Author: Peter Minde

Prospect Mountain: Too Much is Just Enough

Posted on by Peter Minde

The cliffs of the Trapps escarpment glowed pink with the sunrise as I drove up the Thruway. When you work weekends, you ski on Tuesday. With the impending holiday, I wanted to get at least one more day on skis before the end of the year.

Prospect Lodge

Between New Paltz and Kingston, a Volvo station wagon hurtled past me, going 85 mph at least. The vanity tag read “TREESKI.” I know Harv favors Honda CRVs, who else might it be?

Diving off the Thruway in Troy, I had smooth sailing up Route 7 towards Bennington. In Pittstown, I saw the scar of land where the long-abandoned Moon Wink Motel had been demolished.

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Tagged: Nordic Skiing, VT4 Comments

Mount van Hoevenberg: The Calm Before

Posted on by Peter Minde

Mount van Hoevenberg, December 6th: my first day on snow. You can’t control the weather, so while my drive to then north country on the preceding day was sunny, 6th December was anything but.

Pitchoff Mountain view

After driving up on Monday, I woke up at 1:45 AM after 4 hours’ sleep. I couldn’t relax, so I dropped a Xanax (DEA, I have a scrip). Invariably, I sleep well but wake up later than I would like. I moved slow in the morning, and by the time I arrived at the Ho, it was raining.

The gloom was offset by the sliding athletes I saw as I hauled my gear to the lodge.

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Tagged: Adirondacks, Mount van Hoevenberg, Nordic Skiing1 Comment

Stephens State Park Route Finding

Posted on by Peter Minde

Searching for new trails not too far from home, I pointed the shooting brake west last week. Stephens State Park is in Mount Olive. Since the one time I’d been there many years ago, parties unknown — possibly the Jersey Off Road Bike Association — have put in an extensive new trail network.

Green Trail meadow
Along the Green Trail

All this new singletrack augments the old hiking trails, but it comes at a price. The only printed map that I’m aware of is published by New York New Jersey Trail Conference, and it is so old as to be obsolete. At the urging of my physical therapist, who rides there regularly, I downloaded an app called Trail Forks onto my surveillance device mobile phone.

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Tagged: Flatlands, Hiking4 Comments