Connecticut - Mount Frissell - 2,380 Feet - June 22, 2007

Wednesday, June 20, 2007 - We drove from home to New Paltz, New York. We stayed at Creekview Campground. It is north of New Paltz near Rosendale (32 north from New Paltz, then east at Rosendale on Creek Locks Road about a mile). It is on the left. It was fairly quiet but a little close to the New York State Thruway.

Thursday, June 21, 2007 - We drove back to New Paltz, then west on 299 and north on 55 to the Shawangunks (the Gunks). This is an amazing climbing area with seemingly endless cliffs. We climbed the first two pitches of "Three Pines" or "The Climb Formerly Known as Three Pines." The second pine is gone. There was a turkey vulture nest at the top of the second pitch in the rocks. It smelled of month old dead meat. Climbing here is pricey, $15 per person per day. A ranger checked that we had paid and helped us find the route. Afterwards we found a vegetarian grocery store in New Paltz that had fake ground meat for spaghetti.



Friday, June 22, 2007 - We drove to Salisbury, CT, mainly on 44 through Poughkeepsie, NY. In Salisbury, we found Mt. Riga Road which led to Mt. Washington Road. We parked at the MA line and followed the red blazed trail to the green stake. The highpoint is at the green stake which is on the border of CT and MA and past the top of Mt. Frissell. The logbook is in a box in a tree at the top of Mt. Frissell, which is in MA.

Angie at Green Stake	Wayne at Green Stake
Green Stake	Angie Signing Logbook at Summit

After hiking back, we drove back to Salisbury, then north through Adams and North Adams to Clarksburg. We camped at Clarksburg State Park. This was a quiet campground. It has a lake with a beach, but the beach was closed due to geese. It rained hard for a while and kept us in the van. It stopped in time to set up the tent and make dinner and a fire. There were some huge old pine trees here.

Saturday, June 23, 2007 - We kayaked the Deerfield Dryway. This is a short (3 mile) run with two nice class IV's at the end; Dragon's Tooth and Terminator. We drove north to VT and Reedsboro, then south on Reedsboro Road (before the BP) and River Road to get to the putin at the dam. After taking off, we returned to the campground by River Road and MA 2, making a circle. A girl at the campground gave us a description of the last two rapids, but we were through Dragon's Tooth before realizing it. We made the right to left move as we should have and avoided the pourover/pinning mess on the right. We ate lunch after Dragon's Tooth and watched people running the right side of the river wide hole in Terminator.