After scoping out the weather and coordinating a day off to accomodate a good hike, Katherine (another Greylock intern) and I headed out around 6:30 AM. Yes, I will actually wake up that early and function -- not for many things, though. At least, not willingly. By 7 AM, we were hiking the trail! Berlin Mountain or Class of '33 trail, has beautiful views especially at the Berlin Mt. Summit, according to my guide book. It's about 2 miles uphill to the peak, which crosses into New York near the top. The elevation at the peak is about 2,800 ft. We had a nice start, cool and shady in the forest with ferns, Aspen trees, and not sure what else. We followed the blue blazes on the trees, crossed a stream without much trouble...It was pretty muddy, having rained lots the night before, and the hike seemed little traveled judging by the cobwebs brushing against us. For this reason, I was wearing long sleeves. There were also lots of bugs out, though we were armed with bug spray. Near the water, there were neat orange lizards on the trail. After close to two hours of hiking, we knew we were really close, thank goodness! We were tired from hiking uphill and it had been steep going for some time. Just looking to the side we could see the slant we were on and the beckoning blue blaze on a tree just ten feet ahead looked tiringly high above us.
At this point, the wetness of the path became a bit treacherous. We'd already crossed the stream again, but getting back on the path was slippery and we were not looking forward to the return trip there. So far, the beauty of the trail was how entrenched in nature it was; only the blue blazes (occasional) and faint lack of greenery indicated trail. The lack of structured path, rocks, and well cleared area heightened at this stretch when we found ourselves scrambling up a steep, slippery path with bush about 5 feet tall over the path such that we couldn't even see under us. There were no trees to grab onto and I strongly challenge that this is a "maintained" trail. We strongly considered turning back, but we were supposedly 1.5 hours from the summit; as two hours elapsed, we were reluctant to turn back so close to the top. The huge flies that suddenly turned up in this area encouraged quick scrambling and by sheer luck perhaps, we managed to keep footing.
Another issue: my guidebook mentioned that old roads back in the day were widened and logging added blue blazes near the summit, so not to follow misleading blue blazes, which I would know to avoid because they'd lead downhill or further out. We were also very near an abandoned ski slope. I wouldn't be surprised if we accidentally ended up on it for that last crazy stretch. I'm not one to use curse too indulgently, but we were definitely laughing and going, "Fuck, fuck, FUCK!" when we faced that last poor excuse for a trail. When we did reach the top, though, it was awesome.
The wind whipped through and we had a great view across to Mount Greylock, which didn't seem much higher. (And isn't, I found out later.) It was a bit cloudy but still anice view. There were two rocks to sit and rest on; I stood on one to take pictures. It was almost spoiled by the beer bottles and trash that was left around the fire pit. Come on, how ridiculous to litter and spoil the sanctity of nature. UGH. Ok, this is kinda a melodromatic account but whatev. Yes, I just said whatev, I've been working with teens, deal with it. :P
After chowing down all we had - Chex mix and water - we faced an important decision: we had three return options. The same way, with steep spots made harder by a downhill trip, the old Williams College ski slope that the guidebook called "extremely steep and unmaintained, use caution," and .5 miles less, and Taconic Crest Trail to Berlin Pass, an extra .5 miles, bringing total hike to 4.5 miles. We wanted to check out the mysterious ski slope, but only out of curiosity. We were probably already on it anyhow! Naturally, nothing was marked and there were 4 paths. We identified all but the one of the opposite end of the summit, closer to Mt. Greylock. We decided to take Taconic Crest Trail. It seemed like a real trail - wide, cleared path with nice markers! But we wanted to check out the ski trail first so we took the middle path. It soon emptied into the left path, which puzzled us. (I later learned that our trail emptied right into the ski slope just before the top, though we don't remember curving right...) We stuck to Taconic Crest and looked out for Berlin Pass, which would lead us right and to my car at Berlin Mt. Road.
We never found Berlin Pass. We did pass a trail to the right, but it was unmarked and seemed to close to already be the pass. Then we had to hike around lots of flooded, muddy areas. This area was also a Jeep road so very muddy. We passed an old, old car that had been wrecked, really curious looking. For a long time now, we'd been hiking uphill AGAIN. We knew that wasn't right and that my car was off to the right, but we didn't know what else to do and didn't want to go offtrail. I had a map just for trails and the guide but neither helped. We knew pretty much where we were but not how to know if we'd hit Berlin Pass. We came to a beautiful overlook, eventually decided we'd sure gone too far and were offtrail anyhow (trail markers had disappeared for a while now, we're not sure how), and heard cars so knew we'd eventually hit a road. We found the trail narrowed and steeper again. Finally, we emerged in a big parking lot. I guessed at where we were but we were after all at Petersburg Pass, much farther up Taconic Crest than we'd planned! And over 5 hours later! The amusing thing is turning around we saw the trailhead to the far right, then an abandoned ski trail. To the left of that, barely reminiscent of any type of pathway, was where we had emerged! Haha. The view from this pass was also lovely. Anyhow, we called Katherine's dad to please come get us in New York and I was dropped off at my car, tired and hungry but pleased with the hike. Turns out the great overlook was Mt. Reimer. We'd accidentally climbed another mountain! I then picked up Subway, scarfed it down, and passed out on my bed, lights on and music playing. Didn't matter. That concludes the "tail" 'o the trail. :P
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