But I will say that it easily could have been really awesome had they not let the tourist attractions take over so much of the town. There was alot of really old, really cool looking fishing huts and houses with the really old bearded typical fisherman to go with them, but the ice cream shops and tour buses kind of ruined the ability to really feel like you were in the middle of an old fishing village in a different time. My parents came here on a vacation over 25 years ago and from what they told me it seemed alot better back then before everyone else found out about it.
That being said, the area itself was really cool. The last ten minutes of the drive into town was dominated by bolder covered hills with green shrub grass covering everything. We asked the guide at the visitor center if there were any good hikes in the area and she told us of one that went along the coast down into a nearby bay. After walking around the town for a bit we headed out to start the hike.
It was awesome, very cool terrain to hike through with boulders to climb over and cliffs to scale along the coast, which Mark was ecstatic about. Also there were pitcher plants everywhere which I have never seen before and are actually pretty damn cool, basically they are "like" a Venus flytrap in that they eat insects for nutrients, but instead of a closing trap they have a flower that hangs over leaves shaped like a pitcher filled with water. When the insects fall off the flower and into the pitchers, the fluid in the pitcher digests them and the plants feed off of the dissolved nutrients. Pretty bad ass I know, but enough of the Biology lesson.
Overall it was a great hike, with a ton of things to see and some very cool terrain to experience. So if you ever go to Peggy's Cove, do yourself a favor and don't just walk to the lighthouse and go in the gift shops and get ice cream, take a two minute drive down the road and go on a quick hike, I promise you won't regret it. Then obviously go back to the town and get some fucken ice cream, cause it's delicious, and it's exactly what we did.
Mileage: about 2 miles
We went into Peggy's Cove first, which is like, as the guide book put it,"The most picturesque fishing village in all of Atlantic Canada" yeah sick. It was cool if you like 8 billion fat tourists and 7 gift shops. But I will say that it easily could have been really awesome had they not let the tourist attractions take over so much of the town. There was alot of really old, really cool looking fishing huts and houses with the really old bearded typical fisherman to go with them, but the ice cream shops and tour buses kind of ruined the ability to really feel like you were in the middle of an old fishing village in a different time. My parents came here on a vacation over 25 years ago and from what they told me it seemed alot better back then before everyone else found out about it.
That being said, the area itself was really cool. The last ten minutes of the drive into town was dominated by bolder covered hills with green shrub grass covering everything. We asked the guide at the visitor center if there were any good hikes in the area and she told us of one that went along the coast down into a nearby bay. After walking around the town for a bit we headed out to start the hike.
It was awesome, very cool terrain to hike through with boulders to climb over and cliffs to scale along the coast, which Mark was ecstatic about. Also there were pitcher plants everywhere which I have never seen before and are actually pretty damn cool, basically they are "like" a Venus flytrap in that they eat insects for nutrients, but instead of a closing trap they have a flower that hangs over leaves shaped like a pitcher filled with water. When the insects fall off the flower and into the pitchers, the fluid in the pitcher digests them and the plants feed off of the dissolved nutrients. Pretty bad ass I know, but enough of the Biology lesson.
Overall it was a great hike, with a ton of things to see and some very cool terrain to experience. So if you ever go to Peggy's Cove, do yourself a favor and don't just walk to the lighthouse and go in the gift shops and get ice cream, take a two minute drive down the road and go on a quick hike, I promise you won't regret it. Then obviously go back to the town and get some fucken ice cream, cause it's delicious, and it's exactly what we did.
Mileage: about 2 miles
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| Peggy's Cove lobster traps |
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| Peggy's Cove |
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| Peggy's Cove boats |
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| Pitcher plant flower |
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| Awesome landscape |
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| Awesome landscape |
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| Cliff down to the ocean |
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| Awesome landscape |
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| Peggy's Cove through rocks |
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| Mark giggling |
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Saint John in Black and White
I just returned home last night from a week long Canadian road trip with my friend Mark and I decided it was time for a new blog update. I have probably upwards of 1000 pictures from the week and since it's going to take a billion years to look through them and edit the ones I like, I figured I'd do a separate post for each part of the trip. Our first stop was in Saint John, New Brunswick so I decided that would be a fitting place for my first post.
The drive there wasn't too bad, aside from some beach traffic it was pretty much smooth sailing through a whole lot of Maine nothingness. On a side note there's a lot of fucken guns and truck bed covers for sale in Maine in case anyone's looking.
Once we crossed the border the ride was a bit more interesting, a lot of coast and miles and miles of Balsam Fir trees, not to mention a speed limit of 110 which turned out to be in kilometers unfortunately. About ten miles out from Saint John, where we were stopped for the first night, we drove into a thick fog which we would be in for pretty much the next two days. After checking into the hotel we went for a walk around the city in the fog and i snapped a bunch of pictures. I think all fog pictures look better in black and white so for this post I'm putting up my favorite pictures from Saint John in black and white.
Mileage: about 1 mile
The drive there wasn't too bad, aside from some beach traffic it was pretty much smooth sailing through a whole lot of Maine nothingness. On a side note there's a lot of fucken guns and truck bed covers for sale in Maine in case anyone's looking.
Once we crossed the border the ride was a bit more interesting, a lot of coast and miles and miles of Balsam Fir trees, not to mention a speed limit of 110 which turned out to be in kilometers unfortunately. About ten miles out from Saint John, where we were stopped for the first night, we drove into a thick fog which we would be in for pretty much the next two days. After checking into the hotel we went for a walk around the city in the fog and i snapped a bunch of pictures. I think all fog pictures look better in black and white so for this post I'm putting up my favorite pictures from Saint John in black and white.
Mileage: about 1 mile
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| Anglican Church Of Canada |
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| Anglican Church Of Canada |
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| Creepy version of the above shot |
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| Art gallery |
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| Alleyway |
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| Lighthouse on the waterfront |
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Napatree Point
Took a quick and unexpected trip out to Napatree Point in Westerly, Rhode Island the other day. Left the boots in the car and hiked the 3 mile round trip out to the point and back with Nicole. I've been meaning to go here for a few years now but everytime I'm in the area there just isn't time for it or no one in interested.
Besides the annoyingness of having to find parking at Watch Hill an being back before the 2 hour parking time limit is reached (under the watchful eye of retarded looking meter maids) The trip is def worth it, it has everything you could ask for: ocean, secluded beach, crazy bird sanctuary, AND there is an abandoned war for at the end of the point. Completely awesome. Here's some pics, and since it was a beach; no miles to the boots.
Mileage: 3miles (0) added to boots
16 miles on the boots so far.
Besides the annoyingness of having to find parking at Watch Hill an being back before the 2 hour parking time limit is reached (under the watchful eye of retarded looking meter maids) The trip is def worth it, it has everything you could ask for: ocean, secluded beach, crazy bird sanctuary, AND there is an abandoned war for at the end of the point. Completely awesome. Here's some pics, and since it was a beach; no miles to the boots.
Mileage: 3miles (0) added to boots
16 miles on the boots so far.
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