Highpointing Southern New England
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| Objective: |
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| Date: |
April 12-16, 2002 |
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| Photogallery: | |||||
| Party: |
Nina Lanza, Melinda Gottesman, and Mouser Williams |
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| Summary: |
Long days of driving and lots of little hikes, each one unique and interesting.
Some non-highpointing activity kept us from doing as many counties as we could have, but
a respectable amount (14 counties) anyway.
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| Noteworthy: |
My second state highpoint (CT), my 6th-19th county highpoints, my first Massachusetts, New York,
and Connecticut county highpoints, and my first completed state (CT).
The first highpointing of any kind for Melinda and Nina.
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| Lessons Learned: |
Waking up in the morning means AM, not PM. Set your alarm clock appropriately.
Bring waterproof maps. Tourist drive-up peaks have limited hours/dates of operation. |
Day 0: 2002.04.12 -
After work on Friday, Nina and I had a pre-trip feast at Bisuteki with our friends Bean and Toad.
Highly recommended. $20 a plate, but worth every penny. Well fed, we proceeded to pack up the
car and take off for North Adams in the northwestern corner of Massachusetts. The drive was
largely uninteresting, except when we neared North Adams and a dense fog set in. Visibility
dropped to about 50m right around the part of Route 2 where it goes through some nasty hairpin
turns. Despite this, we had no problems. Checked into the Holiday Inn at midnight.
Day 1: 2002.04.13 - We got up at 5:30am and headed out to our first hike of the day - Berlin Mountain (2,818'), the highpoint of Rensselaer County, NY. The trailhead for Berlin Mtn. is just over the border on Rt. 2 at Peterson Pass, and we were there in no time. Unfortunately, the weather had deteriorated over night. The clouds were at a ceiling of about 50m above the trailhead and it was raining and chilly.
The first portion of the 5.4 mile hike is a direct ascent of nearby Mount Raimer. There are a couple portions of the trail that are relatively steep. With the rail and the cold we began calling it "Mount Reamer." Before we made it to the summit of Raimer, we entered the cloud and visibility dropped to about 20m. The summit of Raimer has some tower pylons but the tower is no longer present. The pylon nearest the summit knoll has some weather sensor equipment on top.
It became apparent at the summit that the trails present on the Topozone map were not a good representation of reality. There was the wide trail we ascended, and another similar trail leaving the opposite side of the summit, and a thin trail going off to the side. With the thick fog, we couldn't see any landforms or the sun to get a good bearing. All we had to go with was the crappy map and my compass. The map indicated that the trail to take was to the north, and the compass indicated that the available trails went NW, NE, and SE.
I walked down the thin NE trail for about 100m and it began to curve around to the south. I knew that Berlin Mountain was in a vaguely north direction, so I decided that this must not be the right trail and we took the wide NW trail from the Raimer summit. This went down steeply for some time. The shape of the land looked vaguely right based on the topo map, but we couldn't see very far to get the broader picture. We were supposed to be going down onto a saddle between Raimer and Berlin, but we kept going down for a long time.
It was at this time that we popped out of the bottom of the cloud and the car was visible just ahead. In the fog we had curved around the side of Raimer and come back down to the original trailhead. Doh!
Very annoyed, we hiked back up to the summit. Having wasted about 45 minutes, we then tried the thin trail which wound around the mountain in the other direction. It eventually ended at the intersection of two trails we hadn't seen yet. One of them had the red disc trail markers that were mentioned in the cohp.org trip report so we took it. Thankfully it ended up being the correct trail and there were no further confusions.
The remainder of the hike was straightforward, if a bit miserable due to the inclement weather. The topozone map shows a radio tower at the Berlin Pass saddle which was not present, or at least not within 20m of the trail (which is shown as passing through the radio tower). There were a lot of small pools in the trail caused by abuse at the hands of ATVs. They were full of frogs. The trees disappear at the summit, leaving us at a broad flat area with a fire circle and some more tower pylons at the highpoint.
There is allegedly a great view from this point, particularly of Mt. Greylock (our next stop). We couldn't see anything at all and it was raining on us, so we left immediately. The hike back was uneventful.
From here we drove back into Massachusetts and went to Mount Greylock, the state highpoint in Berkshire County. As it has a road going right to the summit and we wanted to bag as many counties as we could, we attempted to Martinize this peak. Unfortunately we found that the summit road doesn't open until May 17th, and we didn't have time to hike the trail to the top so we had to skip it.
Moving on to Franklin County, MA, and Crum Hill (2,841'). We again followed the instructions given on cohp.org. The initialy bushwacking was not necessary as the landowner had made a publically available trail with the caveat that if anyone was caught leaving the trail he would remove all access rights. On the north face of Crum Hill, there was still snow and significant ice on the trail. My new Merrell hiking shoes did not handle well on ice.
This highpoint actually includes two points, one of them being Crum Hill and the other being an unnamed point nearby. The well-marked trail first took us to the unnamed point. The fog was still ever-present. At the peak, there was a giant cairn and the trees were all stunted. Between the stacked rocks, the moss on the rocks, and the tiny bald trees, I felt like I was in a strange zen garden or some scene from Myst. The Crum Hill summit took a bit longer to find, as the register is tiny and the area is very flat. We signed in and headed back. In total, about 2 miles hiked, 45 minutes out of the car.
Next was West Mountain (2,125') in Hampshire County, MA. This would be our first total bushwacking hike. We parked next to Plainfield Pond and went straight up the slope using just the compass and topo map. About a third of the way up we found a moose antler. There were an unusual number of downed trees here. They didn't seem to be dead or burned or anything, they just seem to have fallen over. Not a particularly interesting summit. No view due to the trees. Some rocks at the top constituted the highpoint. We took pictures of ourselves and went back down through the trees to the car. In total, about 1.5 miles hiked, 1 hour out of the car.
At this point, Nina wanted to visit some friends in Northampton so we went there for a couple hours. When we left it was already 5:00pm. We drove off to Hampden County, MA, for the last highpoint of the day - Round Top Hill (543m). This was another bushwacking hike, and involved a really steep ascent initially. The rain and abundant dead leavs on the rocks made for some slick scrambling. Despite the somewhat dangerous ascent, the hike was very pleasant once we made it to the top and it was one of the better hikes of the trip. The little red register can at the top was cute too. In total, about 1 mile hiked, 30 minutes out of the car.
While in Northampton, Nina had agreed that we would show up in Belchertown [!] for dinner with a couple of her friends. This meant the end of our day of highpointing as there wasn't much time left before darkness. Dinner was great, and they had wonderful pets including a lone sugar glider. I've decided that I will get some sugar gliders as soon as I can. They are adorable. We spent the night in the Best Western in Northampton.
Day 2: 2002.04.14 - Due to my setting the alarm for 5:00pm, we were a couple hours late leaving the hotel. We made our way to Hartford County, CT, for the first highpoint of the day. The weather was actually gorgeous - the clouds had all blown away overnight.
This hike was a nice leisurely one with very little vertical gain and less than a mile total distance. It was nice to have sun for a change and this got our legs stretched out for the next long hike. The summit was a somewhat uninspiring hill with a large cairn on it. Trees prevented any sort of meaningful view.
The next highpoint was the big one of the day - the highest point in Connecticut. This involved summiting two peaks, Round Mountain and Mount Frissell, then walking down the far slope of Frissel to the state line. Connecticut is one of only two states (the other being Nevada) for which the state highpoint isn't a local maximum. They are somewhat embarassed by this and therefore hype nearby Bear Mountain as "the highest mountain in Connecticut." But this is the highest point, just down from the peak of Frissel.
The hike was the second longest of our trip at about 4 miles. It also had the most difficult traverses, with some severe class 3 scrambles on bare rock. I wish we had more time to spend on this hike, as it is a really great one. The view from Round Mountain is beautiful, with Lake Riga to the south and Mount Greylock and Everett to the north.
The registry on top of Mount Frissel is the best-maintained registry I've ever seen. High quality journal book with good introduction and information in the front, good pen selection, nice container, etc. Ted Rybak, who maintains the registry, rules. I hope that if I ever maintain one I can be as cool as he is. There was a really funny comment in the registry left by some apparently disgruntled anonymous climber. Something about everyone who writes in the book sucking cock except for him. I took a picture of it.
After stopping off at the anticlimatic Connecticut highpoint, we decided to skip Brace Mountain - the highpoint of Duchess County, NY, which was another 30 minutes along the same trail. This would also have brought us past the MA/NY/CT tri-point. We were tired and low on time so we decided to skip it. I'd like to come back someday and give it a shot though. Really a good trail.
The next highpoint was Fairfield County, CT. This was another leaner, located on a slope in the forest on a non-descript hill. It was distinguished, however, but its location on private property with rather bitchy land owners. Luckily, they weren't home. We asked their neighbor if we could wander in the woods and he said it was certainly ok. But he was perplexed as to why we would be interested in some random point in the woods rather than the awesome view of the Hudson River Valley in his backyard. "What drives you people!?" he asked.
The highpoint was signified by a granite state line marker in the woods near a small trail. It took some time to find due to inaccurate directions on the cohp.org trip report. Total time out of the car: 15 minutes. Total distance: 0.5 miles. Vertical gain: ~none.
We decided to skip doing Westchester, NY, as well, since time was running low and we didn't have good directions on how to get to the trailhead.
Next was New Haven County, CT. This was the most lame highpoint we did. There are two points of roughly equal altitude in the community of Walcott, CT. Getting to the top of the first involved parking in the lot of a defunct minigolf place and walking up the hill behind it for about 100m. Getting to the second one involved parking at the entrance gate to a microwave tower complex and sitting on a boulder near the fence. Lame.
Nina had to be at a rehearsal for her opera at 8pm, and we were out of time so we hauled ass back to Boston to get here there on time. Called it a night with 4 highpoints for the day.
Day 3: 2002.04.15 - I woke Nina up at 6:00am and off we went, back to Connecticut to finish the job. The first two highpoints were right by I-84. Snow Hill, the highpoint of Windham County, was in a really pretty mountain laurel preserve. Unfortunately the fog had returned, but the preserve was still nice to drive through. The highpoint wasn't more than five minutes off the interstate. It was also a drive-up, with about 4 minutes spent out of the car and perhaps 50m total walking distance.
Highpoint 2 on the day was Tolland County, Burley Hill. This one was a bit odd because the access road was marked with a homemade no tresspassing sign that mentions getting shot, etc. The cohp.org trip report indicated that neighbors had given blanket permission for hiking on the trail, so we went ahead. We drove past the creepy sign and parked at a somewhat dismantled radio tower on the ridge. The trail moved from there along the ridge to a hay field. Along the edge of the hay field there was a snowmobile trail that lead to near the summit. The summit was marked with a really humorous tiny cairn. Perhaps 8" in total height, composed of little stones. We located two witness markers, but they didn't seem to be pointing towards the summit. The benchmark must be elsewhere and is not marked on the topo map. Total distance: ~2 miles.
Next was New London County, CT. This highpoint is another drive-up. A relatively uninteresting hill with a small graveyard and a bunch of cell antenna towers on top. No view at all. With all the construction it was difficult to determine what the highest remaining natural point was. I found a mound of dirt that seemed natural and phooned it for Dan. Total time out of the car: 3 minutes. No vertical gain. 50m hike.
To finish off Connecticut, we drove to the highpoint of Middlesex County. The goal here was the Meshomasic benchmark at 916'. The trailhead for this hike had no tresspassing signs on it, but the cohp.org trip reports indicated that a neighbor had given blanket permission for hiking on the trail. We parked right in front of the trailhead and walked the easy ~1 mile trail to the summit. It was a nice hike and I'm glad that my last Connecticut county had a real highpoint hike rather than a drive-up.
Nina had another opera rehearsal at 3pm, and it was only noon, so we tried to drive over to Rhode Island and get some of the highpoints there. However, the road I choose turned out to be rather slow and I missed an important turn. The consequent wasted time left us with no time for highpointing in Rhode Island and instead we just drove through Newport and over some impressive bridges, up to Providence, and onwards to Boston.
While Nina was at rehearsal, I coordinated with Melinda to go off and try to do Worcester and Middlesex counties, both in Massachusetts. Worcester County's highpoint, Wachusset Mountain, is a drive up so we decided to go for Middlesex first. The hike was about 1 mile each way, and the total trip took us about 45 minutes. The sun had already set by the time we arrived at the summit. The trip down was really getting dim. By the time we made it to Wachusset Moutnain, it was very very dark. Turns out the drive-up route closes at 4:30pm. So we failed on that one.
Mel and I drove back and had dinner at Denny's in Leominster. So good after three days of eating car snacks and gorp only.
Day 4: 2002.04.16 - Nina gave me a ride to work but on the way we stopped off at Boston's highest point, Bellevue Hill, to conquer Suffolk County, MA. At 330', it's not much. Two giant water towers on top. Basically a drive up - we had to climb a flight of stairs and walk around the water towers to get to a tree that sits on the highest point.
The long weekend exhausted and late for work, we finished our adventures with 14 new county highpoints including one state highpoint and a complete state! Very successful. In retrospect, it's funny that the two counties we attempted but failed to summit were the two public drive-ups. Both Wachusset Mountain and Mount Greylock are state parks with roads to the summit. People drive up to the top all the time as a tourist attraction. And somehow we botched them both with poor timing. At least they won't be hard to pick up later...
Day 1: 2002.04.13 - We got up at 5:30am and headed out to our first hike of the day - Berlin Mountain (2,818'), the highpoint of Rensselaer County, NY. The trailhead for Berlin Mtn. is just over the border on Rt. 2 at Peterson Pass, and we were there in no time. Unfortunately, the weather had deteriorated over night. The clouds were at a ceiling of about 50m above the trailhead and it was raining and chilly.
The first portion of the 5.4 mile hike is a direct ascent of nearby Mount Raimer. There are a couple portions of the trail that are relatively steep. With the rail and the cold we began calling it "Mount Reamer." Before we made it to the summit of Raimer, we entered the cloud and visibility dropped to about 20m. The summit of Raimer has some tower pylons but the tower is no longer present. The pylon nearest the summit knoll has some weather sensor equipment on top.
It became apparent at the summit that the trails present on the Topozone map were not a good representation of reality. There was the wide trail we ascended, and another similar trail leaving the opposite side of the summit, and a thin trail going off to the side. With the thick fog, we couldn't see any landforms or the sun to get a good bearing. All we had to go with was the crappy map and my compass. The map indicated that the trail to take was to the north, and the compass indicated that the available trails went NW, NE, and SE.
I walked down the thin NE trail for about 100m and it began to curve around to the south. I knew that Berlin Mountain was in a vaguely north direction, so I decided that this must not be the right trail and we took the wide NW trail from the Raimer summit. This went down steeply for some time. The shape of the land looked vaguely right based on the topo map, but we couldn't see very far to get the broader picture. We were supposed to be going down onto a saddle between Raimer and Berlin, but we kept going down for a long time.
It was at this time that we popped out of the bottom of the cloud and the car was visible just ahead. In the fog we had curved around the side of Raimer and come back down to the original trailhead. Doh!
Very annoyed, we hiked back up to the summit. Having wasted about 45 minutes, we then tried the thin trail which wound around the mountain in the other direction. It eventually ended at the intersection of two trails we hadn't seen yet. One of them had the red disc trail markers that were mentioned in the cohp.org trip report so we took it. Thankfully it ended up being the correct trail and there were no further confusions.
The remainder of the hike was straightforward, if a bit miserable due to the inclement weather. The topozone map shows a radio tower at the Berlin Pass saddle which was not present, or at least not within 20m of the trail (which is shown as passing through the radio tower). There were a lot of small pools in the trail caused by abuse at the hands of ATVs. They were full of frogs. The trees disappear at the summit, leaving us at a broad flat area with a fire circle and some more tower pylons at the highpoint.
There is allegedly a great view from this point, particularly of Mt. Greylock (our next stop). We couldn't see anything at all and it was raining on us, so we left immediately. The hike back was uneventful.
From here we drove back into Massachusetts and went to Mount Greylock, the state highpoint in Berkshire County. As it has a road going right to the summit and we wanted to bag as many counties as we could, we attempted to Martinize this peak. Unfortunately we found that the summit road doesn't open until May 17th, and we didn't have time to hike the trail to the top so we had to skip it.
Moving on to Franklin County, MA, and Crum Hill (2,841'). We again followed the instructions given on cohp.org. The initialy bushwacking was not necessary as the landowner had made a publically available trail with the caveat that if anyone was caught leaving the trail he would remove all access rights. On the north face of Crum Hill, there was still snow and significant ice on the trail. My new Merrell hiking shoes did not handle well on ice.
This highpoint actually includes two points, one of them being Crum Hill and the other being an unnamed point nearby. The well-marked trail first took us to the unnamed point. The fog was still ever-present. At the peak, there was a giant cairn and the trees were all stunted. Between the stacked rocks, the moss on the rocks, and the tiny bald trees, I felt like I was in a strange zen garden or some scene from Myst. The Crum Hill summit took a bit longer to find, as the register is tiny and the area is very flat. We signed in and headed back. In total, about 2 miles hiked, 45 minutes out of the car.
Next was West Mountain (2,125') in Hampshire County, MA. This would be our first total bushwacking hike. We parked next to Plainfield Pond and went straight up the slope using just the compass and topo map. About a third of the way up we found a moose antler. There were an unusual number of downed trees here. They didn't seem to be dead or burned or anything, they just seem to have fallen over. Not a particularly interesting summit. No view due to the trees. Some rocks at the top constituted the highpoint. We took pictures of ourselves and went back down through the trees to the car. In total, about 1.5 miles hiked, 1 hour out of the car.
At this point, Nina wanted to visit some friends in Northampton so we went there for a couple hours. When we left it was already 5:00pm. We drove off to Hampden County, MA, for the last highpoint of the day - Round Top Hill (543m). This was another bushwacking hike, and involved a really steep ascent initially. The rain and abundant dead leavs on the rocks made for some slick scrambling. Despite the somewhat dangerous ascent, the hike was very pleasant once we made it to the top and it was one of the better hikes of the trip. The little red register can at the top was cute too. In total, about 1 mile hiked, 30 minutes out of the car.
While in Northampton, Nina had agreed that we would show up in Belchertown [!] for dinner with a couple of her friends. This meant the end of our day of highpointing as there wasn't much time left before darkness. Dinner was great, and they had wonderful pets including a lone sugar glider. I've decided that I will get some sugar gliders as soon as I can. They are adorable. We spent the night in the Best Western in Northampton.
Day 2: 2002.04.14 - Due to my setting the alarm for 5:00pm, we were a couple hours late leaving the hotel. We made our way to Hartford County, CT, for the first highpoint of the day. The weather was actually gorgeous - the clouds had all blown away overnight.
This hike was a nice leisurely one with very little vertical gain and less than a mile total distance. It was nice to have sun for a change and this got our legs stretched out for the next long hike. The summit was a somewhat uninspiring hill with a large cairn on it. Trees prevented any sort of meaningful view.
The next highpoint was the big one of the day - the highest point in Connecticut. This involved summiting two peaks, Round Mountain and Mount Frissell, then walking down the far slope of Frissel to the state line. Connecticut is one of only two states (the other being Nevada) for which the state highpoint isn't a local maximum. They are somewhat embarassed by this and therefore hype nearby Bear Mountain as "the highest mountain in Connecticut." But this is the highest point, just down from the peak of Frissel.
The hike was the second longest of our trip at about 4 miles. It also had the most difficult traverses, with some severe class 3 scrambles on bare rock. I wish we had more time to spend on this hike, as it is a really great one. The view from Round Mountain is beautiful, with Lake Riga to the south and Mount Greylock and Everett to the north.
The registry on top of Mount Frissel is the best-maintained registry I've ever seen. High quality journal book with good introduction and information in the front, good pen selection, nice container, etc. Ted Rybak, who maintains the registry, rules. I hope that if I ever maintain one I can be as cool as he is. There was a really funny comment in the registry left by some apparently disgruntled anonymous climber. Something about everyone who writes in the book sucking cock except for him. I took a picture of it.
After stopping off at the anticlimatic Connecticut highpoint, we decided to skip Brace Mountain - the highpoint of Duchess County, NY, which was another 30 minutes along the same trail. This would also have brought us past the MA/NY/CT tri-point. We were tired and low on time so we decided to skip it. I'd like to come back someday and give it a shot though. Really a good trail.
The next highpoint was Fairfield County, CT. This was another leaner, located on a slope in the forest on a non-descript hill. It was distinguished, however, but its location on private property with rather bitchy land owners. Luckily, they weren't home. We asked their neighbor if we could wander in the woods and he said it was certainly ok. But he was perplexed as to why we would be interested in some random point in the woods rather than the awesome view of the Hudson River Valley in his backyard. "What drives you people!?" he asked.
The highpoint was signified by a granite state line marker in the woods near a small trail. It took some time to find due to inaccurate directions on the cohp.org trip report. Total time out of the car: 15 minutes. Total distance: 0.5 miles. Vertical gain: ~none.
We decided to skip doing Westchester, NY, as well, since time was running low and we didn't have good directions on how to get to the trailhead.
Next was New Haven County, CT. This was the most lame highpoint we did. There are two points of roughly equal altitude in the community of Walcott, CT. Getting to the top of the first involved parking in the lot of a defunct minigolf place and walking up the hill behind it for about 100m. Getting to the second one involved parking at the entrance gate to a microwave tower complex and sitting on a boulder near the fence. Lame.
Nina had to be at a rehearsal for her opera at 8pm, and we were out of time so we hauled ass back to Boston to get here there on time. Called it a night with 4 highpoints for the day.
Day 3: 2002.04.15 - I woke Nina up at 6:00am and off we went, back to Connecticut to finish the job. The first two highpoints were right by I-84. Snow Hill, the highpoint of Windham County, was in a really pretty mountain laurel preserve. Unfortunately the fog had returned, but the preserve was still nice to drive through. The highpoint wasn't more than five minutes off the interstate. It was also a drive-up, with about 4 minutes spent out of the car and perhaps 50m total walking distance.
Highpoint 2 on the day was Tolland County, Burley Hill. This one was a bit odd because the access road was marked with a homemade no tresspassing sign that mentions getting shot, etc. The cohp.org trip report indicated that neighbors had given blanket permission for hiking on the trail, so we went ahead. We drove past the creepy sign and parked at a somewhat dismantled radio tower on the ridge. The trail moved from there along the ridge to a hay field. Along the edge of the hay field there was a snowmobile trail that lead to near the summit. The summit was marked with a really humorous tiny cairn. Perhaps 8" in total height, composed of little stones. We located two witness markers, but they didn't seem to be pointing towards the summit. The benchmark must be elsewhere and is not marked on the topo map. Total distance: ~2 miles.
Next was New London County, CT. This highpoint is another drive-up. A relatively uninteresting hill with a small graveyard and a bunch of cell antenna towers on top. No view at all. With all the construction it was difficult to determine what the highest remaining natural point was. I found a mound of dirt that seemed natural and phooned it for Dan. Total time out of the car: 3 minutes. No vertical gain. 50m hike.
To finish off Connecticut, we drove to the highpoint of Middlesex County. The goal here was the Meshomasic benchmark at 916'. The trailhead for this hike had no tresspassing signs on it, but the cohp.org trip reports indicated that a neighbor had given blanket permission for hiking on the trail. We parked right in front of the trailhead and walked the easy ~1 mile trail to the summit. It was a nice hike and I'm glad that my last Connecticut county had a real highpoint hike rather than a drive-up.
Nina had another opera rehearsal at 3pm, and it was only noon, so we tried to drive over to Rhode Island and get some of the highpoints there. However, the road I choose turned out to be rather slow and I missed an important turn. The consequent wasted time left us with no time for highpointing in Rhode Island and instead we just drove through Newport and over some impressive bridges, up to Providence, and onwards to Boston.
While Nina was at rehearsal, I coordinated with Melinda to go off and try to do Worcester and Middlesex counties, both in Massachusetts. Worcester County's highpoint, Wachusset Mountain, is a drive up so we decided to go for Middlesex first. The hike was about 1 mile each way, and the total trip took us about 45 minutes. The sun had already set by the time we arrived at the summit. The trip down was really getting dim. By the time we made it to Wachusset Moutnain, it was very very dark. Turns out the drive-up route closes at 4:30pm. So we failed on that one.
Mel and I drove back and had dinner at Denny's in Leominster. So good after three days of eating car snacks and gorp only.
Day 4: 2002.04.16 - Nina gave me a ride to work but on the way we stopped off at Boston's highest point, Bellevue Hill, to conquer Suffolk County, MA. At 330', it's not much. Two giant water towers on top. Basically a drive up - we had to climb a flight of stairs and walk around the water towers to get to a tree that sits on the highest point.
The long weekend exhausted and late for work, we finished our adventures with 14 new county highpoints including one state highpoint and a complete state! Very successful. In retrospect, it's funny that the two counties we attempted but failed to summit were the two public drive-ups. Both Wachusset Mountain and Mount Greylock are state parks with roads to the summit. People drive up to the top all the time as a tourist attraction. And somehow we botched them both with poor timing. At least they won't be hard to pick up later...
Written by Mouser Williams on 2002.04.16