Hike #1186; Canopus Lake to Beacon

Hike #1186; Canopus Lake to Beacon

12/23/18 Canopus Lake (Fahnestock SP) to Beacon with Craig Craig, Ricardo Alejandro Furstein, Jennifer Berndt, Jennifer Tull, Serious Sean Dougherty, Janet Lynn McCourt-Finsen, Pete G. Wilcox, and Kellie Kegan

Our next hike would be a great point to point thing returning to the Hudson Highlands for the first time in a long while. I stalled on the Metrotrails Appalachian Trail series after completing Connecticut, but we were last year a while back on the AT series in NY.

Rock face on the AT in Fahnestock

This hike came together through my friend Kralc Leahcim (Lerch) who made me aware that the group “The Obnoxious Hiker” was running a trip organized by Polly Delafield in the area of Beacon New York. I didn’t have anything concrete for the schedule yet for the day, and so I started looking at stuff I could slap together for the trip.
Because it was a Winter day, I figured I’d look at connecting form previous hikes we’d done right on the Hudson, such as from Cornwall-On-Hudson, or maybe from Camp Smith much further to the south. These options came up with a lot of mileage.

Jolly Rovers Trail Crew work on the AT.

It was looking like the group was getting together for dinner in Beacon (recently named America’s coolest little town), and I just figured we’d end a hike at the same spot.
After coming up with various ways of doing my hike, I considered going from the east rather than from along the Hudson.
Of course, all of my Metrotrails hikes are going to be at least fifteen miles, and this would be no exception, so I needed to come up with something like that, and I realized that Fahnestock State Park was about the right distance to the east. If we could do about eight miles prior to the other group reaching the top of Mount Beacon, we’d be able to meet them on top and conclude the hike together.

View on Fahnestock Trail just above the AT

After realizing Fahnestock would actually be a reasonable option, I started fine tuning. The group in the Obnoxious Hiker was good enough to show me their exact planned route on a map so I would know where I would need to approach from. With that, the latter portion of the hike sort of planned itself in Hudson Highland State Park’s Mount Beacon area. We would use the same trail head they were using as our meeting point.

Fahnestock Trail

The only part left for me to plan was the route through Fahnestock, and where we would start.
Of course, I wanted it to directly connect to the previous hike, so that starting point would have to be the Appalachian Trail (everyone of our hikes somehow connect with a previous one, so this one had to do so as well). I chose the point on Route 301 at Canopus Lake where the Appalachian Trail crosses for the start point, and then a few other trails followed by a road walk of just over three miles.

Fahnestock Trail

We met at the starting point, which was the Mount Beacon trailhead right in the town of Beacon. This appears to be a pretty busy trail head, so it was a good thing I made the meeting time a little bit earlier than I normally would.
We used a nice little deli across the street for food and snacks, because we weren’t going to be passing anything else all day, and then headed in my van and Craig’s SUV to the start point.

Beaver Pond crossing

It was very fortunate that there wasn’t any snow on the ground. The surface was all very good, and save for a tiny bit of ice, we had very good traction all day. The only annoyance was the dead leaves over all of the rocks.
We parked on 301 right at Canopus Lake, where the Appalachian Trail picks up the old mining railroad bed heading southbound, but goes off on rough terrain to the north. That would be our route this time.

These Beavers must have engineering degrees. Beaver Pond, Fahnestock

Clarence Fahnestock State Park was first donated to the State of New York in 1929 by Dr. Ernest Fanhestock, who named the park after his brother, who died after treating patients of the Influenza epidemic that followed World War I.

Beaver Pond

We started walking the Appalachian Trail through the rocky terrain to the north of Canopus Lake. There was some great trail work and stone steps throughout this region.

Beaver Pond

I told everyone (and since confirmed) that this was the work of the Jolly Rovers Trail Crew, run by former NYNJ Trail Conference main Chris Ingui. The group does awesome rock work in areas of heavy use (most the entire AT really is overused) to offset major erosion problems that are inevitable on the route.
We continued a bit further than I thought we should, and passed our trail intersection. These sections of trails are marked with DEC discs. They’re done to international standard with turn blazes mostly, but they can be really difficult to follow, especially when people tear them down all the time.

Charcoal Burners Trail

Serious Sean found an old blaze of paint on a steep spot, and then I found where it was supposed to be moved a bit further back. We didn’t go too far, fortunately.
The blue trail was called Fahnestock Trail, and it climbed to the ridge immediately adjacent to the AT, where we had an obscured view of Canopus Lake through the trees. After that initial climb, we had a pretty nice section over rocks along the top for a little while.
The trail eventually started descending through an area that was pretty badly washed out.

The leaf piles were like dams from recent rains washing over it, and eventually a spring came in on our left and overtook the trail a bit. We had to cross several wet spots. After the main flow crossing, we reached the Charcoal Burners Trail, red blazed, and turned right.
This route must be a former road, or close to it, where charcoal was produced for iron furnaces in the 1700s. I didn’t notice anything I was sure was a charcoal hearth, but I’m sure they’re there.

Wiccopee Trail

Soon, we came to Beaver Pond. This pond was clearly man made. It had a reasonable sized concrete dam impounding the water. I’m not sure why they decided to name a man made pond for beavers.
We checked out the views, and I walked through the the water back and forth across the dam a few times. We then moved on along the Charcoal Burners Trail to the north, which started to gain some more elevation to the top of a small ridge. This was a particularly nice section with pretty level bedrock on it.

Wiccopee Trail

We continued along this trail along the top of this ridge, and we actually came across another small group of hikers. As they went by, one of them commented something about the fact that I was wearing a suit and tie out there. I responded “I always hike in a suit!”. “Nooo...” the woman said. Jen said “Ohhhh, he does.”.
It’s always amusing to get people’s reactions to the suit and tie hiking. We continued on to the north toward the trail end.

Rock outcrops

Charcoal Burners Trail ended at an overlook to the northeast. We were looking on toward the Taconic ridge I believe at that point, and into Connecticut. The trail markers said this was the “Taconic Region”, but we were not hiking in the Taconics, it was still certainly the Highlands.
We stopped and took a break to enjoy the view for a bit before moving on. From this point, the trail colors change to red I think it was, and the Wiccopee Trail continues on. This is a native American name, and the name of a hamlet near Fishkill.

Old barn

I’m not sure what the name means, only it’s origin.
We continued on this trail, which started to descend a bit. We passed over some rock outcroppings in a back and forth manner, and sang along to Serious Sean strumming his acoustic guitar.
He’s always coming up with new songs to sing I’d never have imagined singing before. When we first got out of the car, after listening to it only one time, he was already playing Chadwick Stokes’s “Back to the Races” from Simmerkane II.

Weird cans on the wall...

When we were at the overlook, he started playing “Colour My World” by Chicago, followed by “Saturday In The Park”. There was some other song I don’t remember the name of, which even Sean said was not something he’d ever considered singing or playing, but something we were talking about made him think of it and he just learned to play it that quickly!
When we reached the base of one of the rocky outcroppings, we took a break for a bit and Sean started playing Supertramp’s “Give A Little Bit” to a chorus of hikers.

Cans on a wall...

We paused and started talking and laughing a bit while we had our break, and soon another hiker appeared on the rock outcrop behind us, descending into the little saddle between rocks.
As he came by us, there was no warm greeting.
“I could hear you guys three miles away. Don’t you know anything about hikers etiquette?” as he powered on by us. We all just kind of stood there, some of us holding back laughing.

Who nails cans to a wall?

When he was out of earshot, we became vocal again about how silly that was. Maybe we’re not the quietest bunch, but of all times I don’t think this was a very loud hike.

Abandoned farm

Sean summed it up brilliantly and humorously. He said that he could have just come up and said “Hey guys, how are ya?” and then gone on to ask if we could please quiet it down a bit.
Sean then paused and said “I mean, we wouldn’t...but he could at least have asked like that”.
We continued on along the trail, and after a hard right where it started to follow an old road route, I spotted an abandoned building below us to the left.

Old barn

We couldn’t go by an abandoned building without having a look around, so I started heading down to it. Everyone followed.
We stepped over a fence, and then entered the near portion of it closer to the slope. Inside, there was a weird bunch of old Oscar the Grouch style galvanized garbage cans nailed to the wall. I suppose they could have done this for storage, but at first it looked like they were setting up some sort of redneck game.

Animal stalls

Some of them had cinder blocks in it, so I was trying to figure out what kind of game involves lobbing cinder blocks at cans on the wall.
We went around the building by passing through the near portion, which had a mostly collapsed roof, to the front of the building. That was mostly all stalls for some sorts of animals. There were doors on each one, and each area was fenced in with an outdoor run section in addition to a bedding area inside. Jen went in and out of each of the cubbies looking around.

Abandoned road, now trail

Once we’d looked around the farm area enough, we headed back to the trail.
We turned to the right on the yellow blazed connecting trail in this area, known as Wiccopee Pass. From this point, the hike was super easy all the way to the ascent to Mt. Beacon.
We followed the trail through a former farm field area, and then into some woods with only a bit of a gentle rise in elevation. The woods road became more prominent as we continued to walk, and soon reached the Trout Brook.

East Mountain Road

It seems this stretch of road is an abandoned continuation to Trout Brook Road, the road the trail terminated on. There was one car in the parking area beyond the bridge, but it wasn’t he guy who had given us a hard time for being loud and obnoxious, or if it was, he wasn’t in it.
We continued up Trout Brook Road past a big house as well as a tennis court and a pond. Just after that, there was an abandoned road to the left. Trout Brook Road goes out to East Mountain Road South, but this section cuts a corner on that.

E Mountain Road S

Once out to East Mountain Road South (confusing these names, because there are apparently a few Mountain Roads), we turned left to follow it west.
The road was not paved, which made it very pleasant. It also wasn’t wide. Some of the trails we follow are wider than this.
I had checked where the pavement ended in planning of the trip, and determined that we would only need to walk 2.2 miles of paved road between unpaved roads and sections of park trails.

Lake view

More songs of course started up. One of the ones I remember particularly was Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love”.
The road had a lot of homes on it, but it wasn’t very busy at all. There were also three scenic ponds along the route. None of them were public, but we still got the nice view of the from the road.
We came to where the pavement began on the road, but the traffic still didn’t pick up. We continued walking past the couple of lakes, and then turned to the right when we reached Esselborne Road heading north.

Dirt back road

The road was pretty easy to walk to the north for a while, and pretty much mostly level. After a bit, we started to lose some elevation, and then it started dropping fast.

Sean playing Zeppelin with a bottle

Serious Sean was playing Led Zeppelin’s “You Shook Me” using a beer bottle to give it the slide guitar feel, which sounded pretty cool, all while walking!

Pond along the way

The road soon ran parallel with a tributary to Clove Creek, which was running pretty heavily.

Swamp view

On the opposite side of the creek and it’s gorge, another part of E Mountain Road was descending. The two came together a little further down and continued along the creek.

Waterfall

There was a pretty impressive waterfall along the road as we were heading down hill, and just below that was the ruins of a dam that used to span the creek.

Pond view

The road got very steep in this section. Serious Sean came running behind me saying it was hard to stop once you start to get inertia. It looked fun to me, so I started running too, and he was right! Once I was running, stopping just wasn’t an option. Even worse, there was black ice on this road. Springs coming out of the hillsides to our left were frozen over and very slick. We slid on a couple of them but neither of us fell.

Robot Rock

When we got closer to the bottom and were able to stop, there was a little farm with a goat on the right that was curious with us.
When everyone caught up, we continued on the level last section of the road out to the Albany Post Road, north of the settlement of North Highland.
Here, we continued directly across on the Old Albany Post Road, an earlier alignment with more homes and such on it. We followed the road out across the Clove Creek, which was pretty, and then continued toward where the Wilkinson Memorial Trail.

Mt. Beacon from a distance

Everyone was dreading the up hill. We had seen Mt. Beacon from the parking lot at the start, and then from the road as we had been approaching it.
When we got to where the map seemed to show the trail coming out to the road, we were seeing no blazes at all. Reservoir Lane was well posted with no trespassing signs. We went by it, and then came to Mountain Brook Drive. When we didn’t see the trail before, I noted that the aerial images showed that there should be a way by following this cul de sac to the end.

Along E Mountain Road

We followed the road gradually up hill, and at the end found a woods road that continued gradually up hill through the woods. We followed this for a while.
When we got to where the woods road started cutting off to the right, I knew we were going to have to cut off trail. There were no blazes, back here, but we were somewhat close to where we should be. We followed through the woods to the right, crossed a small stream, and then soon came to the south edge of a small reservoir the trail is supposed to encircle.

Old dam ruin

We were on the opposite side from where the trail was supposed to be. I was way ahead of the rest of the group, and figured I’d just better hurry ahead to see if I can find it before anyone else wanders off too far the wrong way.
I continued along the west shore of the pond, and then reached it’s creek inlet. This was a widely dispersed wetland in this area, and I couldn’t be bothered with going up stream in search of a safe place to cross dry.

Goat

Once I got through the mess and headed slightly up hill, I came upon the narrow path and the yellow DEC disc blazes. I called back to the others that I was on the trail, and they slowly started working their way toward the creek. I followed the trail to the right a bit, parallel with the creek but up hill, so they wouldn’t have to go as far and wouldn’t have to wade through the crap I had just done. They found a reasonable place for crossing a bit up stream from where I had done it, and slowly made their way over.

Approaching Beacon Mountain

Once we were on the trail, it started going gradually up. I figured this would be the toughest part, but then the trail all of a sudden started going back down.

Lamb Hill view

When I started going down, Serious Sean was still up high with me and he decided to bushwhack along the slope rather than go down, figuring that it’d only go back up again. This worked out poorly when the trail dipped down into a creek valley and Sean had to go off trail into that, then come up the other side off trail.
The trail crossed in the bottom, then started ascending along the creek route on the other side. It was steep for a bit, and then went slowly back down hill again for a bit.

Clove Creek

Everyone seemed really annoyed that the trail went down a bit again to cross the creek, but at this point it was just following old logging and charcoal roads.

Steep trail up Beacon

By the time we reached that down hill section, it was actually starting to make sense. It was only a tiny bit of down, and beyond there was a much better switch back road system. It crossed over, and the ascent got to be gentle and much more manageable, heading away from the creek to the east, then a really steep section, then back toward the creek valley again. Once there, it got to be a little tougher because there was a section of rock outcrops that were really slippery. I went right over them, but everyone else had some trouble.

Wilkinson Memorial Trail

A white blazed trail cut off to the right from here. This was the Fishkill Ridge Trail, another one we’ll have to come back out to do.
Once we had gotten through this section, the trail headed trough a clove in the mountain, and onto an old woods road. The white and yellow blazes were together for a bit, and the conditions were easier for a short while.
We continued through until the yellow blazes cut off sharp to the left to begin the ascent of part of Beacon Mountain. It made some switch backs that were not too bad.

Wilinson Memorial Trail

We made our way up toward the top, and when the trail leveled off I noticed that it looks like it nearly doubles back on itself.
To the right, I saw side paths that I knew would go over to the same Wilkinson Memorial Trail just ahead. The trail was heading back the direction we came, and down hill slightly just to go to an overlook. Jen was tired, and I told her she could go straight to get to the same trail where we would be in a few moments and save some up and down, but she misunderstood me and went straight over the trail.

Wilkinson Memorial Trail

Several others went for the same shortcut. I think only Janet, Craig, Rick, and I did the overlook. Jenny might have too, but she wasn’t there the same time as me.

View up Beacon Mt.

The view was really nice, down into the valley we had just crossed. We could see massive quarry walls as well as ponds, roads, and homes.
We turned back to where the trail was closely parallel with the section we had been on, and hurried along the ridge heading to the southwest.
I continued fast ahead, and soon came upon Serious Sean walking up a rock outcrop. This one too had a good view from the top. I asked if he had seen Jen ahead, and he said no. I thought she was on the trail.

View on the way up

When the others hadn’t seen her after catching up, I called to find that she had wandered down the mountain, thinking I was directing her that way to get to the cars.

The Wilkinson Memorial Trail

When I got a hold of her, I told her to head back up the mountain until she saw trail blazes again.
We waited for a bit, but she still wasn’t up yet. Some of the group was already ahead at this point.
I called back, and when she still wasn’t back up the mountain, I knew I needed to go back and make sure she was okay. I looked at my map, and it was kind of confusing even to me. There are unofficial trails heading off in every direction up there, and everyone kept skipping blazes and wandering wrong ways paying no attention to blazing.

Wilkinson Memorial Trail

The countless informal trails means you have to stay on your toes.
I told everyone to continue on the yellow blazed Wilkinson Memorial Trail to the south, then turn to the right on the red blazed Casino Trail to get back down to our parking area. I made sure they knew to do this, because if they hadn’t, the Wilkinson Memorial Trail is a total of 9.5 miles. They continued ahead, and I started running back down the same trail back to the point I had told Jen about the shortcut.

The view

When I got to what I thought was the exact spot, I called out her name, and was relieved when she called back.
She was just down below the rocks, making her way toward the first overlook we had come to. I went down that slope a bit, and she ended up getting to see the overlook she had gone to take the short cut to miss after all.
From there, I couldn’t head down the same way as the others, because we were too far behind that point, so I had a plan on how we were going to get back down before dark.

View on Beacon Mountain

We headed back the direction we had come from on Wilkinson Memorial Trail. That took us down through the switchbacks and then to where the white blazed trail overlaps it again.

View on Wilkinson Memorial Trail

When we got to the bottom of the hill on the woods road section, the blue blazed connecting trail went straight ahead. The trail was short.

View on Wilkinson Memorial Trail

We followed it for a bit on an old woods road, which went closely by a creek. Somehow, we missed where the white blazed trail went off to the right and continued along the creek.

Falls on the creek

I figured it made no sense to try to follow the white trail and up and down. It went to the east, then back down along the creek again. We had already missed a turn anyway.

Falls

We cut across a stone wall to our left, then carefully tried to walk across the dispersed springs and water heading kind of down stream. We were not on any kind of trail for a while, but then eventual we came upon some sort of unblazed route. It was a nice easy grade, and totally clear. It weaved back and forth just above the brook, making it’s way slowly down hill. I had thought we would have some problems, but this really wasn’t too bad at all.
We continued losing more elevation, and passing some nice little cascades until we came across the white blazed Fishkill Ridge Trail again. We turned left on this, as it made it’s way away from the one creek flow and over to a secondary one that had some beautiful cascades where we crossed over it.
The white trail followed along the creek down hill a bit, and then we came to a point where another yellow blazed trail, the Dry Brook Trail, cut away on the left. I chose to go this way because we could get directly back to the parking lot on it, sort of.
The Fishkill Ridge Trail continues on the brook to a secondary parking area to the north.

Falls

We might have been able to do it easier if we had gone down to the road and just walked that to the west, but the way we went worked out just fine anyway.

View on the trail

We had to go up hill a little bit, and then came to a woods road that gradually made it’s way down a bit.
At one point, we started going down these woods roads really steeply. We passed by an Asian couple with a young baby crying walking down. We then reached a private property sign and a yellow arrow telling us to go back up hill yet again.
It seemed like we were going up and down a lot. We headed up, and the trail just kept climbing at this point. I thought we were almost to the bottom, and my knees were hurting from it, but now it wasn’t close.

Sunset on Beacon

We just kept gaining elevation, and we had a view of Beacon as well as the Hudson River beyond from within the trees.
The sun was going down pretty fast just ahead. Our plan to meet up with the Obnoxious Hiker group did not really work out here.
I had planned the mileage overall pretty well to meet up with them. We got to within a mile and a half of one another. We just kept facing set backs that slowed us up a bit. I had to keep checking the map, we had to search for the trail on the way in to the park, and then Jen got lost heading down the mountain.

Beacon view

I was texting back and forth with Polly, and when they were up by the fire tower, we were pretty close by. She said they were going to hang out for as long as they could for us, but that didn’t pan out. Also, the others in our group did not meet up with them either.
Jen and I reached a high point on the woods road, and then the red blazed Casino Trail came in on the left. This trail is named for a Casino that once existed further up the slope from this point. The trail didn’t go far ahead from here before cutting hard to the right and making it’s way on an easier grade back toward the parking area.

Sunset and the Hudson

THere were some nice views of the Hudson on this final descent. We made our way down on a bit of a switch back, and as we neared the bottom of the slope, I was surprised to see some impressive prefabricated set of stairs going down the last slope.

View of the Hudson

As I was heading down the steps, my eyes fixed off to the left to some sort of wooden platform that seemed to follow the power line heading up the hill.

Steps

I thought maybe it was some kind of pedestrian walkway that predated the very outlandish steps we were now headed down. The metal walkways were some of the most over the top I’ve ever seen on a trail. Usually these walkways are wooden, so it seemed like a sound thought.
We made it to the bottom of the steps and were heading on when I looked more closely.

Mt. Beacon Incline Railway ruins

I was blown away to see that there were railroad rails. I thought at first that they must have been moved to this location from elsewhere, but then I noticed that they were headed along the power line in an up hill fashion. I knew then that this was an inclined plane!

Beacon Historical Society view of Mt. Beacon Incline Railway

This was the Mt. Beacon Incline Railway. It was built in 1902 by Manchester, New Hampshire entrepreneurs that saw the prospect of tapping the natural beauty of Mt. Beacon by making it more accessible via the railroad.

Historic incline postcard

The line was designed by the Otis Elevator Company, and the project was undertaken by various contractors including the Ramapo Ironworks and Mohawk Construction.
The railroad climbed steeply up 2,200 feet to an elevation of 1,540 on the mountain, across two trestles that encompassed 800 feet of the incline.
Mount Beacon was already popular before this point, and in fact owes it’s name to being a beacon point during the American Revolution.
From 1902 through the 1920s, the railroad was a great success. On it’s first day open alone, 1,600 people rode the incline.
The height of teh railroad was 1927 when 110,000 people rode the railroad up the mountian.
At the top, a casino, as well as the Beaconcrest Hotel were built. The railroads, trolleys, and the steam ships coming up the Hudson River all made the town of Beacon as well as the railroad accessible to the people of New York City and beyond.

Historic postcard image of the hotel and casino

In 1927, there was a major fire on the rail line. This happened on a few occasions, which destroyed sections of track, but this particular one spread through to the casino, and then took the Beaconcrest Hotel. The casino was rebuilt, but the Great Depression came and the hotel was never rebuilt. Still, somehow the railroad survived those tough times.

The incline

Success came back, though not as good as before, in the 1940s and 50s. However, by the 1960s, the trains and boats to the area along the Hudson were disappearing, and cars replaced them. People still came to ride the incline, but at less than half of what it did during it’s peak years.
It closed periodically, but remained in service until 1978 when financial difficulties lost the property at the top. The railroad was closed down, even though it and all of it’s associated structures were put on the national register of historic places about that time.
On September 18th, 1983, a suspicious fire engulfed the entire railroad as well as it’s trestles, two stations, and the power house. It has remained in ruin like that to this day.
The property of the railroad was preserved by Scenic Hudson in 1995, which is why we can hike the route to this day. Still, there is an effort to restore the old rail line to it’s former glory.

Historic postcard image of the incline

The restoration society wants to not only have the railroad back in place, but to create a green facility at the top, on the footings of the old Beaconcrest Hotel and Casino.

Historic image of the incline

The amenities would serve to educate as well as provide a fully accessible route to the top of the scenic mountain that anyone would be able to enjoy regardless of ability or handicap.
It looks like this plan might actually happen one day, unlike so many others that are so far fetched.
We made our way further down the mountain from here, on a trail that had more water bars and such. Some of this route was a bit more manicured than what we had been on.
It was starting to get dark, but we managed to get back to the parking lot before daylight had completely run out. It turned out we had been only a few minutes behind the Obnoxious Hiker group heading down the mountain in the same direction.
As we got into the lot, I heard a familiar laugh coming from a van at the other side.
It was Jack Lowry! He had signed up for the other hike, and he headed up to the casino ruins with hopes of catching us, and then came back down. My phone had died and I missed his messages. He and Sarah Jones were just hanging out at the lot waiting for us to get there.

Incline cars

I figured the others were already to the bottom by this time, but it turned out we had moved on ahead of them, even though we had more distance to do than them (because I went back, and the way down would just be longer from that direction, based on where I left them).
We headed across the street to the same deli store we were in in the morning to wait for them where it was warmer. The sun was going down fast and it was soon completely dark. I did ask one guy coming off the trail if he’d seen anyone in the group. I first asked if he saw someone with a guitar, and I was surprised when he said “no”. He then said there was someone with “high visibility” stuff on.
I knew he’d seen Craig and Rick, and so I knew they were up there.
Eventually, it was those high visibility vests I saw from the store that let me know that Craig and Rick had returned. Back together, we all headed into town to have some food.
Polly had arranged to meet the group at a place called Max’s, and we went in there, but the owners told us that he just coudln’t accomodate ten people, so we all headed over to another Mexican place just up the road, which was great food.

Fooood! From Janet's camera

We had a great meal to close out the night, and then Polly and another guy that were on the hike she had organized arrived to greet us, which was nice. It sucks that we weren’t able to get the two groups together, but we still had an overall great trip anyway.
It was great to make some new connections, explore some new areas, and really just to be a part of something that was so detached.
Of course, every hike is connected in my world. But this was different than a lot of what I’d been doing. It was detached from the Delaware and Hudson series, it was detached from the 911 Memorial Trail series. This one was on the outside, back to another area I really loved but hadn’t explored in some time.