24 Days and 8,500 Miles Across America!
It started at noon on a Friday, I really prefer to start trips with a half day at work so I can get a good bit into the trip on day one. By leaving at noon I can typically make the trip to Mammoth Lakes, Flagstaff, or Salt Lake, just to name a few of my usual starting points. On this particular trip I made it out to Flagstaff on night one, just a quick stop for me to sleep a couple hours and make some good coffee in the cool morning. I continued the trip through Phoenix to see my parents and get in my yearly round of golf. Night three was just a quick snooze outside Albuquerque and what would be one of only two nights I actually slept in my tent on the trip due to weather. With a very early wake up call we cruised on into northern Texas where River and I found a great little spot for a 4 mile run to break up the days driving. It always surprises me just how far you can see when looking out over places as flat as Texas!
After running and grabbing some lunch, the plan was to hit the St. Louis area for the night, but as would be the case for many nights on the trip, my camping plans were thwarted by bad weather. I ended up driving nearly straight through to Buffalo NY because you can’t drive across the country and not go to the birthplace of Buffalo wings! From there the rain continued, so I drove on to Lake George NY, one of my favorite places on the east coast! Home to the 32 mile long and 200 foot deep Lake George, I spent dozens of weekends there growing up and here I was nearly 10 years later, still loving it! I finally was given some relief from the torrential downpours and had a chance to get out on a hike with Riv, so we took on the 7 mile Shelving Rock Mountain Loop, with nearly 1,100 feet of elevation gain making it a great start to a week of hiking in New England. Though the hiking was great, the real reason I made sure to stop in Lake George, to stuff my face with what is possibly my favorite pizza place ever, Pizza Jerks! Not too much sauce, the perfect amount of cheese, delicious pepperoni, and a bit of oregano all coming together to form a crispy slice of heaven! Along with the pizza are the garlic knots, unhealthy as can be but incredible and definitely worth it!
After finishing lunch around 1pm, I made the scenic 3 hour ride to the base of Mt. Greylock, Massachusetts’ highest point. I’ve climbed this one a few times before, but never via the Bellows Pipe trail, at 6.5 miles and 2,260 feet of climbing it was a leg burner, especially after having already hiked 7 miles earlier in the day. This was one of my favorite hikes of the entire trip, and the most challenging with incredibly steep sections and nearly constant vertical gain. When I finally hit the summit, it was just as I remembered, and lucky for me the weather cleared long enough to see for miles! The hike down was mostly a run to try and beat sunset, the reported average time to hike this trail was said to be a little over 4 hours but I was able to knock it out in 2 hours and 22 minutes including a 20 minute break at the summit for snacks. After the hike I had to hit Aj’s trailside pub for a killer cheesesteak and one of my favorite east coast beers, Be Hoppy from Wormtown Brewery in Worcester, MA.
I rounded out week 1 with another quad killing hike up Skinner Mountain, less than 1,000 feet tall but nearly 800 feet straight up from truck to summit. This is one of the places I grew up hiking and it holds a certain nostalgia, I will always make time to hike it anytime I’m back east! After the hike I was off to visit all the family I haven’t seen in roughly 5 years, and enjoy my cousins wedding. That's all for the first leg of the trip, next we’ll dive into what was my favorite week of the trip, exploring Asheville, North Carolina and all its beauty!
