Now, please notice (although I didn't get this picture before it all got filled in with dirt) that each rock overlaps its downhill neighbor and the seam is angled back uphill. This keeps the water moving where it's supposed to. Getting rocks to align like that takes a lot of careful work.
We spent the morning finishing the dirt around the water bar. Then our other big project was to line the bottom of the turnpike troughs with small stones for drainage. I'm here to tell you that finding small stones is not easy. (Note that all the perfect stones in the creek below are over a mile away from where we need them- that's not happening.) We managed to get about 25 feet done. That's not a lot of what there is to do. No pictures of that. Will try again tomorrow.
Then we wanted to hike to the top of Jones Mountain. Supposedly about 2.5 miles. We hiked on roughed-in but not finished trail for about half the distance. Then we crossed Platt Brook.
Then the hike to the top was total bushwhacking but following flagging tape. Hard going. The gradients weren't awful but the footing was rough. We stopped at the first overlook. There is actually bare rock if we'd gone farther, but we decided we'd had enough fun. This is looking north to Hoffman Ridge.
Then we hiked back to the cars with only a couple of rests and a stop to put away the tools. That hike took us 5 hours! Not entirely sure why. But it was great. One more day of work.
North Country Trail miles for 2021 is at 381.
North Country Trail, Essex County, New York, Dirgylot parking west to summit of Jones Mountain and back. 7 miles
 | See Day 3 |
2 comments:
The views in those last three pictures are pretty spectacular.
And these aren't even the high mountains!
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