Hey, remember a few weeks ago, we went to Weeks State Park? Well, after getting 16" of snow last weekend, we thought we'd hike up to the top of Mt Prospect. We had been waiting for a clear day to do this walk, because we had read that there were nice views from the top. We decided to go up the (summer-only, unplowed) road to the Weeks Estate on the peak of Mt Prospect.
To use an internet-ism: OMG. That was the longest walk of my life. Have you ever snowshoed through 16" of fresh powder? It's like swimming in molasses, except cold. The road is only 1.6 miles long, but it took us 2.5 absolutely exhausting hours to get to the top. (Coming back down only took 45 minutes!)
We did see many great views, including these mouse tracks (each wide part is about 2 inches) :
There's nothing like trying to take pictures of tracks in the snow to remind you that you A) don't know anything about photography and B) have a really cheapo digital camera.
The auto road winds around the mountain (apparently the old carriage road is steeper, but only .7 miles from bottom to top), which is great for views but hard on the legs. Just below the peak, we spent about 4 years crossing a parking lot (wide open and full of snow drifts -- at least 22" deep), then finally reached the Weeks Estate. John Weeks was a Senator, Secretary of War, and a whole bunch of other things. He's credited with basically creating the National Forest system, and this estate was his vacation home. There are tours available in the summer, and, nice for us, there's a generous second-floor porch (largely protected from snow) with picnic tables. We set up, ate some hot soup, trail mix, and gazed out at the view.
Sadly, the fire tower is also closed (and locked! What do they think we are, ruffians?) in the winter. It's massive, and would be cool to climb up. Ironically, if you came here in the summer, the leaves on all the trees would block most of the views.
Going down was speedy-fast, and we even got in some good slides down a few of the steeper bits. Then we went home and collapsed into couch-slugs, and did not get up again until morning.
