Cascade Falls, Death Falls, Adirondacks Trip

Aloha all and welcome! I recently returned from a multi-day trip through the Adirondacks that I’d like to share with you today. As many of you know, I am in the process of leaving for Hawaii where I have an internship with the Student Conservation Association and National Park Service that starts on June 5th. I am trying to get in as many things that I normally do during the summer this last month of May. So far, it’s been a great/eventful month full of backcountry buzz and travelling. Friday the 20th I had made plans with friends Matt and Caitlin to meet up in Speculator/Lake Pleasant - Hamilton County, where they live, for dinner and in preparation for a weekend of fun. I left earlier however in the hopes of taking the long way through the Adirondacks and stopping to do a bit of hiking myself along the way. It was a beautiful morning and I wanted to get moving so I threw all my camping and hiking gear in the back of the truck… strapped down the kayak in the bed… and hit the back roads travelling through Florence, Osceola, into Booneville, and then over to Old Forge. Old Forge is a very popular tourist town with lots to do around the area but my hike was a bit northeast of there in the township of Inlet. I have written of the Hamilton County Waterfall Challenge in previous posts and the pdf explaining the challenge can be found here: (Waterfall Challenge). Basically it is a challenge set up by Hamilton County to generate some tourism and cash flow throughout these remote areas. It was also their hope to share with people the beautiful hikes and environment in which these waterfalls are found. I think it’s an excellent idea and have had a lot of great times exploring and looking for them around this section of Adirondacks. The one I was after Friday morning was Cascade Falls. One thing I love about that pdf is that they publish Latitude and Longitude Coordinates for the trailhead parking areas. As a side note / tip for all you travellers out there. Most car gps systems have a “Travel To” option where you can simply enter in Lat. and Long. numbers (instead of an address or town) and the GPS will plan a route from your current location to those numbers. I have discovered that this function is very useful with today’s technology and online mapping services provided to the public. Like most people, I like to know where I’m going before leaving and don’t rely too heavily on the GPS (if I can help it) because they are notorious for taking the back dirt roads as a shortcut or other various problems. I go onto Google Maps or Google Earth to see approximately the route I will travel and to see where a trailhead along some highway might be. Once I find it, I simply right click on the mouse, and select from the option menu “What’s Here?” As a result: Google maps will give you Lat./Long. coordinates that you can then enter into your GPS. Obviously this may not be the greatest option when you are travelling to a known address but for backcountry exploring it’s nice to know I can get right down to within 10 or 20 feet of where I want to be parking or where a trailhead is. Google maps online also has a feature where in some cases they have driven the major highways and taken 360 degree digital pictures of the road and surroundings. I have used this tool at work when I was land surveying and also to find trailheads that I wasn’t sure about… just a couple tips I have picked up that hopefully you can utilize for your next trip so you don’t have as many headaches and your journeys are well planned out and fun.

Well, to get back to my trip… I arrived at the trailhead parking area as described in the pdf description with no problems at all and set out to discover the cascading nature of the falls that the name hinted at. After about 4 miles up a wide, well maintained, but remote trail I finally heard the falls ahead and off the trail. When I stopped to take in the beautiful shady pool and the falls however, the black flies instantly started attacking so I was forced to cut my visit short and continue back. Now is the time of year that the little black flies are a true pain and I have the marks to prove it. The falls was very enjoyable and I had a short snack and water break where I snapped a few pictures.

I ran into another hiker while there who I was following the tracks of on my way in… and to my surprise he was “Geocaching”. I have played at this game/activity in the past while in college and always had a good time. If you haven’t run across this term before, it is a new-ish activity for GPS users and outdoor enthusiasts where a group or individual places some sort of hidden treasure and logbook somewhere and records its location with gps coordinates. Those people then publish the information for others to use and go find. It’s a fun time and hunting for or finding hidden secrets gives you a rewarding feeling while you’re outside getting exercise and enjoying the local environment. Moving on… I traveled further northeast to Raquette Lake where a simple half mile trail awaited. The trail ended at Death Falls where I repeated my previous actions of viewing the falls, swatting at flies, taking pictures, swatting more flies and fleeing back to the truck to escape.

With my day’s goals accomplished, I then traveled to my friends’ cabin in the woods to complete a very enjoyable day with delicious tacos, a couple beers and good company! Well, I have gotten the first day (Friday) written up… I think this may turn into a multi-part blog post. Stay alert for further backcountry buzzing. I hope you enjoyed and got some ideas for your next trip. Please share any of those ideas in my comments below! Aloha.

Firetowers and Waterfalls in the Catskills

Hello fellow hikers, campers, and waterfall…ers. Today I want to write about my recent trip: the last three days (May 09 – 11) and the adventures my friend Dan and I went on. We had decided that while Dan had a break from law school that we wanted to hit the woods and go explore a couple fire towers in the Catskills. Dan lives outside of Philadelphia, PA so we thought that the Catskills was a good place, equidistant to check out. I only needed 2 more towers down in that region of NY towards the fire tower challenge so that was what we were shooting for.

Dan and I met at the base of Hunter Mountain early Monday afternoon. There is a trailhead parking area down a winding and often rough but scenic Spruceton Road. We went over our gear to make sure we had enough food and clothes for an overnight stay at the top. The weather was clear and a beautiful high 60s low 70s temperature… great for hiking. We proceeded to climb up to the lean-to which happens to be just below 3,500’ in elevation and about 1.5 miles from the top (where the tower is). It was decided to stay the night here under the cover of the lean-to and take pictures of the sunset as our site was pointed west and overlooked the valley that we had just circled. We ate a dinner of ham and instant potatoes which were delicious and afterwards had a couple of visitors: two friendly hikers that had started from another trail and were going the opposite direction from Dan and I. We shared the lean-to and had a nice night of chewing the fat… and chocolate… around a campfire. It was a short night, as I only got about 4 hours of sleep due to the cold. The alarm sounded at quarter after four in the morning in preparation to climb the remaining 1.5 miles and get up in the tower to shoot some pics of the sunrise. After facing the wind from on top of the tower, we returned shivering to our campsite and ate some oatmeal and packed the remainder of our gear for the hike back down Hunter.

Dan and I had been talking about what was next in our journey on the way down and we decided to try and find a couple waterfalls that Dan had passed on his way north. We retraced his route and discovered Halcott Falls which can be seen from State Rt. 42 and runs into Bushnellsville Creek. After eating lunch made up of tuna and chips, we followed the falls upstream and found one after another.

Not far up the road Dan remembered passing another falling stream before we met at the Hunter parking area so we found and hiked that as well. Again, this unnamed falls could be seen from the road while looking into the woods but it had no trail along it. In relation to Halcott Falls, this stream was about a half mile south on 42 and seemed to be public land (Halcott Mountain Wild Forest). We spent another couple of hours tracking upstream and taking pictures of the many slopes and falls along the way. There were a lot of flowers in bloom at the time, but most notably: the Red and White Trilliums and Witch Hobble were very prominent around the area. Afterwards, we continued our travels and found the parking area for the Red Hill fire tower trail. It was dinner time by that point, and we were exhausted from the previous night’s lack of sleep, so we made up some pasta and stayed at the parking area overnight. We didn’t really feel like setting up a campsite or tent so I just threw a tarp over the bed of my truck and slept there while Dan used his car.

In the morning, after oatmeal, we hiked the 1.4 mile trail to the top of Red Hill and were pleasantly surprised to find a couple guys opening up the facilities for the season. We helped them carry a few things to the top and as a reward we were the first to enter the top of the tower for 2011. The view was very nice and after taking our fill of pictures, we bid the workers farewell and went back to the parking area. The day previous I had bought a great topographic map of the whole Catskill Park that is put out by a company called “Venture Out Maps Corp”. I really like this map because it has hiking trails, major waterfalls, and fire towers all listed and mapped for easy viewing. I would definitely recommend this item for any visitor looking for things to do (which isn’t hard) around the Catskills. Anywho… we found four waterfalls nearby on the map, all within a stretch of a few miles, and decided to go exploring again for the rest of the day. One word would sum up the experience… Wow! The map labels the first as Buttermilk Falls and all of the four run into Rondout Creek which flows along Peekamoose Road. Traveling East, three of the falls lie on the left side of the road, while the other we had to cross the Creek to get to.

I’ll let the pictures do the talking but we hiked upstream on all but the last and saw so many falls that it’s hard to keep track of which was which. It was a great day and after a dinner of more pasta we parted ways and I made it home to central NY by around 10 Wednesday night.

I hope you enjoyed the overview of my trip and I would recommend these exploits to anybody who enjoys being able to see 360 degrees for miles and miles… or who enjoys watching water tumble down rocks. If you are considering a visit and would like additional detailed information please feel free to contact me via the information listed in my profile. My next planned expedition is the last week of this month (right before I leave for HI) with Matt and Caitlin for a few days in PA where we will be hiking a 7 or 8 mile loop that follows a chain of 21 waterfalls!

Life Changes, The SCA, Groff Creek Waterfalls

Hello everybody and thank you for joining me on my blog. Today I wanted to write up a summary of what I have been up to over the last part of winter and beginning of spring. It’s been a long time since I posted and I have a lot to share… a lot of changes have happened in my life over the past few months and also in this blog I will share with you a truly excellent hike I went on recently.

To start with, I have finished working with the company: Aubertine and Currier in Watertown, NY. I returned to work in the beginning of March after a multi-month lay-off starting in December, but had been contemplating a change in careers for a while now. I gave them a 3 week notice and had to wrap up a bunch of projects / get things settled for my departure. I have worked for them for almost three years now and was getting pretty settled in but the work I was doing didn’t really agree with my ambitions or self-fulfillment so I decided it was time for a change. Land surveying is a great profession and it’s a very real possibility that I will return to it someday but for right now I’m ready to see some of what life has to offer outside of Upstate NY. I have been offered an intern position working with the National Park Service in Haleakala National Park on the island of Maui. The position is actually through the SCA (Student Conservation Association) which is a truly spectacular agency (http://www.thesca.org/). I have been working with them to set this internship up and everything has been real smooth and easy with their help. Basically the SCA is hired by federal and private agencies to help people gain experience through internships. It works great. I filled out a long application listing my interests, activities, education, and work experience, then applied for different internships around the country that I was interested in. The SCA weeds through and picks out the top candidates to send off their information to the intern coordinator at the agency (the NPS in my case). There is a short phone interview and then you find out if you are invited into the position. The whole process took place for me over a span of about 2 months, and really was no hassle at all. I really got lucky with such a sought-after location like Hawaii and I’m very excited to get started.

These last several weeks since letting my employers know that I’m leaving have been pretty busy. I’m trying to consolidate my whole apartment and move out of Watertown a truckload at a time. Oh yeah, that reminds me of another change. I no longer drive around the little Toyota Corolla but now own a nice 2002 Chevy Silverado. It has the towing package and extended cab so it’s perfect for me. I can tow my boat or camper if I decide to buy one, haul all my gear, and haul around canoes/kayaks easily… far surpassing the limitations of the small Corolla.

My new internship at Haleakala N.P. is interpretive: I will be giving tours, staffing the visitors center/summit, giving a presentation or two and similar activities. The really cool thing, I hear, is visiting the summit of the volcano early in the morning and watching the sunrise. It’s supposed to be spectacular; I will be staffing that area during those times as well. I have read all about the park on the government website (http://www.nps.gov/hale/index.htm) and every section of it sounds amazing. The totally different eco-systems found around the park at different elevations make this park unique and appealing. My station will be at the top, just over 10,000 feet high in elevation… quite the climb for a small island, I can’t wait to see the view from top. The park also has numerous hiking/camping opportunities that I plan on exploring in depth.

This change from land surveying to interpretive services with the NPS is the first step in a plan I have to transition into a new job/lifestyle that hopefully ends in full-time employment with one of the many excellent government agencies that protect our national resources and share their beauty with the public.

Ok, enough about my life changes, my sister graduated from boot camp! Kelly had joined the Navy and just recently graduated from boot camp. She has been happily telling me about San Diego where the navy flew her for school/training in her new job – sonar technician. She has some great stories already and I’m excited for her and can’t wait to see where she ends up with this naval journey.

Over this winter, while I was layed off, and my arm was recovering, I made 2 trips down to Florida to spend time with my parents while they traveled around the south with their motorhome. The first time I flew down and back and spent 10 days with mom and dad exploring the everglades and …

The second trip: my parents had driven back to NY to see my sister off to boot camp, I decided to drive back south with them and we stopped in NC to see my Aunt, Uncle, and two cousins which was an awesome time. We left there and continued onto Florida where we spent a week exploring northern FL this time and ended up in Pensacola, camped at the National Seashore. It was a beautiful trip and I’m happy my parents were gracious enough to let me live/vacation with them for a good chunk of this winter. These Florida trips can be found and described in detail over the past few months within my dad’s blog: http://www.relaxedrush.blogspot.com/

The last item I wanted to write about today was a hiking trip I took a few weekends back with two of my best friends: Matt and Caitlin who live in Speculator in the Adirondacks. The three of us and my other good friend Brian spent the day Saturday relaxing and grilling at their cabin all day. Sunday the three of us headed out to explore a few waterfalls we read about in an informative hiking guide for Hamilton County that Caitlin had. The falls were on Groff Creek and can be found outside the town of Wells. The day was perfect, sun shining, temp in the high 50s low 60s… great for hiking through snow. I was under the impression, based on snow levels here in Watertown, that there would be little to none where we would be hiking… I was wrong. Turns out, there was still about a foot of snow on the ground that we had to crunch through when we couldn’t walk on top of the crust. This made for a longer hike but I still enjoyed it. We crunched our way along what seemed a couple miles, and spent the morning/early afternoon exploring above and under these rushing waterfalls. The melt and runoff waters really make small streams into huge rivers and I love this time of year in NY for that. Streams take on a whole new look and if you return later in the year (Summer) its like visiting a different place because the rapids could look completely different.


 
 
 
 
 






In the plans: I have a couple trips planned for May so far. The first being a trip to the Catskills to climb the final two fire tower mountains that I need in southern NY. A couple friends from PA are driving up and I’ll meet up with them and camp a night or two while hiking these mountains. Secondly, Matt + Caitlin and I have been talking about making a trip to northern PA, in the Scranton area, to hike an 8 mile loop that passes by 21 waterfalls! The largest reportedly being near 100 foot drop. It sounds like a great place to camp a night and hike around to see all of the falls.

I plan on keeping my blog up-to-date throughout my journeys (much better than I have recently). Thanks for following along. If anybody ever has questions about some of these trips such as location, difficulty, etc. please contact me and I can point you in the right direction and give you additional info.

ps. I will replace the 3 waterfall videos at the bottom of my page with the three I took from Groff Creek when I get to a place with faster internet connection!