Crane Mountain

We ended our March hiking on Crane Mtn. in Johnsburg. Brian climbed it many many moons ago, but it was all new to me. I found it to be very rocky and steep and a little treacherous in some spots because it the ice, mostly in the woods. I found this accurate topo map on-line (should have book marked it!) with corresponding letters to mark the different features. "A" is the trailhead--there is parking, but the road was too slushy and icy to take that chance (even with 4WD) so we parked about .4 of a mile down the road.This is right around point "B" (give or take) aka Ankle Breaker Alley! This was rocky section where we crossed the run-off a few times. Very pretty and very rugged--the trick was trying to find and stay on dry rock.
This was a melting piece of ice over some leaves. As it melted, it looked like a delicate spider-web. Brian spotted that with his eagle eyes. I would have walked right by it.Point "C", I think was the intersection for the Pond trail and the Summit trail. Up to this point, we had only hiked .7 of a mile. We decided to go to the summit and then take the loop down and around to the pond. It was another equally challenging .7 mile of a mile to the summit. This was the first ladder. Not bad, maybe about 6 or 7 rungs. Not very imposing.

This was the second ladder. You know you've arrived (at the summit) when you see this bad boy. It was probably 20 feet high and offered a nice little foothold to the left. I went up first, got my feet set and hoisted myself up and over some rocks....and tried not to look down, LOL. Shortly after that, we reached the summit, had lunch and took a few pictures.
Point "D"--this is my mountain man on one of the overlooks enjoying the calm and solitude....and chocolate.

Facing west, just about ready to head back towards the trees Point "E" and follow the trail down to the pond Point "G". The rest of the hike was uneventful, although it was just as steep going down (minus the ladders). We crossed a small slide and brook which was neat...the rest of it was rocky and snowy, definitely a good place for microspikes. We ended up taking the longer loop and found ourselves at Point "H", a natural stonebridge just before Putnam Brook. Brian went down to investigate. Supposedly, you can go down and walk thru it in the summer when the water is low. we'll see about that. We walked out on the the old access road Point "I" back to the truck.

The round trip was about 5.1 miles. The whole thing including lunch and pictures took about 4.5 hours. I ended up with 29.8 miles this month--not bad but Brian still has about a million miles more than me. Crazy boy.