the Way of the Turtle

2.1 Mile Snowshoe to No Bottom Pond
Sunday, January 10, 2010

From Harvey Mountain I drove over to nearby Beebe Hill State Forest, which in addition to a number of hiking trails has two points of note - a fire tower on the top of Beebe Hill itself and in almost exactly the opposite direction No Bottom Pond, so named because tradition has it there's one point where soundings don't give a depth. Since it was getting late in the day I decided to visit the fire tower another time and settled for hiking out to No Bottom Pond.

No Bottom Pond has a certain degree notoriety for two reasons. The first is that is periodically disappears. Apparently there's a small drain in one spot which, when the local water levels start dropping, allows the pond to drain down to a small puddle, so at any given time a visitor might find anything from a full pond to an almost empty one. This has apparently happened since the first recorded observations of the pond. The second is an association with an infamous figure in local history, Oscar Beckwith, sometimes referred to as the cannibal of Columbia County. As detailed in Patricia Clyne's Hudson Valley Tales and Trails, Beckwith was a miner living in Austerlitz in the 1870's who murdered and dismembered his business partner. The unexpected return of his victim's landlord resulted in the crime being discovered before Beckwith could dispose of the remains; parts of the body were found in his stove and a pickling barrel, the liver was in a frying pan on the stove, and later at his trial Beckwith admitted he'd planned to eat parts of his victim, though it's not clear that he actually managed to do so before being discovered (but then, "the intended cannibal of Columbia County" isn't nearly as alliterative.) A posse from nearby Alford, MA, came to Beckwith's cabin to arrest him, but Beckwith had fled. They followed his tracks through the snow to No Bottom Pond, where the tracks vanished and the pursuers concluded that Beckwith had hidden in one of the many caves near the pond. They gave up the pursuit and Beckwith escaped to Canada, only to be brought back almost 4 years later and finally tried and hung two years after that.

According to my trail map there are three routes to the pond, two on a loop road (used as a snowmobile trail this time of year) and one a hiking trail. I opted for the easiest choice, the shorter side of the snowmobile loop. It was pretty easy going for a while and then went up and up... not tremendously steep, but also not a welcome climb after my trek in Pittsfield yesterday and my hike up Harvey Mountain today. Just over the top of the hill a hiking trail climbed a bit further and then dropped down to the shore of the pond. I was very glad for my snowshoes along that stretch - it had been hiked by folks without snowshoes and was a mess of post holes.

Not much to see at the pond, no great surprise - its frozen over and snow covered - though at least it looked like it was close to full. I hiked around the east end to get to some of the rock formations across from the spot where the trail ended... pretty cool, I'll have to get back there in warm weather and get a better look. There were also a lot of signs of beavers around the edges of the pond... gnawed trees and quite a few that had been dropped by the little guys.

After that it was just a matter of hiking back out... up the hill to the snowmobile trail, and then back down to the car. I actually ended up running down the hill I'd hiked up earlier - it was easier than trying to walk down it - and thankfully didn't have any snowmobiles go through while I was there. Once I got back to the car I really wished I'd brought dry pants to change into... I'll have to remember next time to dress like I would for XC skiing and bring extra clothes (which I would just naturally do if I was planning to go for a run.)

JMH