Hiking News

The State has been pretty busy up in our neck of the woods with two hiking-related projects.  The first, which I only learned about last week and saw for the first time tonight, is a new parking lot adjacent to the existing lot at the end of Deboullie (the one that I, in all seriousness, refer to as "the crater").  So far, the new lot lives up to its predecessor's name; it's not dug into the hill nearly as deep, but I have very little hope that the slopes will be planted with anything.  (The slopes of the original crater are finally starting to get some sparse moss and grasses on them after nearly a decade.  As much as I want to, I have neither the time nor the money right now to plant them myself.)

Ostensibly, the new lot is for hikers, which leaves the original lot for fishermen.  I'm skeptical, but we'll see how it all pans out and how they finish the road.  As it stands, no one in their right mind would take anything less than a pickup over that shale, no matter how well the excavator smooths it out.    

All told, though, the new parking lot is better than I feared when I first heard about it, especially if they bring in some dirt and finish the road.  (In my mind, I'd originally placed the road several hundred yards down the existing trail, which I couldn't get over as being a Very Bad Idea.)  The Conservation Corps also built a nice new trail from the parking lot to the Deboullie Mountain/Black Overlook trail split.  The new trail doesn't have the same mud issue that the current trail (which follows the old road) has, but if mudpies are your thing, it looks like they're also leaving the current trail open.

The second project, for which I don't yet have pictures, is a new trail that starts near Denny Pond and winds up on top of Whitman Ridge/Mountain.  I may try to pop over there tomorrow to see how they're progressing, and you know I'll post pictures once I have a chance to hike it.