After 3 weeks of lingering cold symptoms (not covid but annoying regardless) I finally got out into the woods. It snowed a few inches last night at the house but I suspected the hills would have more and I was correct. I probably bit off more than I needed to so soon after not leaving the couch for a few weeks but I survived.
The Mount Riga State Park is a Connecticut park right at the northwest corner where Massachusetts, New York and Connecticut come together. This hike would have me park my car (or more correctly “cah") in Mass., snowshoe through Conn. and summit in NY
Since I was sure I was not in shape for a stressful trip I avoided the routes with a few steep climbs over peaks that I’ve done before and took the road trail. The road through the park is closed in the winter so it was a nice wide strip of fresh, heavy snow to trek though.
The 2” of snow we got at home was 6-8” along the closed road and as I traveled up to elevation it was 10-12” This was a journey with no real destination. The goal was to just get out in the woods and I accomplished that.
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It’s not clear from the last photo but I turned around before the potential view because the clouds were in the process of settling on the peak so there would be no views today.
About 6 miles of trail breaking through some moderate depth snow. This snow won’t last long as there was little in the surrounding areas at lower elevations and temperatures are rising, slowly week to week. The snow clinging to the trees was falling the entire trip and I am hopeful mud season starts soon enough, as bad as that sounds. This was a very pretty trip in the woods but I’m ready for spring.