Bear Mountain

So on Monday Feb 7th myself, my buddy dave, and lucas went for hike.  We left at about 8:30pm or so and arrived at our destination at around 9:15pm.  We got on the traill head at around 9:30pm. The trail we decided to hike was the Undermountain Trail, that led to the Paradise Lane Trail to the Appalachian Trail to top of Bear Mountain in Salisbuy CT. This sounds nice doesn't it.  Well that's what I thought until it started to snow.  It wasn't that nice fluffy snow (tron) for all my snowboard friends you know who you are.  It was this heavy wet snow that soaked through everything, so needless to say by the time we got done 5hours later we were all soaking wet, but who cares it was only 30 degrees out. 
So I guess that could be considered an introduction to the hike.  I am going to post some pictures and our route from Garmin.com onto the end of this so you have an idea of our route. We started off pretty good.  Dave and Lucas both carried nice day packs, Lucas with an Osprey and Dave with a Camelbak pack.  I was carrying my LL.Bean multiday pack with some extra clothes, some trail mix, my phone, wallet, gun, knife, sleeping bag, trail guide, first aid kit, and some other stuff.  Needless to say I need to look over some of my backpacker magazines and practice hiking with less.  All of us also carried our snowshoes with us, but believe it or not it was actually easier to hike without them i though, Dave and Lucas will probably disagree.  Luckily for us and in some cases not so luckily the trail had been previously hiked so besides following the blazes ( feeder trails blue, AT trail white) we just followed the beaten path.
Everything was going nice when I would say half way up the Undermountain trail we started to hear the howelling (i think that's how it's spelled) of some fury creatures in the darkness.   We would continue to hike hear them getting closer and stop.  We continued this for a little while until we got to the beginning of the Paradise Lane trail.  During us being stalked by fury creatures Lucas talked on his cell phone, but he got off it when we could almost reach out and touch those furry little animals.  Anyway, we took a right onto the Paradise Lane Trail.  If you didn't know this I am going to tell you that this trail is completely enclosed in mountain laurel.  (CT state flower and deadly as sin)  What made this so neat was that there was 4 to 5 feet of snow on the ground so were literally hiking on top of top of the bushes.  This was fun because you hike and then break through and fall up to your twig and berries and then pull yourself out and break through with the other leg.  This was fun because it would take me atleast 100ft or so to get my balance back.  By that time I had all ready failed 6 DUI tests trying to get my balance.  Once you found your footing it wasn't too bad, I told Lucas it was like walking on a balance beam which is kind of was. 
Once we got through the Paradise Lane Trail we ended up at sign for Sages Ravine and campsite which is in Mass.  So we hiked from CT to Mass.  At this point I got kind of irritated because it was 11:30pm at this point and I had to go to work the next day (which I called out sick and my boss asked me what was wrong with me when I told I hiked for 5 hours the night before) but after some discussion me being a bitch and Dave and Lucas saying we are almost there, I ditched my pack, placed my packcover over it and we took a left up the AT to the top of Bear Mountain.
Now this part was hard. Very hard.  From the point we started at Sages Ravine to the summit of Bear Mountian, in 1.4 mile or so we gained almost 1,200ft of elevation.  There were some spots that were almost vertical and with the snowpack it was hard. So after doing this for about 25 min or so we get to a clearing and see the Monument on top of Bear Mountain.  Needless to say we were all happy.  I will add a picture of this at the end of the post.  The one thing we all said up there was we couldn't believe how dark it was.  When we shut off out head lamps you couldn't see your hands in front of your face, all you felt was the snow being driven into your face.  It was super windy and super cold up there, the highest point in CT.  We stayed up there long enough to shake hands take a picture and drink a celebratory PBR (pabst blue ribbon).  It tasted great.  Then it was time to haul ass and get down.  The way back down the AT to Paradise Lane Trail head at Sages Ravine was more like us constantly being involved in a controlled fall.  The rule was if you fall you get teabagged ( look it up) luckily no one was fast enough to do it, but the threat was enough.  We got back down to my pack, I took some more pics, which I will post, I put my pack back on and we hauled ass out of there.  On the way back we were moving.  It was kind of funny because on the way back you never realize what the trail was like when you were hiking in.  We all were amazed at the amount of elevation gain on the hike in, we didn't realize it.  It was also funny because we noticed all these nice little footprints in the snow of all those funny little furry creatures that had come to check out tracks after we were gone.
Like I said we really cooked on the way back. Once we got the car it was time put on another layer, turn on the heat and get home to warm up.  O yea it took 2.5 hours to get home because of the snow, so from time we left Dave's house to the time we got back was almost 8 hours.  Good times even though the next day I felt like I had been hit by a bus. 

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/67316526