nature-you.org Blog

Ice Skating at the trail
February 17, 2008

It was never such a high risky experience I ever had in leading a trip. I worried for the whole day until the group finished the icy trail at 3:45pm. We had 12 hikers only but each had different skill levels of facing icy trail. Experienced hikers liked Warren and Chung Kwong had best skill to lay footprints for the others at the front. Sunny and Jeffrey had best equipment, stabilizers, which made them tackling the slippery slopes without hesitation. Jennifer, Dodo and Danny had never afraid of unstable trail, so they hiked with comfortable pace. Moon and Karen had good physical but not experienced enough to choose the best route. Helen was the new hiker of even normal trail. Sean and I knew where to put the safe steps but always stayed at the back to pull or push the girls. We did 9 miles today but with only 5 miles on trail.

The weather was not so cold with soft wind which was a good day for hiking. But, the trail condition was a continuous accumulation so the trail was very icy due to dry and low temperature of last week. When we started at the trailhead of AT, I knew it was going to be a challenging trip. The trail started by climbing up a steep slope. Luckily, the ice was not unbreakably hard so we could still make our way up. We climbed the slope by kicking small holes on the ice with hiking boots. Warren and Chung Kwong fell and slide for a few yards which reminded the others to be more careful on the move. Sunny and Jeffrey took out their stabilizers which demonstrated the lesson on friction of Physics. Since each step was a challenge and took time for the inexperienced hikers to test the next step, the move was very slow. Someone called for helps when she picked the wrong routes to the spots without exits. When we were taking lunch at Lemon Squeezer at noon, we finished only 2 miles in 2 hours.

My original plan was 4 more miles on the trail to go back to the cars. It would be too risky for beginners if we had to spend 4 to 5 more hours on the trail because they would get more and more tired. I had to change the hiking plan to ensure the whole group could be off the icy trail before 4pm. I decided to bring the group to hike adjacent to Arden Valley Road for only 3 more miles but added a 4 miles walk on auto road to go back to the parking lot. The auto road would serve as an emergency route when necessary. We continued on AT after lunch until we met Long Path. Moon had to sit and slide down on a downhill slope. The Long Path trail was more flat but still very icy. The down slope behind the shelter was again a big challenge to the beginners. I served the group with oranges when taking a break at the shelter. I saw Karen and Helen were tired enough in dealing with today’s slippery trail condition. We finished this last 3 miles on the ice by 3:45pm.

It would be another 4 miles walk on Arden Valley Road before seeing the cars. On the way back, I brought the group to visit the Ice Cave but the ice condition was poor this week. My first walk on this road brought me first view of the huge campground and a gigantic water dam at Lake Cabasset. We also found pretty flowers ice patterns at the side of the road. I agreed this portion might be too boring long but safety was the keyword of each activity. There should be no chance to be taken. We reached the parking lot by 5:15pm while rain started around 5:45pm when we were driving to Duncan Donut. What if we were still struggling at the mountain by this moment!

When there was only black and white
February 9, 2008

The weather forecasted was rain and snow which might stop someone to go outdoors except 5. I was lucky to have Moon, Sunny, Chung Kwong and Sean joined me to experience the world with only black and white at Ladentown Mountain.

The sky was cloudy and snow started when we reached the parking area. A small and experienced hiking group was easy to lead because no need to wait and give out briefings. The trail was cleaned at the first step but snow accumulated up to 2 inches for the whole day when we measured during the trip. We started from Seven Hills (Blue), then TMI (Red) and SBM (Yellow) before lunch. We would go back along BM (White), Buck (Yellow) and return to Seven Hills (Blue). The trail marks were colorful today which was a big contrast with the black and white winter scenery of the mountain. White snow on sides of black rocks and branches was the same dressing code of panda.

The uphill on Seven Hills was the only climbing of today. It was basically flat for this 8 miles route. The hiking under snowing made the trip more pretty and fun. This route passed through a lot of wide unmarked trails. You would say “wow” when seeing a wide trail covered with clean snow and branches of both sides were all hanging with soft snow. The snow fell on the leaves looked like cotton. We reached the Third Reservoir in 4 miles where we met a group of Korean hikers. They invited us to join their fire and stayed under the temporary shelter but we preferred to eat under the snow. The Lakeview was pretty but really cold without hand warmer. This was the shortest lunch break we ever had. We wrapped up within just 15 minutes.

The 1 mile on Breakneck Mountain trail had more ups and downs. We took a break at the hill top where we tried the throwing skill. Sunny didn’t learn the correct form from her high school teacher. When we reached trailhead of Buck Trail, there we saw the prettiest scenery of the day. We had fun at that spot: Moon drew an UFO circle, Chung Kwong’s raincoat was torn and dressed like a monk, and Sean twisted like a stone to shoot the group picture. There were a lot of small bridges to cross over streams on the Buck Trail which showed that someone had done a good job on trail maintenance. We went downhill along Blue trail and back to the car by 3:30pm.

Ice Cave with little ice
February 3, 2008

This was the second attempt to see the Ice Cave of Harriman. Since the formation of ice cave was all determined by nature, there was no guaranteed that we could catch this feature. All I knew was: we wouldn’t see if we didn’t come out and try to contact the nature. Our effort was paid back by the nature to have a chance to view an ice cave with little ice.

I had 20 signed up but 2 new hikers were confused with the time of meet so we couldn’t hike together. I knew until the evening, they hiked in the same area but an hour ahead of us. We had new Nature You hikers: Jocelyn and Lisa. The trail was slippery hopefully didn’t scare them away from other winter hike.

We started from Silvermine Lake at 10am after finished the shuttle arrangement. As usual, I liked to give the briefing on the “General’s Stone” next to the lake. The trail adjacent to the huge Silvermine Lake was flat but the Yellow trail was so icy due to water was frozen. The biggest challenge came at the slippery upslope portion where we had to find stones to step on. We were doing rock climbing without hands. In 1.5 miles, we reached William Brien Memory Shelter in an hour and took the group picture. The trip continued on AT going towards Tiorati Circle. By seeing a lot of icy snow on the trail, I could predict that there should be some ice at the Ice Cave.

We found a downhill slope with minimum wind and enough stones to sit so decided to take lunch at 12:30. After crossing Seven Lake Drive, we found a new but tilted wood bridge to cross the stream. The first of last 2 uphill slopes which was 1 mile long but all 18 hikers could overcome it without taking a break. That was amazing. We took break at the so called viewpoint which we all thought no view at all. In 15 minutes, we were at the intersection of AT and RD where we started the last uphill slope. This slope was not too long but with a lot of icy bare rocks. Thank you to Feng who accompanied the new hiker at the back for the whole trip to give out support and assistance. After finished this last mile on the trail, we reached Arden Valley Road.

Here we came to the bonus part of this trip, everyone was exciting to see how pretty the Ice Cave was. I led the team to find it by climbing up a loose stones slope. After passing a narrow entrance, we saw a cave covered by icebergs. There was ice but not too much. Still, the ice on the cliff and umbrella liked ice hanging around the cave had enough attraction to all hikers. We stayed and posted long to take enough pictures and walked back to our cars in the Picnic area along Arden Valley Road. I told the hikers the view could be much much better if we would come again after snowstorm. Ice Cave, we would be back.

We liked bonus miles
January 27, 2008

I had to redo 3 times on preparing the final hikers list of this trip. I had 28 signed up by Friday evening. A group of 8 hikers quitted on Saturday but a group of 4 people signed up a few hours before the trip. Finally, 5 people didn’t make it in that morning so the size of the team was down to 19. Due to the withdrawal of the group of 8 beginners, experienced hikers were outnumbered for this trip. Most of the hikers today would not be satisfied of just hiking 5 miles.

We started from 1777W climbing a snowy hill, then connected to the Yellow trail. There were some snow and ice remains on the trail but not difficult at all. We had a fast pace followed Moon and Warren. When hearing to the strong music from the ice skate range, we knew we were not far from the Bear Mountain Recreation Area. We finished 2 miles and it was only 11:30am—too early to take lunch. I announced there would be a bonus of tough 3 miles to climb the Bear Mountain. Mr. and Mrs. Tsang decided to take it easy so would wait for us at the Recreation Area. Since there were facilities and pretty sceneries, I didn’t have to worry about their safety. We had 17 people joined the bonus trip including first time Nature You hikers Vivian and Helen Xiao.

When we saw the whitish icy Hessian Lake, we were crazy for the special natural feature and went onto the lake. It turned out an angry ranger came to warn us of doing high risky behavior. He pointed out the warning signs which were put on both ends of the lake but he didn’t know when we came in from the middle. We couldn’t see them at all. In order to stop people going again onto the lake of thin ice layer, they should put another sign in the middle. Since Major Welch Red trail was on the north side that I knew it would be too danger to go down on icy trail, I brought the group to climb up on Red trail and came down from AT. The trail was full of snow and ice. It took us more time and extra careful to overcome the icy rocks. The viewpoint was great which compensated for the effort used. It was Helen’s first winter hiking trip. She didn’t know how tough the bonus trail would be until she saw the icy uphill trail. But, that was a trail with no back turn. As time was running out, I led the group to ascend to Perkins Tower on auto road and took lunch at 1pm under Perkins Tower. We saw only 3 other hikers who climbed up and no any cars in the parking lot.

We descended from AT after 20 minutes lunch. Gary and Siwen decided to go by an easier and shorter route to go back to the car because Gary felt pain on his weakened leg knee. I led 14 people down in a fast pace and met Tsangs at the Merry-go-around at 2:30. I now had 17 hikers again to finish the last 3 miles going back to the car along 1777 after passing through the Doddletown village. There was frozen water on the surface of an uphill slope which liked marble. The team had to go to the sides which liked people ascending to the palace to meet the emperor. At the small bridge before the last hill, we saw pretty ice segments hanging on the river. It was postcard scenery. We reached back to the car around 4pm where Gary and Siwen had already been waiting for 15 minutes.

It was unusual to add bonus of such long and so tough. It was possible only because we had hiked to this picnic area with enough facilities that those awaiting here could kill time without being too boring. It turned out everyone liked these 3 miles bonus which might be the toughest winter hike for someone had ever had.