Taconic Crest Trail & Tri-State Marker
Where: MA-VT-NY Tri-state marker via Taconic Crest Trail
When: 19 November 2020
With: Solo
My previous two marker visits were somewhat eventful. One featured a 22 mile mountain bike ride and ended with a call to my wife for a ride home. The other included an encounter with a rare timber rattlesnake in the middle of the trail. This one had no such adventure. A 2.5 hour drive to the trailhead, then a fairly straightforward trail walk to the marker, and lots of solitude.
I was the only car in the parking area at Petersburg Pass today. I signed in at the trail register (the wrong one, it turns out...it was for the southbound section of the trail), located the northbound section across the highway, and began my walk. There was a short scramble up some rocks, then I quickly came to a large sign and another trail register. The sign said the land I'd be walking through was the Hopkins Forest, owned by Williams College. A map check however showed the Forest border to my east (at the Massachusetts border), with the trail on NY Department of Environmental Conservation (EnCon) property. My dad worked for EnCon at the end of his career, and I smiled at the connection.
I signed in at the register, then headed up the trail. There was a thin layer of snow on the ground, just enough to be pretty, and it was fairly chilly (30 degrees and windy). I pulled a neck gator from my pack and put it on, though I knew I'd warm up as I walked. The trail register said folks had been on the trail the past few days, and I followed a few sets of fresh bootprints (and pawprints), but no one else was listed as being out today.
As the name suggests, the Taconic Crest Trail follows a north-south ridge. For the most part the trail stayed in a beautiful forest, with occasional viewpoints offering expansive vistas of New York's farms to the west. Mostly level walking, with the occasional dip & climb. There were sections of ice from time to time, but not enough to be a bother. A couple of side trails joined along the way, and a yellow painted ring on a tree marked the crossing into Vermont.
Eventually, after a short climb, the trail emerged into a flat meadow-like area. A sign on a tree said the Snow Hole (where snow is said to stay year-round) was 0.8 miles further. To the right was a narrow trail, absent of any footprints. That's the way I went.
The trail wound a short distance through the woods, then changed into a woods road and began to descend. A lot. [A post-hike map check indicates the path drops just about 1000 feet from the top to the marker] The steepness and the leaf/snow cover made the footing a bit dicey, so I put on my microspikes for a little more traction. I should have pulled out my poles as well, because the drop was relentless and my thighs began to complain.The constant descent was somewhat discouraging (since I knew I'd have to walk back up), but the woods were gorgeous. Hundreds of acres of land with a dusting of snow, and views through the autumn-stripped trees to the valleys beyond.
Other than one spot, where a tree had fallen across the trail right where the path made a sharp turn, the old wood road was obvious and easy to follow. No trail markers on the trees, and none were needed. I did check my GPS from time to time, but just to track my progress. Eventually it leveled out somewhat, where a couple of side trails came in, and my GPS indicated I was close to my goal.
I began to keep a lookout for a shelter noted on the maps, which was close to the marker. I came across the remains of some sort of foundation and was concerned that it was all that was left of the shelter, but the trail continued and so did I. A short distance further along I came to a large log fallen across the trail. I looked to my right and there was the tri-state marker! I was surprised, since reports I'd read said other folks had had a difficult time locating it. But there it was, clear as day.
Since I'd already located the marker, I decided to keep going to find the shelter. It turned out to be just a short distance further, across a stream and up a hill. A small lean-to, clean, with a large fire pit out front. I noted the time (1.5 hours after I began my walk) then sat in it for a few minutes, taking in the view, taking pictures, and listening to an owl calling in the woods.
After a bit I departed and made my way back to the tri-state marker. It's on a hillside above the trail, on a small level terrace perhaps 100 feet from the trail. It's a large stone monument, with the states noted on three sides, and markers on the top showing the directions of the borders.
I took pictures of all the sides, along with a selfie to prove I was there, then began to consider my return trip. I briefly played with the idea of just following the VT-NY border back to the Taconic Crest Trail. It would be a shortcut, and the open woods wouldn't present much of a problem for navigation. There would also be paint marks on the trees from time to time. But it would put me off-trail on a day when I was the only person around for hundreds of acres. Safety first is my rule when solo hiking, so I reversed direction and began to follow my own footprints back up the trail. It was 11:00AM
As expected, it was a painful journey, though I did help things a bit by deploying my hiking poles. I employed my usual technique - look up the trail, pick a target spot, then just keep putting one foot in front of the other until I got there. For a diversion I began doing a math problem in my head, calculating how much distance I covered with each step and how many steps I took per second, and using that to figure out how long it would take me to cover a mile (20 minutes!).
The process worked, and the top of the trail appeared perhaps a bit sooner than I expected . A few minutes later I was back on the Taconic Crest Trail, an hour since I began the return journey. I took a short break to remove my microspikes. The day was warming up and the snow was balling up underneath them. They might have been useful in a few spots as I continued back along the trail, but I was fine bare-booting.
Somehow I missed a second viewing of the VT-NY border tree marker, but my focus was on getting back to the car and a lunch I'd left there. Soon enough the register came into view and I knew I was nearly done. I signed myself out, then made the last few steps back to the highway. I had a scare when a car came roaring by just as I began crossing, but I paused to let him by and walked across the lot to my car. A quick visit to the southbound register to sign out there as well, and I was done. It was 12:45PM.
As I sat in my car, changing my footwear and preparing for the ride home, another car pulled into the lot. The occupant came over to the sign board where I was parked and we had a brief chat. He asked about the trail - where it was, where it went, was it part of the AT, etc. I told him what I knew, then we wished each other a good day and went our separate ways. 2.5 hours later, I was home.
Postscript: It's occurred to me that this was something of an inverted hike. Usually, after my approach walk, I climb to my destination (usually some peak), then descend to finish the journey. The first half of the hike is the hard part. This time, after I left the Taconic Crest Trail, I descended to the marker, then had a tough climb to get back to the trail and the car.
