Pre-Trip Hike

Before heading to the mountains, there's a local hike I like to do to make sure I'm ready for ascents and descents we don't get much of here.

It starts by climbing the steps of the Gorge Trail in Buttermilk State Park.  Always nice to go there, and perhaps by next year or the year after, I can take the rail trail from our neighborhood to get there.

I don't remember where I saw these two trees, I think it was in Upper Buttermilk.

Treman State Park, another treat one can't get to enough.

This is an out-and-back hike, and on the way back I took the trail through Lick Brook with a glimpse of the falls.

 The parks and preserves on this route are connected by a spur trail that passes South Hill Cider.  I could hear someone mowing in the orchard as I passed and got the idea to text Steve, the owner, to tell his son I'd pay generously if he mowed the section of trail across the road from the orchard before I returned.

 I'm not sure if Steve or his son mowed it, but this was a welcome relief to how it looked on my first pass of the day.

Since I've done this hike several years, I knew it could be overgrown and took a tool to cut back some brush in other areas that can't be done with a mower.

 The pinnacle of the whole hike was when Gail and Roxy came to meet me in Buttermilk on my way back down the gorge.