A trucker rolls into a picnic pullout on rte. 30 across from Lake Durant at 3:40 am. He notices a Volvo station wagon bearing Quebec plates with fogged –up windows but thinks nothing of it. At 3:45 am a Ford Pick-up bearing New York plates that say I Love A DK enters the same pullout. Moments later, the Volvo flashes its lights twice.
A minute passes and the acutely interested trucker observes the following scene:
A middle-aged man emerges from each vehicle. The men approach each other and clasp hands. One of the men holds up a hand-held battery-powered device. The other inspects the device and after nodding his approval the 2 walk into the bush and disappear from view as they penetrate the shrubbery.
Then, the trucker remembers that Lake Durant lies 2 miles to the south of Blue Mtn and that the weather forecast calls for a warm and sunny day. Being an avid peakbagger he rightfully concludes that 2 bushwhackers are off to an early start on Blue Mtn. so as to profit from a hardened crust on top of April’s snow pack. He wonders if the GPS has a serf chipset.
And thus began a very fine and enjoyable bushwhack hike of Blue Mtn.
Jack and I met at the aforementioned pullout at 4:30 and headed up to the covered parking area of the Museum where we brewed hot coffee, geared up and reviewed the day’s itinerary. With one vehicle at the official TH we drove back to the pullout and at 5:15am prepared to become part of the greenery. Standing on the highway’s shoulder about 200 yards down the road Jack fiddled with his GPS. With the 2 of us sporting light emitting diodes on our foreheads I remarked that any trooper that drove by just then would be sure to have a few questions for us. We ducked into the woods and immediately sank up to our knees in corn snow. So much for the hardened crust. We quickly donned snowshoes and proceeded to bushwhack in total darkness through a Beech-Maple forest towards our first waypoint.
Our maps indicated a large swamp/wetland smack in front of us and we carefully worked our way to the west end of it as the day dawned. Our wetland turned out to be a river swollen with spring runoff but we found a narrow spot and crossed it without getting wet. An owl hooted several times and Blue Mtn. loomed above us to the north.
It was a perfect morning. We revelled in brightening skies, mature hardwood forests and expanding views of Blue Ridge and Panther Mtn behind Lake Durant. The elevation gain melted away like the spring snow. Speaking of which, we alternated between snowshoeing atop Beech leaf litter, post-holing and creek whacking.
The route we had chosen was quite steep and not very easy because of the deceitful crust. You would put your weight onto your snowshoe without knowing towards which angle it would break through, which made for a great ankle ligament workout. At other times the crust held us up admirably.
The sunny skies that had been forecasted all week were shrouded by a thick layer of clouds and by 7:30 we could barely see Lake Durant. Meanwhile, on my NOAA radio we listened to the forecaster while he informed us that it was a sunny day.
At the summit the coniferous trees were all covered with a layer of hoar frost, it was cold and windy and the hoar frost was being blown about as if it was fresh snowfall. Clouds scudded by at eye level, there were no views and so after a quick snack we headed down via the trail. 20 minutes later the sky cleared up to a deep bluebird blue and it warmed right up. It took us 4 hours to go up 2 miles and 1 hour to follow the trail back down.
We saw no humans on the entire loop once we had entered the woods but we heard an owl and saw plenty of fresh deer tracks. Money couldn’t buy a better day.
A minute passes and the acutely interested trucker observes the following scene:
A middle-aged man emerges from each vehicle. The men approach each other and clasp hands. One of the men holds up a hand-held battery-powered device. The other inspects the device and after nodding his approval the 2 walk into the bush and disappear from view as they penetrate the shrubbery.
Then, the trucker remembers that Lake Durant lies 2 miles to the south of Blue Mtn and that the weather forecast calls for a warm and sunny day. Being an avid peakbagger he rightfully concludes that 2 bushwhackers are off to an early start on Blue Mtn. so as to profit from a hardened crust on top of April’s snow pack. He wonders if the GPS has a serf chipset.
And thus began a very fine and enjoyable bushwhack hike of Blue Mtn.
Jack and I met at the aforementioned pullout at 4:30 and headed up to the covered parking area of the Museum where we brewed hot coffee, geared up and reviewed the day’s itinerary. With one vehicle at the official TH we drove back to the pullout and at 5:15am prepared to become part of the greenery. Standing on the highway’s shoulder about 200 yards down the road Jack fiddled with his GPS. With the 2 of us sporting light emitting diodes on our foreheads I remarked that any trooper that drove by just then would be sure to have a few questions for us. We ducked into the woods and immediately sank up to our knees in corn snow. So much for the hardened crust. We quickly donned snowshoes and proceeded to bushwhack in total darkness through a Beech-Maple forest towards our first waypoint.
Our maps indicated a large swamp/wetland smack in front of us and we carefully worked our way to the west end of it as the day dawned. Our wetland turned out to be a river swollen with spring runoff but we found a narrow spot and crossed it without getting wet. An owl hooted several times and Blue Mtn. loomed above us to the north.
It was a perfect morning. We revelled in brightening skies, mature hardwood forests and expanding views of Blue Ridge and Panther Mtn behind Lake Durant. The elevation gain melted away like the spring snow. Speaking of which, we alternated between snowshoeing atop Beech leaf litter, post-holing and creek whacking.
The route we had chosen was quite steep and not very easy because of the deceitful crust. You would put your weight onto your snowshoe without knowing towards which angle it would break through, which made for a great ankle ligament workout. At other times the crust held us up admirably.
The sunny skies that had been forecasted all week were shrouded by a thick layer of clouds and by 7:30 we could barely see Lake Durant. Meanwhile, on my NOAA radio we listened to the forecaster while he informed us that it was a sunny day.
At the summit the coniferous trees were all covered with a layer of hoar frost, it was cold and windy and the hoar frost was being blown about as if it was fresh snowfall. Clouds scudded by at eye level, there were no views and so after a quick snack we headed down via the trail. 20 minutes later the sky cleared up to a deep bluebird blue and it warmed right up. It took us 4 hours to go up 2 miles and 1 hour to follow the trail back down.
We saw no humans on the entire loop once we had entered the woods but we heard an owl and saw plenty of fresh deer tracks. Money couldn’t buy a better day.
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