On Boxing Day we hiked out to Long Point Light in Provincetown, MA. Long Point Light is located on the very tip of Cape Cod and guards the entrance to Provincetown Harbor. It is located in the Province Lands of the Cape Cod National Seashore. Parking for Long Point is available at Pilgrim’s First Landing Park (Click the link for a Google Map and Directions). I parked there for several hours up until and after sunset and didn’t have any trouble, but this was off-season so YMMV during the summer and possibly before sunrise.

Leading straight away from the parking area is a mile-long breakwater that cuts a huge section out of the hike. Some of the rocks are slightly unstable and might be slippery/covered in guano. Also, be sure to check a tide chart before hiking out as the breakwater can be underwater at high tide.

You can see Long Point Light for the entire walk along the breakwater and the route to the Light is very obvious. Just follow the shoreline. Depending on the tide, the hike can be kind of complicated. A channel cuts through the dunes about halfway out to the light and if you have to cut all the way around the channel the hike will be much longer and take way more time.

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We chose to splash across the shallow water and made out just fine and on the hike back the tide had gone out and there was no channel to deal with.

The lighthouse itself sits in the dunes. There’s a small hill just to the southwest of the lighthouse with a memorial cross and a small clearing.

The way the point curls around, the sun sets behind the dunes to the west somewhere near Wood End Light and rises to the east over the open ocean.

There’s a good view of Provincetown and on a super clear day I’d imagine it’d be possible to see Boston. There’s interesting aspects to shoot all around, including some old pilings from a pier. There is one annoying solar panel sitting next to the lighthouse which is kind of a pain, but I’d imagine that could easily be photoshopped out.

It’s a five-mile hike if you can walk straight along the shoreline and it took us two and a half hours roundtrip, not including shooting and setup. Hiking back in the dark along the breakwater was entertaining, too.

This year there was absolutely no snow…and it hit about 70 degrees during the day. Since then it has really started to cool off, but it is still by no means winter. Trying to take advantage of this warmth, I hiked up to the M to shoot a sunset. My original plan was to stay for the stars and an airplane landing at Gallatin Field later in the night, but I got too cold and hiked down.

The sunset was ok. Not the best I’ve seen, but not too shabby either. The moon was up high in the sky over the Gallatin Range, which was pretty cool.

On the drive up to the trailhead I saw this massive cloud formation.

The rest of the photos are below.

Summary stats for the hike from the MyTracks android app.

Total Distance: 3.73 km (2.3 mi)
Total Time: 1:33:25
Moving Time: 1:09:51
Average Speed: 2.40 km/h (1.5 mi/h)
Average Moving Speed: 3.21 km/h (2.0 mi/h)
Max Speed: 10.37 km/h (6.4 mi/h)
Min Elevation: 2380 m (7808 ft)
Max Elevation: 2956 m (9698 ft)
Elevation Gain: 602 m (1975 ft)
Max Grade: 35 %
Min Grade: -12 %
Recorded: Thu Sep 23 17:17:19 MDT 2010
Activity type: trail hiking

This track shows the front side of the hike, from Fairy Lake to the saddle to the summit.

This image shows the whole hike as the trail wraps around the backside of the mountain.

9/24 Update: I have pictures now.

Hiking into the bowl below Sacagawea.

The view from the top of the saddle was awesome. This is the rest of the Bridger Range, stretching south towards Bozeman and the Abasarokas and Gallatins.

Then the sun set.

On the way back down from the summit we came back upon the three mountain goats that we’d seen on the way up. It appeared to be a pair of parents with their baby in tow. The male was really defensive and kept walking closer to us the closer we got to him. We kept our distance and kept hiking.

I’m hooked on hiking now/again.

Yeah! Photo: David Howland Skier: Sam Willits

Alex Photo: David Howland Skier: Alex Davis

Looming Photo: David Howland

Strangled Photo: David Howland

Circle Photo: David Howland

Hiking Photo: David Howland Hiker: Jonathan Howland

Mts. Sacagawea and Hardscrabble

Overall, a great hike. After descending most of the road, we parked the car off the side of the road and hiked around in the woods, fields, and pastures for a while. It’s really weird, after living much of my life in the incredibly demarcated and boundarized East Coast to be able to just park a car and hike off into the woods for a while. It’s a wonderful feeling of freedom that makes the hiking that much more enjoyable.

The camera got picked up and moved in the middle of the exposure. I like the “cloud city” effect, but it’s too bad it’s so blurry.

This picture just wasn’t as impressive as the rest, and was way too dark for my liking.

We soon found a rocky spine, and ended up on top of this spine just as the sun was setting behind the mountains. The city lights came up and we could see for miles. It was an awe inspiring sight. Lacking a tripod, I braced my camera on some rocks and took some pictures:

I love the sky in this shot, but the hiker’s headlamp wiggling around in the foreground is kinda distracting.

I woke up Wednesday morning and it was dumping. Again. Awesome! I packed up, throwing my ice axe and crampons in my pack at the last minute, and left campus around 9:00. Mid-drive, I decided to change my plans and hike up from the access road trailhead at Bridger Bowl to see what the ski terrain was looking like and scope out next week’s skiing. Midway up the access road, however, I turned around, not trusting myself to make it back down the snowy, dirt road. I returned the the M Parking Lot, which doubles as the trailhead for Baldy Mountain. Short on time due to my trip to Bridger, I changed my goal to simply making the top of the ridge and set an 11:00 turnaround time. 20 minutes in and I was at the base of the M itself. The view was stunning.

Amazing view from the M

I continued up past the M. The trail to the righthand side was packed, slippery mud, so I retreated to the right and rejoined the ridge trail above the M. As soon as I entered the trees again, the snow began to get deeper. It went from a couple patchy inches at the bottom of the trees to a solid, continuous two feet of packed snow at the top of the ridge. It had been snowing all day and there was about two inches of fluffy fresh pow on top of the packed snow.

The snow only got deeper the higher up the ridge I climbed

Approaching treeline.

The trail to the top of the ridge was steep and short. Another 40 minutes, and at exactly 11am, I gained the ridge. The view was incredible…

The view from the top of the ridge was awesome, easily eclipsing the view from the M.

Standing in deep snow on October 7

The trail stretched on uphill towards Baldy, but my overactive conscience demanded that I return to campus and study. I hopped, skipped, and jumped down the trail to my car in about 20 minutes. 5 hours later, and it is still snowing quite intensely here in Bozeman. More pictures from the trip follow.

The full-size version of the panorama is here.

Overall, a great, although short hike. I’ll definitely be back to this ridge and hopefully to Baldy. And I now know that there is enough snow to ski on the ridge.