Prospect Rock
Where: Prospect Rock
When: Summer, 1985 (?)
With: Chip
Back to Prospect Rock, via another route. Up the Lye Brook trail this time. We figured to make it to Bourn Pond and then hike over to Prospect Rock. A good plan, but the trail turned out to be a lot longer than we'd expected. The Lye Brook trail seemed to go on forever, with a lot of false pond sightings to break the spirit. It turned out to be a 7.4 mile hike to the pond...maybe three hours of walking.
After a short rest at the pond, we continued on the Branch Pond trail to the Long Trail and down to the Rock. That was another 5.1 miles. Most of the last 2-3 miles I had a roaring caffeine withdrawal headache and by the time we finally made camp I was pretty incapacitated. I set up my tent, crawled in, and just lay there.
After a while, and a little food, and some drink, I came back to life and the rest of the evening wasn't too bad. The next day we were joined by a trail crew as we were breaking camp. They asked which way we were heading and we pointed out over the edge of the cliff. "Bushwhacking," we said. "Ah, bushwhacking," they replied. At that we climbed over the side of the cliff and disappeared.
Back down the slope to the stream we went, stopping to skinny dip at one point, and then we started an easy walk through the woods at the base of the ridge back to the parking lot. A nice hardwood forest, quite open. We separated a bit and then Chip called. I went over and found him standing by an old car, about the age of the Bombermobile. It was just sitting there in the woods, buried halfway up its hubcaps in earth and leaves. We speculated on the possibility of a body in the trunk. Chip took part of its steering wheel as a souvenir. An uneventful walk after that back to the car.
When: Summer, 1985 (?)
With: Chip
Back to Prospect Rock, via another route. Up the Lye Brook trail this time. We figured to make it to Bourn Pond and then hike over to Prospect Rock. A good plan, but the trail turned out to be a lot longer than we'd expected. The Lye Brook trail seemed to go on forever, with a lot of false pond sightings to break the spirit. It turned out to be a 7.4 mile hike to the pond...maybe three hours of walking.
After a short rest at the pond, we continued on the Branch Pond trail to the Long Trail and down to the Rock. That was another 5.1 miles. Most of the last 2-3 miles I had a roaring caffeine withdrawal headache and by the time we finally made camp I was pretty incapacitated. I set up my tent, crawled in, and just lay there.
After a while, and a little food, and some drink, I came back to life and the rest of the evening wasn't too bad. The next day we were joined by a trail crew as we were breaking camp. They asked which way we were heading and we pointed out over the edge of the cliff. "Bushwhacking," we said. "Ah, bushwhacking," they replied. At that we climbed over the side of the cliff and disappeared.
Back down the slope to the stream we went, stopping to skinny dip at one point, and then we started an easy walk through the woods at the base of the ridge back to the parking lot. A nice hardwood forest, quite open. We separated a bit and then Chip called. I went over and found him standing by an old car, about the age of the Bombermobile. It was just sitting there in the woods, buried halfway up its hubcaps in earth and leaves. We speculated on the possibility of a body in the trunk. Chip took part of its steering wheel as a souvenir. An uneventful walk after that back to the car.
Note: I'm guessing at a date of May 25, 1985 for this hike. My notes mention meeting a trail crew (late spring/summer work) and swimming in the stream, so a warm(er) weather trip. The 25th was a Saturday.
