Ryan, Debi, and Toren Cragun's Blog

Summit Date

March 4th, 2011; around 4:45 pm

Party

Ryan Cragun

Trip Report

I was doing some work in Hartford, CT, and decided I wanted to see a little bit of the surrounding area.  As I hadn’t done any of the highpoint in the area, I figured I’d give it a whirl and see what I could see.  Despite it being March, there was still a lot of snow (I picked one of the snowiest years), but I was determined to give it a try anyway.  Straight from the airport, I picked up my rental car and drove to the highpoint.  My guidebook said that it was on private property and that it was only open to highpointers a couple of times a year.  It turns out that is no longer true.  I pulled up by the highpoint sign, and while I was shooting a photo by it, I noticed another sign.  Here I am by the highpoint sign:

me by the road sign indicating where the highpoint is

Luckily, I drove in from the west.  There is a similar sign a hundred feet or so down the road coming from the east.  If I had stopped by the sign on the east, I would have missed this second sign that is about 15 feet off the road and marks the trailhead to the highpoint:

map to highpoint; trailhead marker

If you look close, it says that the highpoint is open to the public everyday from 8am to 4pm.  It was 4:45, but I’d flown a thousand miles and driven 60 miles to get here, so I went in anyway.  From the trailhead, it’s maybe a 1/4 mile to the highpoint.  The trail isn’t all that clearly marked, but others had been there before, so I simply followed their tracks.  You walk through some woods, then walk into an open space and there is a sign that indicates that you’re at Jerimoth Hill. Here I am by the sign:

me by the highpoint marker

About 3/4ths of the way to the highpoint, just to the right of the trail, there is a rock with the USGS marker embedded in it.  It took me a few minutes to find it, but it’s there.

There isn’t much of a view at the highpoint as it is a wooded area.  The panorama below shows the view.

Panorama

This is a panorama of the open area by the highpoint indicator:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmJb-MaX22Q

And here is a panorama from the USGS marker:

Directions
These are directions from Killingly, CT, which is about 4 miles west of the highpoint:

View Larger Map

Toren and I went hiking again today.  I’m constantly looking for new places to hike and found one using a hiking guide book some friends gave me (available here).  Using the guide, I tried a new hike – the Tampa Bypass Canal.  I didn’t realize there was a canal in Tampa that takes water from the Hillsborough and connects it with the bay.  Anyway, because it is public land, it’s accessible for hiking. And since it’s closer than most of the hikes around here, I figured I’d try it.

One of the access points is supposed to be at Wilderness Park – Veteran’s Memorial Park. Since it’s a free county park, I figured we could park there and then hike up the canal.  Um, yeah, easier said than done. First, Google Maps (i.e., my GPS on my phone) tried to send me into the park from the back, which, of course, is not an entrance (FYI, the entrance is off of US 301, heading south).  Then, when I drove up to the park (after fighting the State Fair traffic), I found out it was under construction and completely closed.  Even so, I saw an entrance to the canal across US 301, so I loaded Toren up and headed off.

My initial impression wasn’t very good as there was a fair amount of trash and the homes right around there were a bit sketchy.  But once I crossed MLK, it got quite scenic.  There was less trash and the homes were a bit nicer.  It was also a bit more rural feeling (even though I was headed for I-4).  Along the way we saw lots of birds (Great Blue Heron’s, White Ibis, Turkey Vultures, Ducks, and either Cormorants or Pelicans – not sure, but they were a diving bird and they dove a bunch while we watched).  We also saw a horse, two cows, and a raccoon.  Toren saw the raccoon before I did; it was only about 5 feet away before I saw it and then it ran off. Every time we would pass a bird, Toren would wave and say, “Bye bye!”  He’s pretty good at that now.

I was planning on hiking to I-4, but Toren got a little fidgety just south of the freeway and wanted a snack.  I pulled out his cheerios and a granola bar for him.  He initially took the granola bar, but then when he saw that I was going to snack on some spicy Cheez-Its, he wanted those.  I gave them to him and he munched on them (from the ziploc) all the way back to the car (hard to beat riding on someone’s back while eating and looking at birds).

I used a new map program on my phone since my old one is finicky, and this one requires that you purchase it before you can upload the maps (ugh).  So, I recreated our route on Google Maps:

View Tampa Bypass Canal in a larger map

Our distance hiked was about 2.26 miles. Here are a couple of photos:

looking south at a spillway on the canal

Toren getting a ride

Summit Date

August 15th, 2010

Party

Tom Triplett, Mark Woolley, and Ryan Cragun

Trip Report

We didn’t hike a state highpoint in 2009 as traveling to one from where we were all living was a bit too far.  But due a recent move for Mark (to Arizona), driving to Texas to hike Guadalupe Peak made sense.  Tom and I flew in on the 13th, spent the night at Mark’s place, then we drove to the campground at the trailhead on the 14th.  Here’s a photo of Guadalupe Peak Mark took on the drive in.  This is about 20 to 30 minutes west of the trailhead:

Tom in front of Guadalupe Peak, which is the peak furthest to the right; El Capitan juts out to the right of the peak (email Tom to ask him what he was doing out there)

We spent the night at Pine Spring Campground, which is right by the trailhead.  We had cell reception there, and I was even able to get internet access on my phone (which allowed me to download a Risk-like game for us to occupy our time in the evening – no fires allowed). The night was somewhat uneventful, but had a little commotion.  We only had a 2-person tent, and Mark volunteered to sleep out under the stars.  Temperature and weather wise, that probably would have been fine (and the lack of light pollution meant the stars were awesome).  But bugs-wise, it was a bad move.  Mark was getting eaten alive and it was too hot to slide all the way into his sleeping bag, so he ended up moving to the car in the middle of the night and spent the night in the car.

Mark woke Tom and I up fairly early, just as the first indications of light were peaking over the horizon (probably around 4:30 local time).  We grabbed everything and threw it into the car, geared up, and hit the trail.  Here we are at the trailhead:

Tom, Mark, and Ryan at the trailhead; it was still pretty dark when we started our hike

The hike starts out fairly level, then runs into some switchbacks as you gain elevation.  We were headed up the switchbacks when the sun broke over the horizon, necessitating us taking a few pictures:

panorama of the sun rising from the eastern slope of Guadalupe (click to enlarge)

Mark in front of the rising sun on the switchbacks

We made decent time and the hike was not particularly challenging.  Apparently the trail is horse-friendly, but there are parts that I would not want to take a horse on, as the trail is literally cut into a cliff face with rather steep drops, like this one:

Ryan and Tom on a cliff face in the morning sun

We stopped a couple times to catch our breath, but the hike was actually moderate enough that we were able to hold a pretty good conversation up the mountain.  We contemplated hiking out to El Capitan from the summit, but the trails diverge near the campground, so we opted not to. However, we had good views of El Capitan from Guadalupe Peak:

El Capitan from just below the summit of Guadalupe Peak

We actually summited in just over 2 hours.  I tried to use my phone’s GPS to track our route, and it worked on the way up, but died just after we left the summit on the way done.  According to my GPS map, our total moving time was about 2 hours and 10 minutes (which probably includes about 10 minutes of the descent).  We spent over an hour on the summit.  Here are some summit photos:

Ryan pointing out the mini-watermelon Tom carried to the top; unfortunately it wasn't very good

While we were on the summit, some clouds rolled in from the southeast. They didn’t look very menacing, and it was cool to be above the clouds, but they did prompt us to leave a little sooner than we would have otherwise so as not to get caught in a storm.  Here’s a photo showing us above the clouds:

The three of us at the summit, above the clouds

the summit marker, with one of our shirts airing out on it

panorama from the summit looking west (click to enlarge)

panorama from the summit looking east (click to enlarge)

We took a few more photos on the way down, but I really liked this one of Mark as he was on a promontory and it looked very cool:

Mark looking out over the valley to the east of the peak

We were off the mountain by about 10 am.  We saw just three other people on the trail on the way up, and they had hiked up to a primitive campground the evening before (we saw them heading out when we arrived at the campground).  On the way down we probably passed 20 or 30 people who were on their way up.  It was getting fairly hot at around 10 am, so I think we made the right decision to hike it very early, as we had great weather and the trail to ourselves.

Here’s the GPS map of the trail from my phone application:

View Guadalupe Peak in a larger map

I typically include a map to the trailhead, but the above GPS map shows where the trailhead is exactly, so you can use that.

I had originally planned to make another trip out to the Willamette National Forest for some more hikes this day, but upon the advice of some of the people at the dinner party, I opted, instead, for a closer hike – Mount Pisgah.  It’s a nearby mountain that offers splendid views of the surrounding area.  They told me it was about 3 to 4 miles round trip.  What they didn’t tell me was that it was constant elevation gain up and constant elevation loss down.

Anyway, we dropped Debi and her advisor off at work, then headed to Mount Pisgah (only about 20 minutes this time, not enough for a real nap for Toren), geared up, and headed up the mountain.  I kept hoping that the trail would level off at some point and give me a chance to recover before heading back up the mountain.  Yeah, no such luck.  It’s an elevation gain of about 1,200 feet in about 1.8 miles.

The view from the top is definitely worth it, but  the hike itself isn’t particularly beautiful.  There are two trail options, one of which is a little less steep but about 3/10s of a mile longer (I took the longer route up, the shorter route down; I should have done it the other way – easier on the knees).  On the way up on the longer trail, which is narrower, I ran into two snakes laying right across the path.  They were about 3 feet long and appeared to be sunning themselves.  I hate snakes, but am really wary of them with Toren on my back.  I kicked rocks at them until they slithered off, which they did quite readily after being pelted with gravel.  I didn’t want to kill them, but I also didn’t want to get into problems with a child on my back.

We made decent time and summited fairly quickly.  I let Toren play around a bit at the top before we headed back down (I’ve been doing this on the hikes, since the hiking is for me, I figure he deserves to play when we’re done hiking).  Here are a few pictures from the top:

Here’s the GPS track from the hike:

View Mount Pisgah in a larger map

I was beat after this early morning hike, so I picked up some lunch on the way back to the hotel, then basically lounged around while Toren played until he took a nap. He and Debi then went to the pool after she finished up work. My rib (which I broke a few weeks ago) started acting up this day as well, so we basically just took it easy the rest of the night.

One of the other hikes I found online before I came out here was a hike in the Willamette National Forest that is a loop trail for the Sahalie and Koosah Falls.  I found a few other promising hikes for the Willamete National Forest, but time constraints meant I had to pick one that seemed very promising.  I’ve always liked waterfalls, so I opted for this loop trail the one day I drove out to the National Forest (it’s about 90 minutes from Eugene).

As before, Toren and I dropped Debi off at her work, then headed out to hike.  Toren was once again very accommodating, sleeping the entire way to the hike and back.  We drove right to the Sahalie Falls parking area, geared up, and hit the trail.

As far as hikes go, this one was perfect.  There was no serious elevation gain pretty much the entire time.  The elevation drop and gain was gradual, the trail was well-maintained, and the scenery was beautiful.  Oh, and the falls – gorgeous:

Koosah Falls from the west side of the loop

Sahalie Falls from the east side of the loop

Koosah Falls from the east side of the loop

I did stop a bit more regularly this time around to check on Toren.  With his new long-sleeve turtleneck, he was plenty warm.  Though, he wasn’t up to smiling for pictures:

Toren at Koosah Falls on the west side; he's eating cheerios, but it looks like he's thinking, "Big deal. It's just water."

the two of us at Koosah Falls from the west side of the loop

the two of us at Sahalie Falls

I used my nifty GPS app to track this trip as well:

View Sahalie and Koosah Falls loop trail in a larger map

After the hike, we made the trip back to Eugene and picked up Debi.  We came back to the hotel and went swimming, then went to dinner with the people with whom Debi is working on this project.  It was a very enjoyable evening, especially once Toren fell asleep (until then, he was all over the deck and backyard of the couple who hosted us).

Some additional footage added after I posted this. Here is footage of Koosah Falls from the east side of the trail:

And Koosah Falls from the west side of the trail:

Here is Sahalie Falls from the top of the waterfall:

And Sahalie Falls from below the waterfall:

And, finally, Toren playing in the gravel at the bottom end of the waterfall loop: