ATC Trail Days 2008

On Thursday the 15th, Randy and I drove south to Harrisburg PA to meet my Tiger Bomber hiking friend Susan and her husband George. We stayed overnight with them and then we all piled into thier big truck and headed to Damascus VA to attend the Appalachian Trail Conservancy Trail Days. This is a big hiker festival held by Damascus cause the AT runs right thru the middle of town and this is the time of year the thru hikers are coming thru. Anyway. We got there about 3pm and set up our tents in the backyard of a B&B. Lots and lots of tents in all the neighboring yards too. We settled in, had dinner at a local pizzaria with other Tiger Bombers (Wendy and Denny and after dinner, sat around the backyard picnic table having drinks and talking about the trail. I reconnected with several of the hikers I met in April starting at Springer Mtn. I also met several others that Susan met while she was out for 30 days.

On Saturday Randy and I explored the town. We headed out to tent city, the location where most of the hikers were tenting to see the gear vendors out there. Tent city is party central, the reason we all decided to tent in town. Then Randy and I walked back to the park, at the other end of Damascus to see the rest of the vendors. We bought a few gifts for people and had a good lunch. At 2pm the Hiker Parade took place. It's traditional for hikers and spectators to squirt each other with water from squirt guns and water balloons. Strange dress on the part of the hikers is also traditional. Randy got some good pictures. We sat around the tent the rest of the afternoon chit chatting with all the hikers and at dinner walked down to the park and got some BBQ for dinner from one of the vendors. Again on Saturday night, lots of talk around the picnic table.

On Sunday AM, we packed up and headed back to PA and got to Susan's about 6:30pm. While on the ride, George suggested "Klik" for Randy's trailname. We tried it out all day. We spent the night and got headed out to NY about 8am. On the drive, Randy decided to use "Popcorn" instead of "Klik" for his trail name. I like Klik better but Popcorn is good too. We got home about 2:30pm.

Northern Excursion Section 31

Kathy and I decided to do section 31 of the Long Path Northern Excursion yesterday. The section goes north from the Albany county line to Switz Kill Rd in Albany county, 11.85 miles. We couldn't have ordered a better day. Clear sky and sunshine, temps in the low 70's. There were some mayflies or blackflies but they weren't biting. This part of the trail stays at the top of the ridge, no real climbs to speak of. It also is mostly within the Partridge Run State Wildlife management area. The trail is a combination cross country ski, hiking and in some parts, snow machine trail. It is comfortably wide, runs thru various types of stands of trees and open meadows. We saw lots of wildflowers the last 3 miles, blue and yellow violets, trillium, Carolina spring beauties, Jack-in-the-Pulpit and some others I can't identify.

Today I'm resting up for our weekend trip the the ATC Trail Days in Damascus VA. Can hardly wait to see my Tiger Bomber friends.

Alpiner Hike: East Branch Sacandaga Trail

On Saturday May 10th, I led the Herkimer Alpiner hiking club hike to the East Branch Sacandaga trail and lean-to. There were 8 of us on the hike and the day couldn't have been nicer. The trail had dried out considerably since we did our hike survey last week. Lots of wildflowers were now in bloom and in addition to the ones last week I saw little white cinqfoil and black cohosh and dutchman's breeches. The last may be one of my new favorites. Once we got up to the lean-to, we explored the other side of the river, going over the bridge and a couple hundred feet to a stream flowing into the E. Sacandaga that has little water falls on it. Very pretty. We headed back to the trail head after lunch and again, total hiking time was 4 hours. (About 45 minutes at the lean-to.) Note; the may flies are out and were flying into eyes, nose and mouth. Time to bring out the bug nets!

Finishing our 1st Long Path Section

On Sunday the 4th, my friend Kathy and I finished section 30 of the Long Path Northern Excursion. The day was cool and a little rainy but since there was some climbing, of Cotton Hill and another mountain, we appreciated the cool weather. We were both kind of surprised at the lack of wildflowers on the trail. Since I saw so many along the trail on Thursday in the Adirondacks, I was sure there would be lots, already in bloom, farther to the south. But, not so. Oh well. We did see 2 old dug wells from the 1930's that used to be used for forest fire fighting. We also saw a very pretty little water fall. The lean-to on Cotton Hill was in good shape. We stopped there for a brief rest about an hour into the hike. I'm posting a picture or 2 in my MySpace photo album. http://www.myspace.com/reloc.cfm?c=2&id=2b8710e7-8c17-4d2a-988d-eb9936ad288a

We got back to my car about 2pm, so it only took us 4 hours to do the nearly 8 miles. Can't wait to do the next section.

Site Survey of East Branch Sacandaga River Trail

I'm scheduled to lead a Herkimer Alpiner hiking club hike on May 10th on this trail. Yesterday I had nothing scheduled it it turned out to be a nice day so I decided to do my survey of the trail. Randy decided to come along so we packed up and were on the road to the trailhead by 0830.

The easiest way to find the trail head is to head north on Rt 30 and go thru Wells. Just north of Wells there is an intersection of Rt 30 and Rt 8. Turn right (east) on Rt 8 going toward North Creek. About 14.5 miles, on the left, you'll see the DEC sign post for Eleventh Mountain. It's a pretty fair sized parking area as this is a major entry point for the Siamese Ponds wilderness area.

When we arrived at the trail head, 2 guys and a gal were packing up for what looked like an extended fishing trip into the area. They hit the trail before us and we never saw them again. The trail starts uphill immediately and goes up (according to the Adirondack Trails Central Region guidebook) about 270 feet. After that, it's all downhill into the valley of the East Branch of the Sacandaga River. Along the way there are several places along the river that would make good picnic spots if a family didn't want to walk the 4 miles in to the lean-to (our destination). Also along the trail were several species of spring flowers, either in bloom already or about to bloom. I'm not great at it but I spotted, in bloom: yellow woods violets, red trillium, hobble bush and carolina spring beauty. About to bloom were lots of red trillium and wild oats. By next Saturday, when I lead the hike, all those flowers should be wide open and beautiful.

It took about 2 hours to get to the lean-to. As you can imagine, spring in the Adirondacks means several boggy spots on the trail, full streams and even a few spots of snow still left in the shadiest parts of the trail. However, nothing was too hard to cross or get around. The lean-to was in great shape and the shelter log noted that a group had been staying there the last couple of days. Randy took some pictures of the lean-to from the other side of the river. There's a very handy suspension bridge at the lean-to so people can cross over the river and get to the Siamese Ponds. Actually very picturesque. We ate some lunch and hung around about 45 minutes then headed back to the car. Again, about 2 hours back. Overall, a great day out.