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Sunday, November 11th 2001 This was the toughest 'flat' hike I've ever taken. I say flat since there was only a 100 foot vertical rise according to the topo maps. What the maps don't show is the pile of rocks you need to climb over. The rocks are big enough that you need to climb up on top of them, but spaced enough apart so that you can't stay on top of them . . . during the entire second half of the hike I was climbing up a rock, climbing down a rock, climbing up a rock, climbing down a rock. It was like being on a stair master for 3 hours! While the going was rough in the middle, the walk from the parking lot on Bake Oven Road to Bear Rocks is pretty flat. It's just an old Jeep trail. After the Jeep trail, though, prepare yourself and take your time. The first thing I bumped into was Bear Rocks, but there were a bunch of people around, so i just kept going, figuring on coming back that way anyway. I plodded along and soon passed the site where my brother Joe and I camped two summers ago. That hike was pretty nasty, since we were doing this section with 60 pound packs in 100 degree weather. That was one of my first hikes, and I've written on it in my journal near the beginning. Coming to the knife edge, I thought it would be fun, and since my brother and I had bushwhacked around it on our earlier hike, I thought it would be nice to see what we missed. The knife edge is very jagged and steep. It was very difficult to find footing, even with my trekking poles. I think that monkey walking would be the best way to get over this pice of land. Views from the top are very nice, and you can just about see the Pinnacle and Dan's Pulpit (aka Pulpit Rock) about 15 miles away on the AT, near Hawk Mountain. After going over the knife edge, which is about a hundred yards long, I was ready to call it a day and head back after eating my lunch. I ripped out my MRE, started heating some water and got settled in. My new Columbia Titanium jacket with matching fleece liner performed very well, and it wasn't really until I sat down that I realized how cold it was--about 35 degrees. I was ventilating well, and I could see the steam rising off of me, which is what the polar-tech is supposed to do--breathe. The jacket was just barely enough, though, and I wish I had some facial protection and maybe even my polypropylene shirt. I found later that I had actually packed my face mask but didn't know it--I would have used it had I knew it was there. An older hiker stopped by while I was heating my MRE and he was very talkative, which I liked. He seemed very knowledgeable about the area, saying that he had hiked it since he was a kid, and since he looked to be in his upper fifties, that's a long time! After discussing our various gear and other trail talk, I asked him about the 'Bake Oven' name, and he said that there was an oven on that hill years many ago, and that it had been dismantled, from fire hazard, I suppose. I headed back to Bear Rocks and there was nobody around, so I scrambled up the pile of limestone (tuscarora maybe?) and found my tired legs to be a bit wobbly, so I didn't get all the way on top. Bear Rocks is essentially several monoliths created by erosion. They stand about 30-40 feet high and make some neat little cliffs. Of course, kids have painted graffiti on many of them, but it's still a pretty cool place to go. I'll have to check it out again on the way in. The hike back was very boring on the Jeep trail, and it seemed much longer than it did on the way in . . .
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