If you’re bored then you’re boring.
This is the unwelcome maxim I sometimes offer my bored 11-year-old. She doesn’t want to hear it or hear about how, as a kid, I lived in a cabin in the Catskills without electricity or (the horror) without television.
The outdoors and maps were my television. From the summit of Hunter Mountain, my grandfather used to rattle off the names of the peaks of the northern Catskills. It was only after examining a topo map that I found he was joshing me — his mountain names didn’t exist. He made them up because he was a funny guy. I guess trust but verify is another worthy maxim.
Our pandemic winter has us cooped up, maybe thinking about when life and travel and adventure can begin again.
Topographical maps were my television as a kid and are now my Netflix. Not just this winter but always. Every bump on the map or bend in the river is a possibility. There’s something there and it could be something good, a thing you’ve never seen before.
If you’re bored then you’re boring, but if you’re interested, life is interesting.
So, I played a game you can play at home. I searched a topo map to find the closest mountain to my Electric City home.
Gillian Scott and her daughter walk the Long Path through the Partridge Run Wildlife Management Area in Berne.
Herb Terns / Times Union
Gillian Scott tries to smash through the ice with a rock at White Birch Pond in the Partridge Run Wildlife Management Area.
Herb Terns / Times UnionYou can have your own rules if you choose to play. I found a mountain I’d never heard of called West Mountain — not the mountain with the ski slopes outside Glens Falls.
I’ll admit I’m not crazy about giving things directional names like north or west. Many people live west of “West Mountain” and from their perspective, it’s really “East Mountain.”
This also applies to state names. One of the more interesting things about this republic of ours is that, for better or worse, it’s made up of a colorful patchwork of individual states. A few of those states – I’m looking at you Dakotas and Carolinas – don’t have distinct individual names. Instead, they share a name with a north and south plunked on the front of them. It feels like a lost opportunity for those states.
West Virginia is more upsetting because Virginia didn’t have to change its name. West Virginia put the “west” in front of Virginia when they split with that other, eastern Virginia during the Civil War. West Virginia had options. They considered the names — Alleghany, Augusta, Columbia, Kanawha, New Virginia and Vandalia — for their new state before settling on West Virginia. I kinda like Kanawha and Vandalia.
Back to West Mountain. I’d assumed the closest mountain to my home would be in the foothills of the Adirondacks. I was surprised to find it was tucked in the hills of Albany County near Partridge Run Wildlife Management Area. Some sources describe West Mountain as the highest point in Albany County.
We didn’t have to wait for the pandemic to end for adventure and travel to continue. Adventure and travel are a state of mind. My wife, Gillian, and our daughter, who we call “Little Wren,” set out to explore a new place for us — Partridge Run WMA — to find the roof of Albany County.
The Switz Kill ran noisily over ice and rocks as we began walking along a dirt road that led to White Birch Pond. Gillian and Little Wren put the wild in Wildlife Management Area as they lifted rocks overhead to smash the pond ice. Women can be so violent sometimes.
After the pond, we followed aqua blazes into the woods. The blazes mark the Long Path, a hiking route that runs from New York City to the Mohawk River (and someday beyond).
We discovered pretty little lakes tucked away in the woods. At Tubbs Pond, we watched two smiling, young guys drag their ice fishing gear across the pond and pack it into their nearby car. They weren’t waiting for anything to be over, they were out finding whatever fun was available.
The Long Path turned south so we followed a snowmobile trail instead that rose away from the pond and toward the spot marked “West Mountain” on the map. As we approached the roof of Albany County, we stopped for a snack on a fallen log. The white expanse of Tubbs Pond was below us and to the south were several small peaks which suspiciously looked just a bit higher than where we sat.
Later, I’d learn the ridge is called West Mountain but the actual roof of Albany County was a few miles away. As we sat joking and laughing on a log at the almost high point of Albany County, the fact that we were in the wrong place couldn’t have mattered less.
The three of us descended the ridge and revisited our lakes on the way out. As sometimes happens on these trips, Little Wren filled the winter air with some of the things that were weighing heavy on her mind. We can sit at home with our fictions or we can go out and travel to our truths.
Near the outlet of Fawn Lake, the Switz Kill rushed noisily under a forest of dark pine. We were only 20 miles from home but it felt like we’d come farther.
Gillian and Little Wren walked hand in hand away from the lake but I lingered on shore. The wind had made beautiful patterns in the snow and ice on the lake’s surface. I briefly wished I were a better photographer so I could capture them but slowly came to understand that not everything can be captured and delivered. There are some things you have to go out and find on your own.
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February 05, 2021 at 07:11AM
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Outdoors: An adventure close to home - Times Union
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