Training Log Archive: CleverSky

Gould Farm to the top of Greylock to retrieve my car. I suspected there was a trail up, so I asked around (people thought I was nuts to go up on foot, of course), and after rejecting the obvious advice about going straight up the power line (which I had checked out from the air and decided that it looked gnarly), Gary said that there was a trail that led off from the back corner of the field. I trotted up there and found a sign that said "Superhighway Trail to summit of Mt. Greylock". Perfect. After about a half-mile, it started having some ferns, then briars, then trees fallen across it, then it just degenerated to something not even worth mapping, so I said screw it and just headed straight up the fall line, through the deadfall and thickets and moss-covered cliffs, using my hands quite a lot. Eventually it got extremely thick, but I knew I was close because I could hear voices, and I started seeing a lot of bottles and cans on the ground. Popped out right at the road pullout just below the summit, leaving a third group of people with the impression that I was nuts (the first group being the spectators who watched me launch).

When I got home I checked the excellent Pat Dunlavey Cartographics map of Mt. Greylock (which I had intended to bring, but it got left behind with a couple of other nonessential items in the rush to get going, since this was a sudden last-minute flying opportunity). The "Superhighway Trail" barely makes it onto the map as an intermittent dead end, but there are of course two major trails (Gould Trail and Thunderbolt Trail) that start at that farm, one from a different corner than what Gary had pointed to, the other from about 100 feet down the road from where I had packed up my glider. I'll know better for next time, and I'll know better than to ask hang glider pilots for orienteering advice, but as it was I got in a smidgen of decent rogaine training. First time I've ever been to the high point of my home state.

C • So where do you take off fr... 4

From Mom's house to home, In The Dark (hatlamp). I had been driving her car while she was up visiting in Vermont, and my car was in my garage, so the most straightforward thing to do (as far as I was concerned) so that she wouldn't have to drive in the dark was to drop her off and run home. She was a bit concerned, recalling the time that Dad tried to ski home from work at night (with no light, I think) and got lost out behind the Rod and Gun Club for a while. I reminded her of my qualifications, but she said she'd still worry until she got a phone call saying I made it okay.

As I've gotten older, summer has definitely become my favorite season (not that I don't like the other three, but I like summer best). For a number of years I felt like I was always missing a chunk of summer, because I was away in the West somewhere orienteering (which had its own charms, but seemed like it also left a hole). Now for the last couple of years I haven't been doing that, but I still feel like summer slips away, because of all the other damn things going on in my life that are a big part of the reason why I'm not traveling out West. Too busy to get a chance to completely appreciate it. So on a night like tonight, there were moments that had the essence of summer evening that I really appreciated, and tried to savor.

Landed quite close to my car this time, so retrieving it was trivial. I also managed to spend more time in the air than I did in the car in either direction, which is a fair bit considering this took place in West Rutland.