Sky Meadows

We awoke to the threat of snow....and were giddy!  Hiking in the snow??  Hell yeah baby!  We were excited to say the least.  We had already decided to hit a Sky Meadow Trail the night before. We opted for the North Ridge, South Ridge, Gap Trail loop.  It's about 3.5 miles, but COULD be be about 4.5 with an offshoot out and back off the North Ridge Trail that takes you to the AT.

We have our morning coffee, shower, pack up, feed the dog, feed ourselves and hit the road.  There wasn't a drop of rain or snow when we headed west on 66.  However, the farther west we drove, the more precipitation we saw.  I was excited...like a fat kid with their own cake.  Now I'll see if we really can do this 4 season...

We arrive at the entrance only to find a note on the door.  Um...no one's home.  Please put your entrance fee in this envelope.  We will trust you.  Ooooookay.  At this point, there is some small amount of accumulation that we can see on the roads and trees.  I love snow!!

Stupidly, we forgot a map....and didn't have good cell service to pick up a map on one of the MANY aps on our phones.  At some point, I will bite the bullet and subscribe to one so we can download maps to our phones, but right now, it's not been an absolute necessity.  We drive to the visitor's center.  Yup, nobody home there either!  Great!  Now what?  The kiosk isn't printing maps.  WTF does the trail start?  We really should be more prepared on these day hikes.  Seriously.  We could do something completely stupid and get totally lost or something.  It has been known to happen... hasn't it?

Luckily, a ranger drives up in the truck and we ask where the trial head is.  He was nice enough to point out the large sign across the way.  There's only 2 parking lots and everything pretty much starts and ends here.  Good to know!  Also, he shared a word to the wise about fog.  We need to be careful, because if the fog rolls in we won't be able to see that far ahead of us.  Good to know!  Thanks!  :)

We cross the street and head down the gravel road that pretty much leads to all trails.  The Gap trail is farther down the road, but we opted to start with the North Ridge Trail, and turn right up the stairs.  At this point, there's about 1/2 an inch to an inch of snow on the ground now?  It's pretty frozen, too.  I think there was some snow earlier in the week and it has simply refrozen.  These suspicions will be confirmed later on in the hike.

The North Ridge starts out with a decent incline.  It was a nice warm up.  I honestly swear at some point I will not heave like a chain smoker walking up a flight of stairs.  Seriously...it's getting annoying.  It's like my lung capacity is MUCH shallower than most.  It didn't used to be that way!  I need to start singing again to get it back maybe?  In any event, on we trek!

We start out hiking through a bit of field on the edge of woods.  It's a nice little scenic trail that winds into the trees about halfway or less?  I'm not measuring miles or anything...  But it does start some decent inclines not that far along the trail.  At this point, I can really see that there was snow at some point earlier in the week that has refrozen.  Some parts of the trail were slick because of this refreezing of snow.  I'm thinking, "This might be easier with some Yak Trax or something like that.  I'd have better grip and not wear myself out having to push harder to make it up the hill due to crap traction."

There are bits and pieces of old stone walls such as this one along the trail.  As you can see, the snow  was coming down at a pretty decent rate and there was a nice dusting over everything.  It was really peaceful and quite for the most part.  We didn't encounter many if any on the trail.  I love hiking both with groups for fun, and then in pretty much solitude for just the two of us.  This was the later of the two, that's for sure!

We climb, up and up and up.  I'm not sure how much of an elevation gain we did on this trek.  I think it was around 800 ft?  I'm too lazy to check right now.  It was a rather nice climb up a small-ish summit.  I noticed some tracks in the snow that were not human....or human friend.  I think they were bunny tracks.  They looked neat in the snow.  The bunnies were pretty active on this part of the trail, too.  There were several bunny prints on the trails.  I didn't take a picture though.  I should have.  Would have made for a neat picture.

We climbed the North Ridge trail up the mountain, crossed a stream a few times, and came to the intersection of the South Ridge Trail.  The North Ridge continues for .5 mile to the AT.  If you chose to take this .5 mile out and back, it makes for what most call the 4.5 mile loop.  However, it's actually 3.5 miles if you follow it as an actual loop without any jutting off of the loop.  There are several strategic benches along the trail.  I leaned against the one at this intersection to take some pressure off my feet.  They were okay, but starting to irritate me a bit.  :(

We opted to turn left and continue on the loop and not do the out and back part.  The South Ridge part of the loop was a bit rough.  There were some downed trees to maneuver under or over.  They hadn't cleaned much of that trail up from I'm guessing all the summer storms we had.  I didn't mind it so much.  It wasn't unbearable, but did make us feel like this was a pretty secluded trail that's not used much.  I really like those trails...the ones that aren't well used and are rather rustic.  I'd really like to be part of the starting a trail or helping a baby trail to grow.  lol

At this point, I couldn't tell if the snow had stopped, or if we were just in the woods and the trees were catching the snow.  There was about a decent inch at this point, I think.  It made for some pretty fun hiking.  As you can see, there's not many tracks in the snow at this point.  A little further along the South Ridge trail, we noticed some running tracks, I think?  of two people?  At least that's what it looked like to me.  Or make the same person twice?  *shrugs*  Then closer to the visitor's center, there were more human tracks and some human friend tracks now.  

It wasn't too cold.  I wasn't cold at all.  I had layered enough to keep myself dry and warm.  S had to strip a layer, I think at some point.  I probably should have, too, but I wasn't sure I'd be warm enough in just a base layer with my shell on top.  After our car camping debacle, I'm always afraid of getting too cold.  I probably wear a few more layers than needed, but until I get some more good gear and possible some mid layers, I will probably keep the base layer and the fleece jacket, which I LOVE!  It's so nice and warm!  And does the perfect job of wicking away my sweat perspiration.

The South Ridge trail leads you back down the mountain.  The decent isn't too steep, with but with the slick layer of ice under the snow, I had to be careful not to slip and fall on my arse.  It almost happened a few times.  Eventually, the snow stopped and more tracks appears in the snow.  We knew we were nearing the end of our little hike.  I didn't want to push it on our first snow outing.  I think the Yak Trax or some other ice traction over the show thingy would be best if we were to continue to hike in these conditions.  He has some that I got him for his birthday, but he didn't' put them on that day.

And, as the ranger stated, when the fog rolled in, we couldn't see very far in front of us.  Somewhere in that fog is a small valley with the Visitor's center, park office and a house or two.  They are invisible in this shot.  I wish I had taken one when we first started out so you could compare the two.  *shrugs*  20/20 hindsight.

At the bottom of the trail, there are the remnants of a homestead.  I can't seem to find the name of the ruins, but they're there.  Some stone chimneys and walls are all that remain from these homes of days gone by.  It was a nice settlement they had at the base of the mountain.  There was a nice stream for fresh water and good protection from wind.  Anyway, it's always neat to see things like that.

And with that, we caught up to the Gap trail and headed back to the visitor's center, the car, and then to REI!  LOL  Now, when we got back to the truck, I wasn't cold, but knew my jacket was wet.  When I got in the truck, I was fine, but at some point, the jacket started making me cold and I had to take it off to allow it to dry.  You really do have to watch and make sure your clothes do not stay wet or you don't keep wet clothes on when you're in the cold.  It really could do a number on you quickly.  I quickly took it off, and laid it over my legs, near the car heater to dry off on the way to REI.  Worked like charm!

Oh!  I'll leave you with this impromptu still life...my poles in the snow.