3/27/2011 Black Pond Hike

So today Mr. D and my buddy Mr. N and his finance took a hike on the other side of a highway from where myself and several other friends hiked Mt. Higby.  I have done Mt. Higby a bunch of times but could never figure out where the trail continued over the highway.  So after some reasearch we discovered that both sides of the Mt.  where just parts of the 63 or 63 mile Metacoment Trail, so we where like neat we should just be able to find the trail head on the other side of the highway, find some place to park and go from there.  That's exactly what we did.  It was a good day out, nice and cool but extremely windy once on top of the mountain.  The hiking was good, the trail was clearly beaten in to the forest floor, but there were also many different dirt bike and atv trails breaking off so we had to keep checking for the blue blaze of the Metacomet so we wouldn't end hiking head long into an atver, which we heard in the distance.  Once up on top of the mountain the view was amazing.  We could see all the way to New Haven which is approximately 20 miles to the south. 
The trail along the ridgeline was also a little precarious because in some spots there was maybe a foot between you and atleast a 150ft drop to a bunch of loose rocks at the bottom.  Needless to say it would be smart to fall to the left if you had.  On the way up each time we reached the summit of one ridge we would look farther south and see another one so we just kept on going until we were like ok who wants to get some beers which is what we did afterward.  Nothing like getting some beers after a nice little 4mile hike on a Sunday.
The hiking was good and in some spots it was pretty steep which just added to the hiking.  We met some woman who wanted to know if we saw any deer which we hadn't but I let her know that on my last hike I saw a black bear.  I think she almost deficated but then I let her know it was in Bloomfeild at Penwood State Forest and not around here.  That made her happy.  On the way back we deceided to get adventurous and do some bouldering up the side of one of cliff faces we had hiked on top on the way up the ridgline.  It wasn't to hard but it looked hard on the way up.. It's always fun to try and do some rock climbing when you go hiking as long as it's not let's say the American Wall on El Capitan.  Which I do not possess the testicular fortitude to even attempt, thinking about it is cool but doing it is another story.
Overall it was a good day, with some good people and some good beer.  Here are some pics from the hike. ENJOY

Tough Mudder

http://toughmudder.com/events/new-england/mount-snow-course-map-2011/


Tough mudder coarse map up on the site, check it out can't wait.  May 7th coming fast, time to start trail running and doing more hiking. 

3/26/2011

Sorry I have been away for such a long time but I was at war with my cable company.  After ditching the one that I had I thought it would be a good idea to go to another provider, little did I know that these people where just as stupid and incompentent as the other company.  So I took 2 days off from work expecting these people to come buy and fix the problem, but they didn't, no call no show, I wish I could do that and still keep my job, but that is water under the bridge at this point.

Well since then myself and MR. D have gone hiking and saw some neat shit.  Here are some photos from our latest journey into the great unknown, well we knew where we were but that sounds neat.

 The last group of pics is from another hike me Mr. D and Luc did at night right before myself and Mr. D did the Frigid Infliction Race up in Vermont.  The first set is when we went out to Penwood State Forrest in Bloomfield.  It was a cool hike we did about 5 miles or so not to bad.  We enjoyed some adult beverages during the hike which made coming up on a black bear that much more interesting.  I took some pics of the bear because neither of us have ever seen a bear before.  So we went up to a ridgeline where we could see alot of stuff, the view was pretty neat.   After that we decided to start on our way back and on the trail back we come back around the same bear we saw before hanging out in the trail.  What's funny about this is that ont he other side of the bear was another hiker who was just standing there like us.  So I decide to break out my most deadly of weapons, my whistle.  I whistle a couple of times and MR. bear just sits there then he decides to head out after giving us a nice little growl.  Needless to say that we gave the bear a wide berth because lets not forget Mr. bear has been sleeping for the past 4 months and he was just looking for some berries.  I myself don't look like a berry but who knows if a bear has some sort of berry vision and when they are hungry everything looks like a berry, I glad  I didn't have to find out, I would feel half way bad if I had to kill a bear.  Not really but who knows.  This wasn't as scary as when we got tracked by coyotes at Bear Mountain.  I guess it wasn't as bad because I could see the fuzzy wuzzy bear instead of tring to guess which hill are the coyotes going to spring on us and try to ambush us. I guess if you spend enough time in the woods are bound to see some sort of cute little creature that is hungry.  Myself and Mr. D are planning many more fun hikes that I will post up here to keep all of you who care up to date. 

Most important congratulations to my buddy Clarke for completeing his first 50mile race in a time of 10 hours, great job Clarke your a beast.