Phantom's Folly: A Mt. Minsi Dayhike (TR )

“Phantom is in charge of the TR, but My pics on Webshots are finaly up. Check 'um out!

http://community.webshots.com/album/247887220PQvLZk”

“not showing up yet.”

“Nice pics - I'll look forward to Phantom's TR.”

“cool pics BS”

“cool - I've never seen an AT survey marker before! Ice covered trees are pretty when the sun hits them.


Where's the trip report?”

“I'm jealous. Just how cold was it?”

“I'd say somewhere around 30 degrees, just cold enough to keep everything frozen.”

“Alrighty now Mr. Soul, still waiting for the Rhododendron to hell TR. :~)

* And Pics
last edited: 1/10/05 5:40:36 PM”

“Pictures are uploading right now as we speak...

I guess y'all want a trip report, eh? Alright, let's see what I can come up with. Stay tuned...”

“Ok, so Sunday morning, my alarm clock goes off at 7 AM, and I immediately think to myself, "you have got to be kidding." Nevertheless, I quickly realized that this could be my only chance to pick up January in the Hike Pennsylvania challenge. I quickly looked out the window at the overcast sky and wondered where the sun was that the weatherman ever-so-diligently promised. Yet I still forced myself to get up and over to BackSlacker's from where we carpooled up to the Gap.

Crossing the river, and looking up at Mt Minsi, I noticed it looked strangely pale, and immediately realized we were about to get more than we bargained for: snow, ice, or both. Apparently mother nature had left us a bit of a surprise in Saturday's torrential rainstorms (or at least it was regular rain down along the plain).

Pulling into the trailhead, things didn't look as bad as I had thought. There was a dusting of snow on the ground, but the "beatnen path" was more muddy than anything else. So we saddled up and set off, up the Appalachian Trail, southbound from the legendary trail town of Delaware Water Gap.

From the beginning the trail was a nice walk; a wide woods road, and surprisingly not rocky (as you might expect from Pennsylvania). But as we got higher up in elevation, things changed...a lot.

For one, I noticed that the further we went, the more ice there was, on the trees, on the path, everywhere, and we had no crampons or YakTraxx or anything like that. On top of that, the trail started to get rocky...in that classic Pennsylvania style. Figuring that the trail slope is pretty well graded, we decided to push on, figuring we could always cut over to the fire road that paralleled if conditions got too bad.

Folks, let me tell you something. Those typically evil Pennsylvania rocks become a godsend when Old Man Winter's evil ice takes the show over. Had it not been for the dry rocks sticking out of the ice, we would have never made it to the top of Mt Minsi.

Yet the going was still not easy. Those cool shady rhododendrons that line the trail in the summer? Well, the ice had sagged them all the way to the ground, right over the trail, thus creating the Rhododendrons of Hell (ironically enough, they were completely frozen over). Pushing by them was like running a gauntlet, with a thousand icicles stabbing you in the head, neck, and down your back [pause here to shiver...]

Nevertheless, we made it to the grand view of Mt Tammany and New Jersey near the summit, where we took a little break, and many attempts at a "group" picture. Let me tell you, 10 seconds is not a heck of a lot of time on the camera's self-timer when there's ice all over the ground. After finally getting a good one, we bumbled around for a little bit looking for the summit, not know that it was actually about 1/2 mile up the trail still. We did find an AT survey marker though, which was pretty cool.

Oh yes, another piece of advice: do not try to lift a frozen evergreen bough out of your way with your shoulder. With all that ice on it, it could easily weigh hundreds of pounds (ok maybe not that much, but still) and running into it is much like running into a brick wall, as I found out the hard way. (By the way, my shoulder says, "Ouch".)

Soon we made our way to the remnants of the firetower at Mt Minsi's true summit, where I climbed up onto the icy pedestal for the "Top of the World" picture. 'Twas interesting getting down, she was...Arrr! Nearby there was a Mt Minsi summit sign, so we photographed that as well.

Just down the trail, there was a southfacing lookout, where we decided to stop for lunch. For me, that would an Italian hoagie picked up from Wawa that morning, and it hit the spot like you can't even imagine.

The iced over glass forest looked really nice, and I totally enjoyed being out there, especially crashing through the leaning tree boughs (it was like ravaging the china closet and things just shattering all over the place -- so destructive...heh heh) but considering how much longer than planned it took us to get up there, and that I had things to see, places to go, and people to do that evening, we decided to can Totts Gap and just head back down the Minsi fire road, which was actually the original plan after Totts Gap.

The walk back was pretty uneventful. We had to cut back through the Rhododendrons of Hell, and then watched as the trail conditions would gradually improve as we headed back down the mountain. Upon reaching the trailhead, we got back in BackSlacker's truck and headed back home, where the real world once again awaited us.

In the end, a good trip and a good hike, full of surprises -- just the way I like it. The only thing is that I wish I didn't have to hurry back so soon, or we could've gone to Totts Gap. Perhaps another time. Thanks for inviting me, BackSlacker.

PhantomSoul's Phantom's Folly Pictures
last edited: 1/10/05 8:19:51 PM”

“LOL Great TR, that iced evergreen was like a rock solid tackle dummy. Great trip, I would like to do Minsi in the fall as well.

*PS your pics aren't viewable yet.
last edited: 1/10/05 8:31:21 PM”

“Whachya talkin' 'bout, Willis? They be workin' fine for me...”

“nice report PS - finally!”

“very nice report costanza”

“We're sorry!
The Webshots page you have requested has either moved or no longer exists.

Click here to visit the community.webshots.com
If you are looking for the Webshots Desktop Software, visit the download page.

Vandalay Industries, importing and exporting textiles. G-dammit, I can't view your pics yet.”

“Nice Pics Phantom, finaly! LOL”

“They took my page offline -- it must've been up there just long enough for me to copy/paste the link.

Oh well, I still have it in my editing page, so I'm sure it'll be back sooner or later. If they change the URL on me, I'll post the new one when I see it.”

“Ok, I guess they're back then?”

“great pics - I knew I should've gone”

“Ha ha -- you missed out...”

“i looked at those pics already today...can't remember when though. i guess it must've been today huh..oh well, they turned out nice.”

“Are you trying to say that my pictures are the same as Backslacker's? I mean, we did hike the same trail at the same time...

:~P”

“Nice pictures and trip report. The pictures of the ice is pretty much what it looks like around here across the higher terrain. That ice storm was one of the worst some parts of the area have ever seen. Some people still don't have electricity, despite crews coming in to help from other states and more ice is on the way for tonight.”

“Minsi is not going anywhere, we can always head back there sometime.”

“Nice TR - well worth waiting for.

The day the Rhododenrons from hell frocze over... what a concept. LOL!
(maybe its another remier that the Sox won the World Series?)”

“Phantom, you backpack too much!

J/k, nice report, checkin out the pics now.”

“Nice pics. See one or both of you this weekend.”

“Ah Tech, I wish I could go, got husbandly duties to do.”

“No such creature. You can never backpack too much.”

“Dang, that trip report was longer than the hike. j/k Nice job and nice pics.”

“Yeah, it probably was, wasn't it? I get really carried away with this stuff... ”

“Hey, if it wasn't for the 7000 blow downs (or "ice downs") it prolly would have been much longer. I enjoyed the hell out of all the detours we had to take! :-P”