I was out in the NW corner of the state and just before I left I grabbed an old guide booklet for the Taconic Crest Trail, hoping I might manage to get a run in on a trail I had always intended to check out but had never actually managed to do. My map showed a rolling trail along or just off the crest, and about 3 miles to the north, on a little side trail, something called the "Snow Hole," supposedly still containing snow late in the summer or even year round.
So mid-afternoon I drove up to Petersburg Pass, where Rt. 2 crosses into New York state, and headed north on the trail, taking the map/booklet with me. First stop was a couple hundred yards up the trail, display board with a map of Hopkins Forest (owned by Williams College), that rang a bell, someone, Platt or Dunlavey I thought, had made an O' map of Hopkins Forest once. But the map posted here didn't give credit to either of them.
Onward. A nice trail, and a nice run, over to where a side trail heads off in what seems to be the right spot to find the Snow Hole. And I head off down it and in what seems like just the right distance I come to a couple of not very impressive rocky depressions. Definitely no snow in them. The trail keeps going, down rather steeply, which does not reflect what is on my map, so I go no further, but I search around a little (there are some paths here and there), and I come upon a hole....
It's not very big, but it goes down 6 or 8 feet, and though it's quite dark down towards the bottom, I'm quite sure there is no snow in there.
Well, that's interesting, I thought, just think if Al Gore knew about this, a famous Snow Hole and there's no snow to be seen. And I headed back, amusing myself with thoughts about how Al might have gotten the Nobel all by himself if he'd known about the Snow Hole, and about how long it would be before the Queen makes him a knight and we have to call him Sir Albert, and whatever. And it was a very pleasant run.
So I got home, and I did a little research. And the first thing I checked is Hopkins Forest, and the O' map is even
on line. My route is starting in the lower left corner, going to the upper left corner and back. The field work seems to have been done mostly by Mikell, the cartography by Pat. And the question is -- Is it really an O' map if it has never been used for orienteering? Because I think Williams decided, after the map was done, that it didn't want to open the area up for orienteering. And has this ever happened anywhere else?
And then my next research was about the snow hole. And I found this
page and this photo....
Hmm, seems like I was in the wrong place. Guess I need to go back.