Day two of the Mass 100 highest hike with Al started with a
pre-sunrise jog up and down Beebe Hill in NY.
This was just a bonus hike to bag a peak with a fire tower and the early
hour warranted finding a peak with a road up.
It was a pretty easy hustle from the parking area (1,400') to the top
(1,762) although the sign listed it as "Fire Tower .5" it was easily
a mile up. We jogged it in 24 minutes
round trip (plus a couple of minutes to climb the tower and check out
approaching sunrise...which was still 30 minutes away.
Our second peak of the day was Harvey Mountain (2,057')
which was right on the MA/NY border. We
approached from the west. We drove in
pretty far on the road and parked at the turn at 1850'. We again did a nice easy jog up to the
top. There was a big clearing near the
top which apparently is a blueberry field.
The top of the mountain has a NY/MA monument. We headed down just as the sun was rising.
The third peak of the day was part trail and part
bushwhack. We headed to Lenox Mountain
south peak (1,850') and parked on Reservoir road. The trail up from 1,580' was nice and we just had a little
bushwhacking to do. Al got us to the
highest bump then we kicked around in the woods looking for the other two
possible highest points. We descended
via the same trail. The woods were very
open, unlike the crap we were in the day before.
Our fourth peak of the day was a lot of fun. Our goal was West Stockbridge mountain
(1,860). Unlike most approaches we went
in from the south near the junction of Averic Rd and Rt 41 at 950'. There was a nice jeep trail that was signed
for the watershed area and restricted for hunting. We stayed out of the woods until pretty high up on the
ridge. Then it was a bushwhack to the
ridge and a hike along the ridge to the summit, we bagged the West
Stockbridge/Stockbridge town line marker that was part way along the
ridge. On the way back down we stayed
to the west of the ridge on a trail then came over the ridge at the very end of
the nose. There were some great views
from there on the open rock. It was a
beautiful day to be out in the woods.
Our fifth and final peak of the day was the north peak of
"Tri Top" at 1,944'. We drove
to Tyringham and headed to the end of Fenn Road. We parked at the sign for the Mclennan Reservation (1,400'), but
there were no maps of the reservation so we relied on Al's topo. We hiked up one of the woods roads for a while
then bushwhacked our way to the top. We
drifted a bit on the way down and missed the woods road but Al relocated and we
contoured our way right to the car. Al
is pretty damn good with a topo map!
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