Basic blog

We drove to Rollins but were somewhat dismayed to see that they were still closed for the season. I guess I must have misread the info. There was, however, a handwritten sign directing us to Winslow State Park which was one exit up the highway. We drove back to I-89 and both of us must have been daydreaming because we got on the highway headed the wrong direction. Oh well, no problem, we just drove to the next exit and reversed our course. We finally arrived at Winslow after climbing up some pretty steep roads. Once there, we parked and found the trailhead. Here's Janette and Prancer, ready to go:



Now, which trail do we take?



We decided on the shorter Winslow trail, because the weather was pretty unsettled. We had driven through some rain sprinkles already and the temperature was only in the low 50s.

I don't know what the Barlow trail was like - we'll have to hike that one another day - but I suspect that we traded a shorter distance for steeper trails. Here's a shot up the trail near the beginning. It got even steeper and more rocky.



There were a bunch of flowering trees along the trail at the lower elevations.



We stopped here to take a breather. This is what we had just climbed up:



Didn't seem to bother Prancer any, though. He was a good pack Husky for the day:





Another shot up the trail. You can see one of the red blazes that marked the way.



Just past the halfway point there was an opening and a big outcropping of rock that made for a nice overlook. Here are 3 pictures that I took from left to right then a panoramic view of the 3 images, put together with a free program called Autostitch:









The wind was really beginning to pick up and while I was taking the pictures I almost lost my hat. We continued on up the trail. The trees were beginning to get more sparse and there was more and more rock showing on the trail. The red paint marks continued to guide us on our way. We also started to hear a sound that to me sounded like a jet airplane passing overhead. It continued to get louder and louder and before long we saw the huge tower that is installed at the summit. The sound was the wind blowing through the tower and all of the antennae mounted to it:



Just to the right of it was the fire observation tower:



The summit. We made it!





We went up to the tower and Janette stayed at the base with the dog while I climbed up. The tower was manned, and the observer let me in. I signed the guestbook and took a few pamphlets with me - if you visit 5 of the fire towers in the state and mail in your log, they will send you a patch back. Sounds like a nice incentive to go hiking...
The observer told me that the wind was gusting up to 40-50 mph so figured we had better get going. I thanked him for his time and went back down. There was a shack with a porch just below the fire tower so we went to check it out and get out of the wind. Near the shack was a backup generator:



You can see the holes in the roof, most likely caused by ice breaking off the tower and falling down onto it. The porch roof of the shack had some damage, too:



We had planned on eating at the summit but it was just too cold and windy, so we made our way back to the trail. On the way, we stopped at the base of the tower and I got this shot looking straight up from the middle:



The hike back down was pretty uneventful, other than exercising a whole new group of muscles. We timed it just right, too, because as soon as we got back to the parking lot it started to rain. There is a covered area with picnic tables there so we had lunch before leaving. Here's a shot of another picnic area right beside the covered section:



We had a great time and will definitely be doing more hikes like this one over the summer.