Day: October 18, 2016

Just like two weeks ago at Rigaud, the forecast was for rain — 80% chance of 1-3 mm was the morning prediction for St Adolphe.  But I tweeted at 5 pm on Saturday that I would be there, “come what may”.
I had been in Ottawa and on Sun morning I drove to St Adolphe via Aut 50 E and Rte 329 N.  There was no rain the whole drive and the views of the autumn colours along Aut 50 were the best I had seen in years.  At this time of year, the drive out of town to a hike can be more of a joy than a chore.  Nevertheless, I fully expected to be the only person in the parking lot when I arrived at 10 am, but three other hardy hikers were there waiting.   We got ready and I checked the Weather Network’s radar projection — it showed that most of the rain was passing south of the region, i.e., over Montreal.  The rain would eventually reach us but not for a couple of hours or so.  In any case, we all had water resistant hiking jackets and boots, so a bit of rain was not a worry for us.

We set out under cloudy skies and a 14 C temp.  Our plan was to hike trails 2 and 3 for a total of 8.5 km.  The trails are end-to-end loops so the idea was to follow a figure-eight route.  I had a plot of a hike from a few years ago to guide us.  There was more climbing than I remembered–it was a steady uphill for the first 1.5 km.  We did get a 15-minute rain shower during that part but the trails were not muddy and we had the proper hiking gear, so it was no issue.  There were a couple of other brief showers during the hike, but it was mostly rain-free.

The trail was a bit rocky and strewn with fallen wet leaves, so water-proof hiking boots were essential.  Many of the leaves on the ground were brilliantly coloured, so watching your step on the trail was a beautiful view this day.   There were few other people on the trail, but while we were taking a break and some photos at the turn-around point, a couple of runners came by and so we are able to get one good group shot.
The trail intersections are a bit tricky and we often had to stop and check the maps.  But we still managed to miss a turn towards the end and so missed the fourth part of the figure eight.  We finished with 7.7 km and a total elapsed time of 2h 35m.  It was just as well, as a light rain finally began to fall steadily just as we got back to the cars.  But we had a marvellous hike and we all agreed it had once again been worth it to disregard the weather forecast

Jan W writes;

I couldn’t have asked for better weather, and the leaves were still in prime colour.  We (Sue-Anne, Maria, Robbie, Cathy and myself) started from Underhill State Park dressed warmly and with extra layers in our packs, this is mid-October right?…well…we were all wearing one layer less by the time we reached the treeline. We put back on a layer once on the ridge, then enjoyed the sunshine, blue sky, very low wind (for a Mansfield summit….) and coloured mountains below as we traversed.

We hiked up  along the Halfway House trail, then along the above-treeline ridge (taking the Long Trail) until the Chin (summit) and then back down on Sunset Ridge.  In total, it was a bit over 10km, 750m vertical and about 5 hours 15 min.  We spent a least 30 minutes at the summit for lunch.  The only part where we met almost nobody else was the Halfway House trail.   The Sunset Ridge trail had steady hiker traffic, and the summit/ridge even more due to many who drove up the Toll road or took the Stowe Gondola.  There was still plenty of room to enjoy it all.  At the bottom when we left, we saw about 1 km of parked cars lining the access road to Underhill State park…we weren’t the only ones who wanted to enjoy the colours and get in a good hike.