Hike #1360; Chamberlain Brook to Beerston

Hike #1360; Chamberlain Brook to Beerston (Finger Lakes Trail)

10/1/20 Chamberlain Brook to Beerston Finger Lakes Trail with Justin Gurbisz, Jennifer Bee, Brittany Audrey, Kirk Rohn, and Jennifer Tull

This next hike would be the next in the Finger Lakes Trail series I’d started several years ago.

Along Finger Lakes Trail

I was very much looking forward to this one, not only because I’d enjoyed the previous ones so immensely, but because this one had a lot of stuff on it that would be more than just the “walk in the woods” the past ones were.

Finger Lakes Trail

The Finger Lakes Trail is hundreds of miles long. It connects with the Long Path at Slide Mountain in the Catskills, and the main route travels all the way west to western NY, and connections with the Allegheny National Scenic Trail which goes back down into Pennsylvania. There are ways of connecting through that to all of the other stuff I’d ben doing down in Pittsburgh. Of course, I want to do it all, but it’ll take a lifetime. Much of the route is also North Country National Scenic Trail.

Starting out from our pull off

This would be our eighth hike in the Finger Lakes Trail series, with the first including the Long Path from Slide Mountain and down to the Neversink Valley, the second being more of the Neversink Valley with more Long Path and Red Hill, the fourth being Red Hill area west through the valley, the fifth over Balsam Lake Mountain, the sixth in the hills west of there, the seventh out to Downsville, and the eighth was almost a year ago between Downsville and Beerston.
I’d hoped to get back sooner, but there is just too much interesting stuff to do.

Where the trail turned away

The last few hikes in this series were just very relaxing, backwoods area things, where we barely saw anyone else out there at all. While this would be much like that, there were some more really fabulous points on it. Still, we did not see a single other hiker on the entire route that I can recall, all day long.
We met in Beerston at an access point to the West Branch of the Delaware River along Rt 10, which was where we started the previous hike. We then shuttled in my van to the start point, which was Chamberlain Brook Road much further to the west, and high above Cannonsville Reservoir.

Foot bridge at Chamberlain Brook

The road is a dead end, although it used to go through, and I at first could not find where the trail was. We saw it at the far end, and where the map said there was parking, we could see none. It turned out it is just a pull off along the road, which is atypical for what we do.
Chamberlain Brook Road is a long dirt road, and we only had to walk down it a bit to see where the white blazes turned to the left to head east into the hills. We passed through the field and then descended slightly to cross the Chamberlain Brook on a little foot bridge.

On da trail

The trail was immediately just a tiny, little traveled foot path. I immediately loved it. The previous hike on it had one section like this, but the majority of it was woods roads or really wide mowed paths, which was unexpected.
The trail started to climb rather gradually, but nothing too bad. I hurried along and got way ahead of everyone else. I was expecting since this was Catskills, although western Catskills, that the climbs would be far tougher than they actually were.
I waited at the intersection with a side trail onto private land, thinking it was the top of the hill we had reached, but it wasn’t. Still, we were making pretty good time.

Da trail

The trail went a bit more up a rise, and then gradually descended through woods, over another brook, and then skirted stone walls of former farm lands.
It wasn’t too long before we emerged at a little looping parking area where there was a beat looking old truck sitting. We hadn’t passed anyone on the trail, so whoever it was must have been off hunting or something.
This section was Fletcher Hollow Road, another nice dirt road, and the trail followed it downhill with some splendid views of the hills ahead.

FLT

The dirt Fletcher Hollow Road intersected with the paved Finch Hollow Road, and the trail turned right to follow this for a bit, then right on Dryden Road.
There were just a few houses on this road. One of them might have been an old barn originally, or it was a house built onto the bank slope of the old barn, which was a nice touch.
The little Finch Brook paralleled the road somewhat closely as we continued south, and there were some great views of it and down the valley looking south when we got to the bridge that crossed it.

FLT

We continued on the trail a little beyond the bridge, and then it turned left into the woods. It climbed slightly, and then picked up an old woods road which followed land contour to the east a bit.

FLT

I let everyone know that it was going to be the hardest part of the hike. We were going to be walking either gradually or steeply, uphill for the next several miles until we got to the top of Tower Mountain. I think I might have psyched everyone out more than was necessary, but I didn’t know what to expect from the climb.
The first bit was sparse woodlands with some birch and such, and then it passed through rather obvious former meadows. There were some Eastern Red Cedar, and a bit of a view through the very young trees to the Cannonsville Reservoir. None of this was very difficult or steep at all.

FLT view in Finch Hollow

We came upon our first trail register, a mail box in this section, and I signed in where we were going.
We came upon a trail closure sign in this bit that said it was closed starting the day we got there, but none of the maps we had seen anywhere said the fall hunting closures took place this early. I would assume someone just didn’t want anyone in there, but I can’t be sure.

FLT

There were no signs on one end of the property, but there were on the other.
The trail started to turn and get a bit more steep, but despite being at higher elevation, we passed by some gloriously huge old Sugar Maple trees. There was quite a plantation of them on this hillside, many very old and healthy. A few of the were standing dead, but most were living. A couple of them were among the biggest of that species I’ve seen.

Big Sugar Maple

We started climbing more steeply beyond here. At one point, it got really pretty tough. There were not so many big switchbacks in the middle part, and we were just going uphill. I suppose on a trail so lightly trafficked, having tight switchbacks isn’t so necessary because we wouldn’t get the kind of erosion we’d see on a busier trail.

FLT view

The climb started to taper off a bit, and we came to a grassy old woods road where we’d pretty much reached the top. Justin and Brittany got really far ahead in this bit, and then Kirk and Jenny got ahead of me. They ended up missing a trail turn and turned back to me, and Jen caught up about then. We all continued on and I found the trail turn, but it took us back downhill a bit, followed by one more bit of up on another woods road for a bit.
I was surprised when the trail all of a sudden emerged into an area of an abandoned bluestone quarry. There was a messed up frame of a building, and lots of bluestone, some of which looked pre-cut, strewn about.

FLT scene

We looked around a bit and continued on the trail, which followed the woods road access to this site, which remains on private land, for a bit.

Finch Brook view

The trail turned back into a foot path through some woods again until we eventually came into the clearing for the Rock Rift Fire Tower.
This was one of the highlights of the hike, and my understanding of it going in was that the tower was one of the ones that had been rehabilitated.
This was not the case at all. This fire tower was a damned mess. Two entire flights of the stairs to climb the thing had been completely removed to discourage people from going up, and some fencing around the third flight was in place to make it harder to climb onto.

View from Rock Rift Fire Tower

For us, it really wasn’t hard to climb up. The framework is just basically an adult jungle gym. We climbed up the angled bracing and were able to get onto the lower level of the steps with really no problem.
The wood of the stairs was not great, and some of it was broken, but I made sure to brace most of my weight on the hand rails on the way up to the top.

Rock Rift Fire Tower view

The view up there was spectacular. The tower is supposed to be restored eventually, or at least that is the plan, it just has a long way to go.
The box at the top is riddled with bullet holes that were obviously from ground level.

Climbin

We took a long break at the tower. From that point, it was going to be pretty much down hill and relatively flat for the rest of the way, for the most part, at least according to the elevation profiles on the maps that I’d looked at.
We eventually were on our way, and followed the foot path away from the tower and into more woods. The way down got rather steep at times, with some nice little rocky sections.

A few steep rocks...

The trail made a long route down from Tower Mountain to the east a bit, and emerged in a meadow with a bit of a view, then turned hard right to follow the slope east again.
The trail was really pleasant after that spot, and then came out into a meadow that even had a single pass with a mower. I felt like we were really getting spoiled at this point.
Beyond, we hit a driveway and it showed that the trail turned left, and we followed it out to Rt 10, but there were no blazes. I turned back to look for where they would be. I knew we had come out to the road too early and I didn’t want to miss anything cool.

FLT easy spot

I found that the trail basically crossed the driveway and didn’t follow it. I called back to everyone to follow me, but they didn’t initially do so. I turned onto the trail and followed it through the hills, and kept hollering back to them, but I didn’t know what they were doing. I figured some of them might try to follow the road.

FLT view

The trail was quite undulating in this next section. It wasn’t at all level. It was pretty, and narrow, but not the super easy stretch I’d imagined it might be.
When it finally did come out to Rt 10, it was really super steep for a bit. I climbed down and had to wait for a while at the intersection of 10 and 268 for them to show up.
They all did decide to remain on the trail, and together we crossed the Rt 268 bridge over the West Branch of the Delaware River. Just downstream from us, the former site of the bridge that carried the predecessor to this highway could be seen because the water was so low. The old Rt 10 could also be seen along the north shore very clearly.

Old Rt 10 and old 268 bridge site at Cannonsville Reservoir

Once we got to the other side of the bridge, it was still feeling quite warm. I figured being in the Catskills would be super cold, but this was nice. We climbed down from the bridge to the underside, and I stepped down into the West Branch of the Delaware for a dip. It felt absolutely great.
Jen also got barely in as well, but I actually went out and swam. The water felt wonderful.
Feeling refreshed, I was ready to continue on with no problem.
On the other side, there was a parking area to the right that utilized the old road route out to the former bridge site. We continued up 268 just a little bit, and the trail soon cut into the woods to the left.

Old bridge site at Cannonsville Reservoir

We climbed for a bit, and eventually picked up the old right of way of the former New York, Ontario, and Western Railroad.
This was an area just to the north of Apex, NY. The railroad was the Delhi Branch of the “O&W” line. The line started as the New York and Oswego Midland Railroad in 1868, and the O&W inherited the line and improved upon it in the early 1880s.

Historic Jim Shaughnessy photo of the O&W Railroad at Apex NY, OWHS Archives

This line is incredibly popular among rail fans, maybe because it should never have been built to begin with. Crossing the Catskills, with all of the crazy grading and low speed limits, it really never was a success. It was nicknamed the “Old Woman” or “Old and Weary” early on.
The railroad was already losing money by the 1930s, and on March 29th, 1957, it became the first American railroad to completely abandon its entire main line all at once.
I’ve been slowly hiking portions of it in a series, but this disconnected section had escaped me for a while, and now that it fits into another series, I was ready to do it.
I’ve hiked the O&W main line in odd segments from Highview Tunnel to Summitville, and then none of it until Fish’s Eddy, then I’d done from Fish’s Eddy to Cadosia, and then the entire Scranton Branch. I’ve also done most of the Kingston Branch, and some of the Port Jervis Branch. Maybe one of these days I’ll try to finish it, who knows.

Apex cut on the O&W

The rail line came in at an angle from Apex, and the trail followed it a short bit to the east, but then turned hard to the uphill for a bit. I think there is a missing bridge just ahead on the grade, but the trail actually goes up to a bit of a view ahead.

The rock cut

We stopped for the view on a side trail, and Jen made a wrong turn by going back down the way we came up, thinking the whole thing was just a spur. The rest of us continued, and the trail came back down to the O&W grade just before a very dramatic railroad cut. When we noticed Jen wasn’t with us when we got there, I ran back to find her. She’d gotten back on the correct path and she was just a bit behind.
We headed through the rock cut and had a nice break at the far end of it.
We continued on the rail bed from here quite easily. The Finger Lakes Trail simply follows it with almost no deviation from this point to the former village of Rock Rift.

Climbing through trees

Even though this is a railroad grade, it’s not one that’s open to bicycles, and it’s not easy to get to. The sections is very long. There are places where trees have fallen over it, and we simply had to climb through them, over them, or under them. Some weeds grow up through the thing, but there is nothing but a footpath on this. No evidence of ATVs could be found anywhere back there. No one would really ride a bicycle either because it is too hard to reach from the west end, and inconvenient to do an out and back on it from the east.

O&W grade

There were a few major washouts in this section, and in some wet areas or washouts, wooden boardwalks or little bridges had to be placed to span them.
There was one more major trestle site that was entirely missing, and the trail went right and then left again to cross lower at a narrower spot on a foot bridge, then headed back up to the rail bed again.
There was one spot where a bridge was missing, and a nice Kingpost truss foot bridge had been erected to span the gap.

Kingpost truss

I knew we were reaching the end of the rail bed section for a bit when I spotted a concrete whistle marker ahead. That meant we were getting close to a former road crossing, because the train was signaled to sound its whistle.
Sure enough, just ahead the Finger Lakes Trail turned left from the rail bed down into the former settlement of Rock Rift, which was destroyed for the development of Cannonsville Reservoir.
I checked out some old bottles laying around at this time from the old town.

Old whistle marker

I found one from Mission Beverage from Endicott NY.
We went downhill a bit and there was a grade of a former spur from the O&W line associated with the lumber industry.
A lot of the former lumber business of the Risley Lumber Company I think was for creation of acid for batteries and such.
The trail took us down over the secondary railroad grade and then down to where the road used to continue through the settlement. We could tell where the houses used to be, because they would have been lined with Norway Spruces or with more largely growing Sugar Maples.

Rock Rift NY historic image

The trail turned right to pick up the road road that came into the town, the previous alignment of Rt 10, and turned east, to the right. We passed through thick stands of Japanese Knotweed, and then came to a former bridge site over the Carcass Brook.

Rock Rift, almost the same spot, today

The trail continued on this road a bit further, back into some woods. Some of it appeared to have been built on what would have been an O&W railroad spur to the settlement of Rock Rift.
The trail turned hard right up an access road to the right, and emerged onto Rainbow Lodge Road. It looked to me licke some of this road was built on the railroad bed, and the original road is now the trail. We turned left on Rainbow Lodge Road briefly, and then turned right onto the trail along the old road.
The ups and downs on the road route must have been a road, because it was too much for a railroad to do.
We continued on the road until it turned harder to the left and passed a parking area for access. We turned right from the lot onto more foot path, which went into meadow areas, and then weaved up and down a bit through the lands along the slope of the hill.

The old highway bridge and Carcass Brook

Eventually, the trail came back out to Rt 10, which had crossed from the other side of the West Branch of the Delaware. It turned right on the road briefly, and Brittany and Justin had alrady been walking that for a shortcut.
The trail soon cut into the woods to the left, and went down along flood plains and wetlands. Brittany hurried ahead and opted to take the trail again at this point.
The trail skirted a slope along the wetlands for a bit, but then offered an excellent view down the West Branch of the Delaware valley, with the mountain peaks on either side.
After a bit, the trail turned ninety degrees to the left, and then went straight out across this meadow, which provided us with the best views of the waterfront yet.
We pushed on through to the north, and the trail picked up the O&W Railroad grade again, after having been in the water for a bit or wetlands.
We continued on the rail bed, but then turned off of it again to the left, and picked up more of Old Rt 10, which provided some very nice views of the Delaware RIver. We walked along this until that eventually took us out in a parking area with a nice big tree.

Along the West Branch of the Delaware

The trail turned right briefly on Rt 10, and then left again on the other side through a meadow, and then through a thick stand of Spruce trees.
We weaved around in here, and it was getting very dark very fast. Still, it was fine, and it soon took me out to the O&W Railroad bed again, after it crossed 10.
I think some of the group just followed the road at this section, but I was surprised to see that actually a lot of them followed the trail.
Once we were on the railroad bed, it was great. We basically stayed right on that railraod bed to the end of the hike.

Vicinity near the end point

It kept getting darker, but we pushed on through. The trail went behind the shooting range for the police, and it fortunately wasn’t shut off this time of year. We cut right on out to Beers Brook Road at the end point, turned left, and then right to the cars at the end.

Fallen tree on Chamerlain Brook Rd

We’d had just barely enough daylight to get on to the end, and I was quite happy to have done this section before it was shut off for the Winter.
Jenny and Brittany took us back to our cars, and we figured we’d stick together instead of all just driving home, and get something to eat in Hancock.
As we headed back up the dirt Chamberlain Brook Road toward my van again, we found that a tree had fallen down over it while we were out hiking!
This was odd, because there was really no wind, and overall pretty perfect weather. We ended up getting out, and Kirk and I both had to pull on some of the branches to get them to snap, and when relieved enough tension on it, we were able to drag the remainder of the trail out of the way just enough so that we could get our cars around it.
It was quite a nice way to end the night, aside from dinner. Hancock House was pretty good food, and our waitress was hilarious, saying more nonsensical things than even I say.
I hope to get back up that way and do another section ror two of the Finger Lakes Trail, but it’s getting so much further away that most of it would have to be done as multiple day trips. Maybe one of these days....

HAM