Hiking/Biking Summer/Fall - September
Sept 4 - Our first real hike is on a very hot summer day with brother Roger up Bald Mountain from the Branch Road trailhead. 8 miles, 2100 elevation gain. Boy, did that ice tea from Dunkin Donuts taste good after the hike!
Sept 9 - Pine Cobble is an easy 4 mile 1200 foot elevation gain trail near Williamstown, MA.
Sept 13 - Our neighbors Lorna and Hamilton introduced us to the Green Mountain Club and we biked part of the Somerset Road (forest service road) with them on a beautiful, warm sunny day. After lunch and biking with the group, we continued on further up the road to explore some more.
Sept 16 - We take the motorcycle to meet up with the Green Mountain Club, this time in Molly Stark State Park where we hike to a fire tower with an amazing outlook over the valley.
Sept 24 - Mount Anthony is a local mountain just down the road. We can't find an advertised trail so we head out to see what we can find. After a LOT of bushwacking through dense brush up half the mountain we finally find a trail. It's easy to follow on the way down! You just need to know where the trail starts as it has no markers or identification.
Sept 26 - Bike ride to Hoosic Falls. Note to self - when the map has the word "hill" in the name of the road in Vermont that tends to be a lllooonnnngggg big hill. We walked up part of the hill and chose a different route on the way home. All in all a good ride. We didn't attend the car show, but thought the sign was interesting! Apparently, a cow plop works in the following manner - someone divides a field into a grid and people place bets on the cells of the grid - then introduce some cows into the grid. If the cow 'plops' in your cell then you're a winner!
Sept 30 - BATS (Bennington Area Trail System). Vermont College maintains trails along the foothills of Mount Anthony for hiking and mountain biking. It's a great trail system with some well marked and others not so. Below is the "Halloween Tree" along one trail and then a gorgeous shot of the local area when coming out of the trail system.