Eventually, the trail below opened up into a clearing — another frozen lake — before a set of peaks, and a makeshift dog village came into view.
"In winter, we look down at skiers on the trail below us," Richard Buckman, owner of Spring Mountain Adventures, told me as we stood shoulder to shoulder on a tree platform.
They calculated that to have snapped the waxing gibbous moon at exactly that height at that time, Adams must have set up his tripod just off the trail, below a stone hut at Glacier Point.
I'd forgotten the exhilaration of standing on a peak, unable to see the trail below, and pushing off with faith that you'll cut the mountain down to your size.
We found a changed landscape: Sandy had uprooted trees, washed out a portion of the trail below our house, and blown out some storm windows, which were scattered in pieces about the lawn on the south side of the house.
Jim Sage of Simsbury, the past president of the Farmington Valley Trails Council, said the Avon portion was finished last year, and the Simsbury portion was scheduled for completion in 2002, after the group got permission to lower the trail below grade and plant trees to shield it from a housing development through which the trail runs.
As I walked along the trail below Tyniec, which perches high on a cliff, mist from the Vistula River swirled to my left while a forest of firs and pines grew to my right.
Most of the trails described below are fairly easy and don't require a guide or special hiking skills.
No sub-alpine regions exist between Mount Rogers in Virginia and Mount Greylock in Massachusetts, mainly because the trail stays below 3000 feet from Shenandoah National Park in Virginia to Mount Greylock.
(The trails in the list below are in order of difficulty).
