Hiking - Taconic Crest Trail

This was another in the continuing series of Taconic Crest hikes in pursuit of the winter patch. We started from Pittsfield State Forest, just over the border in Massachusetts, and walked south to a second car we parked at the Lebanon Springs access road where we started our hike several weeks back. Today gave us beautiful sunshine and blue skies, temps in the low 20s, and a light wind.

The road up to Berry Pond is not plowed in winter, so we had to park down below, and first had a 2-mile climb up to the ridge and the trail. The road was well-packed by snowmobiles, which made for easy walking with the snowshoes on our backs. Once we got to the trail, we found a few inches of snow covered by an icy crust, and then another dusting of snow, and a short test walk had us breaking through the crust. We were glad we had brought the snowshoes, and quickly put them on. Then we headed south, enjoyed the view from Tower Mountain, had lunch, and were back at the second car at Lebanon Springs by 2:30, an easy day of 6.43 miles.