Sitting in the NE corner of Rensselaer County is 846 acre Tibbits State Forest, which is almost perfectly divided in two by Route 7 in the town of Hoosic. Several years ago I visited the more popular southern section of the State Forest, but today wanted to check out the northern part. I was anxious to get out exploring after work with the sun finally making an appearance today after several cloudy, gloomy days. Parked in the large unmarked pull off on the north side of Route 7 (Elevation 710 feet) and headed into the woods, crossing a small stream flowing down from the hillsides above.
Side Note-The parking lot wasn't plowed at all but there is enough room to safely get your car off of the road in front of the parking area
I picked up a good woods road, which headed steeply north and was covered in sporadic snow.
After a pretty steep climb up, I was rewarded with decent through the trees views to the south of the rolling hills south of Route 7.
When I hit 1200 feet, the climbing began to level off and the woods really began to open up. Although there were no wide open views, there were good screened views to the south. From this high up I was also finally able to see part of the snow capped Taconic ridge to the SE.
I continued a bit further north until I hit a power line crossing, where I decided to turn east and follow the edge of the woods from there. The power lines offered up amazing views into Vermont, with Mount Anthony in the foreground and part of Glastenbury Mountain covered in snow and towering off in the distance.
Back in the woods, I saw some old stone walls covered in a couple inches of snow and bathed in late afternoon sunlight.
The woods were mostly very open and easy to navigate. The late afternoon sun was a welcome companion.
There are several very open areas up high which appeared to have been logged and cleared several years ago. This was one of the few logged areas that wasn't filled in with prickers however.
A steep drop back down brought me to a woods road which surprisingly had blue trail blazes. I followed the blue blazes almost directly back to the car, crossing back over another pretty drainage coming down the slopes above.
Hiked just over 2 miles total(mostly all bushwhack/ woods roads), with about 740 feet of ascent. Got back to the car with a few minutes of daylight to spare. The days are slowly lengthening, which is reason to smile for all of us.
Today's rough route below in red.
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