Hike #177
Inside Catfish Tower
6/26/5
Lower Kittatinny Trails; Millbrook Rd-Dunnfield with Skyler Jermyn, David Noble, Julie Satmari, Kevin Dealy
This hike the original journal entry was also lost in the fire....
Here's a link to all of the pictures from it...
http://s132.photobucket.com/albums/q13/sneezehorse/hike177%206-26-5/
David in Catfish Tower with it's old equipment!
There are of course always plenty off noteworthing things that happen on these hikes that the pictures just can't do justice to, and I remember them pretty well...
Catfish Pond
On this one, we met at our end point, Dunnfield parking lot in Del Water Gap. My groups often times DO NOT look like hikers, especially after joining AMC I did not fit the mold at all.
I was joined by David, Skyler, and Julie at the parking area, but I was surprised no one else would show for a Del Water Gap hike (Kevin I think met us at Millbrook/Blairstown road). We were all laughing and having a good time doing little in-car dances to the "Water Gap Banjo Band" which David had a tape of in his car, which we were al sitting in. After the hike was over I recieved an e mail from someone asking "You were'nt by any chance those people bobbing around in that old (something, I forget what kind of car it was, it had plates that read "BMW NOT") were you?" Of course I had to tell him, that was us! I remember Julie just sitting there laughing at us. She said rather than being crazy herself, sorrounding herself with crazy people was good enough!
David playing piano at Mohican Center
Catfish Pond
Rattlesnake
We started walking along the AT, then headed up to the Catfish Fire Tower. On this trip, we were lucky enough to get to go inside! State Forest Fire Service guys were there! We each got pins saying we'd visited a fire tower, and they showed us the old equipment that was still in use!
From here, we continued to Rattlesnake Swamp Trail I think and descended to Camp Mohican. We took a swim in Catfish Pond.
Rattlesnake on Turquoise Trail
Off trail view on the Kittatinny Ridge near Tammany
Off trail view on the Kittatinny Ridge near Tammany
Off trail view and Paulins Kill Viaduct
Splashing into Dunnfield Creek
We went into the visitor's center, which is usually a nice time, and there are musical instruments. This time, when we walked in the place reeked of marijuana smoke, and the guys working the place obviously did'nt want us there. The only other visitor was sitting on the front porch. We asked the guy what kind of food he had. Another guy was around the corner and he would sometimes peer around looking at us. He said "Just what you see". I asked "Well what about the deli sandiwches they used to offer here". "Oh yeah, we have those too" he said. We immediately started feeling unwelcome. We saw the sign on the piano that said "out of order, do not touch". I asked him what happened to it, and told him David was a skilled pianist and could probably fix it, to which he concurred.
"Oh, I just put that sign there because we did'nt want kids pounding on it". I asked him if it would be alright if David played some songs, to which he said ok. David started playing some nice stuff, and we did a couple of Beatles songs and the guy came out and told us to keep it quiet (like Beatles songs are so loud?). When we started doing "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" he came out again, saying "I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to stop, if the phone rings I won't be able to hear it". We were just blown away that such an outragious stupid claim could be made, and so we scowled at him as we left. Just after getting out the door David yelled "WAAA I CAN'T HEAR THE PHOOOONEEE" in a baby voice. Kevin commented as we left that it was the worst experiance he'd ever had with anyone there...
Along Turquoise Trail
We continued on along the AT and turned left on Turquoise Trail, and we took a swim in Sunfish Pond. We took Turquoise Trail to Tammany Fire Road and turned right. We saw a rattle snake or two along the way. We cut off of the Tammany Fire Road because we wanted to find the long abandoned Yellow Trail (which was only on the 1988 Trail Conference map). We never found it, but we found some great off trail view points. It was my second time looking for this trail and failing.
Dunnfield Hollow
We continued to the Blue Dot Trail to Dunnfield Creek and took a dip before returning to the cars at the trailhead.
I JUST REMEMBERED:::
We did'nt take the AT after Mohican. We walked Camp Road to Gaisler Road and turned south. We followed the abandoned section of Gaisler into the scout camp and wandered that to Kaiser Road Trail. I remember sipping Grand Maornier I'd gotten from my friend Al Eisberg as a birthday present a while back along the road and it all came back to me...wow.
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