Ritzhikes

Where: Alander Mountain When: June 3-4, 1989 With: Chip, Seth All the mountains are not in New Hampshire! According to the hiking books, there was some fine hiking in Western Massachusetts. I found some maps (one from an aerial photography outfit in the Norwood airport) and picked an area at the Mass/Conn/NY border. Chip picked up Seth, swung by my place and after stops for food and gas, we were off. An incident on the Turnpike turned out to be prophetic. Near Chicopee, we struck a bird in flight. No damage, but we figured it had to be an omen. The first sign of trouble was when we were off the Pike and searching for the trailhead. We couldn't find it. We wound up spending a couple of hours driving on backroads and stopping in stores to ask for directions. The folks there just didn't seem to realize that they had a trail system in their backyards. At one point, we drove up a dirt road high up the ridge and came out on some vacation homes on a lake. We found later that we ...