Yesterday (Sunday) I went for a hike up Verstovia. I got up and left about 8:30am, and it was about 16 degrees Fahrenheit and sunny outside. I walked to the trailhead and made it there at about 8:40am. It took me about 25 minutes to get to the first view point and about 20 minutes to get to the second one.
I figured that the trail might be a bit slippery because of the snow, but something that did not occur to me was that the stairs and some parts of the hill might have been like a ski ramp. The snow was packed down and was hard to kick in foot holds to get up and over them, so I kind of had to clamber up and over them. In a couple of spots I was glad that there was a rope or cable that I could hold onto to pull myself up, especially the one rocky section just before the second view point.
Shortly after I got to the ridge I heard a few Red-breasted Nuthatches. After a few minutes I saw them flying around in the trees. While I was there I saw a few White-winged Crossbills as well. After I was done looking at them I continued up the trail. I got to tree line and saw that people had made a path through the snow. I walked up through the foot holes in the snow. Just before Picnic Rock I ran into part of the snow that had a hard enough crust that I could walk on top of it. I got up to Picnic Rock at about 10:30 or so. I looked around up there for a bit and then headed back down. While I was up there I found a spot that I sunk down to my waist in. I also saw a few sets of what looked like pretty fresh Ptarmigan tracks maybe only a day old, but I didn’t see any Ptarmigan up there.
I started down at about 10 till 12, and I was back to the house by about 1:30pm or so. Coming down from Picnic Rock I sat down on the hard snow and kind of half slid half crawled down to the foot holes. Once I was back to the foot holes, I walked down the trail. There were a couple of spots on the way down where I sat down and slid down the trail a short distance, but most of it was alright.
It was a fun hike, I had never been up Verstovia in some much snow before.
Nice pictures and narrative – thanks for sharing