I was looking forward to finally getting out to Indian Pass after my trail stward training trip a couple of weeks ago. As I said, I'd never actually been on that trail and it had a bit of notoriety for being unkempt and difficult to follow. I was quite eager to put in the work to turn that impression around.
I took off work on Friday to prep for Mother's Day and found myself with a free mid-day for a hike. After a quick swing by Wendy's work in Schenectady, Sunny and I searched the AllTrails app for nearby hikes. Plotter Kill Preserve was only a few minutes away and it looked quite promising.
A little over a month ago, Sunny and I hiked up Pilot Knob from the Buck Mt. trailhead. Although we'd enjoyed the exposed ridgeline quite a bit, we hadn't gone to bag the true summit or hunt for the airplane wreckage. With another short Monday hike coming up, I figured we'd have a go at it. However, this time I wanted to try out the trail in from the Inman Pond trailhead. The weather seemed more than acceptable, so after making coffee and breakfast, Sunny and I set out for Sly Pond Rd. -- not for the first time and not for the last time.
I've been thinking I'll start volunteering either through the Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK) or the 46ers. The ADK has a trail stewardship program which is kind of like adopt-a-highway except it's adopt-a-trail. That seemed like a cool program, so I signed up. They sent the list of available trails, then I filled out a form with my top 3 choices. We got my #3 choice, Indian Pass. More on that later in the article. After a few months of Email correspondence and filling out paperwork, we were offered three dates for trail maintenance training and I chose the one in late April. The ADK offered...
Hiking in April definitely has an aspect of rolling the dice. I've been told that I'm lucky to live in upstate New York where we have so many options within a short drive. I agree wholeheartedly because it means you can often choose a day to hike and decide on the hike you want to do the day before or even the day of. Will there be a blizzard in the Adirondacks? Hike the Catskills. Is a lake effect slamming New York from the West? Hike the Green Mountains in Vermont or even the Taconics. I thought I wanted to do more Catskills but the weather and reports have been rather good from the smaller...