Hiking
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Checking out the Holt Preserve and Thacher Park North
Friday afternoon the weather was nice, so I decided to bring my mom on a short hike at the Holt Preserve. It’s not too far from where I live and I’m am always wanting to find new trails to explore. Located on top of a hill in southern Albany County, the trailhead is located down a dirt road, complete with old barn and a former farm house. I parked my car across from the barn and walked down the dirt road to find another parking area and trail register. We decided to walk the green trail (the boundary trail) and then the blue trail (the helderberg overlook trail). The…
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Winter Solstice: Hiking Nippletop and Dial Mountains
Sunday marked the very first day of Winter. I celebrated by hiking with my winter hiking buddy Jona. (Last season we hiked two Winter peaks together, Sawteeth and Phelps!)–this time we were tackling two High Peaks in one day, Nippletop and Dial. After an early wake up (3:15am!), I met Jona and her friend Paula at Exit 9 Park and Ride to get to the trailhead by 6:15AM. We wanted an early start because we had a long hike ahead of us and the daylight hours were limited! The parking lot for these peaks is in St. Huberts near the Ausable Club. We parked the car and signed in to…
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Firetower Challenge – Goodnow Mountain
It’s no surprise that I’m always up for a challenge. So, why not add another one to my current list? In addition to hiking the 46 high peaks in the Adirondacks, the Catskill 35 over 3500, there is the Adirondack Fire Tower Challenge, which is a list of all the mountains that currently have a firetower at the top. Since I have already hiked two of these mountains, Hadley Mountain and Hurricane Mountain, I decided to go for another. I hiked Goodnow Mountain on Sunday with a few good friends. About a two hour drive from Albany, the trail to Goodnow is right down the road from the Adirondack Visitor…
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Vroman’s Nose and Schoharie County
Saturday afternoon my good friend Brendan and I went to Schoharie County to check out Vroman’s Nose, a short little hike in Middleburgh, NY. Part of the trail with the green blazes is actually the Long Path! The other part of the long path I’ve been on was during the Thacher Park 10K back in September. It was a nice little hike and took less than an hour. Afterward, we went to the Carrot Barn for sandwiches and glazed carrot cookies (yum!), followed by a quick stop at the Fox Creek Covered Bridge. It was a nice short, half-day trip! Find it:
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Hurricane Mountain Fire Tower
One of my favorite days to hike is Columbus Day! I get the day off from work and school and it’s a day to go outside and play because it’s my favorite time of the year–FALL! Because I ran a half marathon on Sunday, I didn’t want to do a very strenuous hike, so I picked Hurricane Mountain in Keene, a ~6 mi hike RT. We started at the trail on 9N in Keene, the shortest of the two trails to Hurricane. The trail had been re-routed and was a bit longer than the 2.6 miles, I think it was more like 3. The trail was nice! There were fresh…
