Long Path Sect 34; Indian Ladder to Rt 146

On the 23rd, Kathy and I did the northernmost section of the Long Path Excursion. The day started cold and cloudy but cleared up nicely and we had a perfect hiking day.

We started at Indian Ladder picnic area and headed north. The trail was wide and smooth and ran through the woods. There was only one hill to climb so the hiking was very easy. A peculiarity of this section was the many fissures in the ground. The escarpment had many cracks and they ran a long way from the edge. Kathy managed to get a picture of one. We had a great view spot about 3 miles into the hike.

At noon, we reached the road and were completely confused. The guide book talked about passing thru a quarry but we never saw a quarry. We hiked back into the woods and found a nice spot to have lunch and examined the guidebook map and directions. As far as we could tell, the trail had been rerouted, cutting about a mile off of the trail and completely by-passing the quarry. So we missed the rock formation and a chance to pick up some fossils.

After lunch we finished the road hike part of the trail. We enjoyed looking at the houses and the fall plant colors. Overall, Kathy's GPS indicated we hiked 6.8 miles.

Long Path Sect 33: East Berne to Thatcher Park

On Sunday the 19th, Kathy and I planned to hike section 33 of the Long Path. We managed to talk Randy and Gail into coming with us. We parked my car at the Indian Ladder picnic area parking lot in Thatcher Park, and we positioned her car at Stage Rd where Kathy and I had left off our last Long Path hike. Hiking north was a road walk, and having conflicting information on whether the Roemer's Point area was still open to the public, we hiked the .9 miles of Elm Drive to the southern edge of the Roemer property. It turns out, the trail is closed so we had to hike back to the Elm Drive and Long Road intersection.

It was a nice day so we didn't mind too much. It took us a minute or two but finally deciphered the blazing, leading north on Elm (vs South on Elm to the Roemer property.).

This took us to Beaver Dam Rd, which we followed for about a mile before reaching the trail at John Boyd Thatcher State Park. We missed the whole section from 2.35 mile point to 6.35 mile point but we spoke with a Ranger when we entered the park. It turns out that there is a way from Beaver Dam Rd up toward Roemer's Point but the property has been permanently closed to the public due to hiker misuse. It's no longer part of the Long Path.

Anyway, finally in the woods, we took a lunch break at a small stream just before the Upper Knoweles Flat Picnic Area. There was a picnic table beside the stream and out of the wind and in a sunny spot. With the water gently gurgling in the background, a very nice place to lunch. After lunch, we hiked on to the parking area Escarpment overlook. This is incredibly impressive. From this Helderberg Escarpment a person can see north to the Adirondacks and east to the Green Mountains of Vermont. The trail follows the escarpment across the parking area and then down a park path to the Indian Ladder trail. This leads down the face of the escarpment to a couple of water falls the hiker walks under and then back up the escarpment face.
Down and up both on metal stairways installed for the purpose of getting down to the undercut face of the escarpment. Many people were out on the beautiful Sunday with lots of kids having a blast!

Shortly thereafter we were back at the parking area where we left our car. We finally figured we hiked about 8.8 miles on a beautiful fall day and saw incredible views of the Hudson River Valley to boot. A good day out.

Fall Trip to the Ledge

Randy and I decided that since we haven't been up to the ledge yet this year, we'd take a trip up. The weather was forcast to be nice on October 4th so we called my brother Steve to see if he wanted to go with us. He was good for a trip so we were on.

We met at 10am in our backyard and Steve brought his son, Justin. They also brought one of their dogs, Apothis. The day was perfect, sunny, cool and this area is at peak fall color. We moved right along, up the Winnie Rd and right at the base of the mountain. Randy brought along our GPS and he took a way point at the sand pit.

Steve headed us up the mountain. We moved around the base of the cliffs as usual but once at the top of the cliffs, the full year's growth of foliage confused our usual landmarks.

It turned out that we over shot upwards of 300 feet, going pretty much to the top of the mountain and several hundred feet west too. We had to back track and even when we were right on top of the ledge, we still had a hard time recognizing it. We've always been there in the spring, before the leaves had grown out. Just goes to show I guess.

Anyway, we had a nice picnic lunch on the ledge. Randy took several pictures of the view down the river valley.

On the way down, we again had trouble with the increased vegetation and ended up going way too far to the east and ended up backtracking westward to the sand pit. Once there, it was an easy hike out. The whole trip was only 3.5 - 4 hours but we were glad we had the GPS along to make backtracking a little easier.

Section 32 Long Path Excursion

Finally, out for a hike! Kathy and I met at our usual location, Dunkin Donuts just off of Rt 88 about 0830 and headed off to Albany County. We parked my car at our finishing point and went to the southern end of the day's trail between Bern and Knox.

We had a great day for hiking; cool, clear and the leaves were starting to turn color. This section, about 9 miles, has about 3 miles of road walking but the traffic was so light that it wasn't a big deal. We enjoyed looking at the houses and farms along the road. The woods walk was even nicer. There were 3 very nice stream crossingson bridges, here's a picture of one.


Only one or two boggy spots near the end of the trail. We spotted a couple of late ripening purple flowered raspberry, which Kathy knew as thumbberry. There were 4 berries left, perfectly ripe. We each ate 2. Very nice flavor!

In the red pine section we found where trail maintainers had tossed a pile of sticks. It seemed like a whole village of chipmunks have nested there. On top of the sticks was a big pile of pine cones. Pretty cool.


We finished the day's hike about 2:30pm. Next hike on this trail is section 33. Heading toward Thatcher Park and Indian Ladder.