An advance guard of two people arrived in Cold Spring, NY, on Friday night. It had rained earlier in the day, washing away most of the snow we had hoped to x-country ski on.
Our plan was to meet the others at Fahnestock State Park’s ski center at 11 AM on Saturday morning. However, the gate to the ski area was closed and we waited outside the gate for our friends. By 11:30, three of them had arrived and we all drove to the nearby Pelton Pond to go hiking.
We got halfway around Pelton Pond and looked for an unmarked trail shown on our map. We never found it. We followed what we thought was a trail, but we were soon bushwacking. The followed deer tracks into the deep woods. After a couple of hours, we gave up on finding the unmarked trail and finished our loop of Pelton Pond.
Returning to the parking lot, we split into two groups. Two of us owned skis and decided to try them out despite the poor snow conditions. The other three went hiking on the nearby Three Lakes Trail. The skiers had to be very careful, but we found some areas in which skiing was pleasant. The hikers encountered two separate groups of our friends on the trails. When they returned, there were nine of us!
Fran, who lives in nearby Newburgh, invited us all to her home for dinner. We followed her there and ate pizza and take-out Italian food. After eating, Debbie (a professional musician) played the piano, flute and mandolin. I played one game of chess and two games of go. We left after midnight. Thank you Fran for being such a gracious host.
We started Sunday morning with breakfast in Cold Spring. Then we drove to Fahnestock and started hiking south on the Appalachian Trail from Route 301. We crossed the Three Lakes Trail and continued on to Sunk Mine Road. Because it was 2 PM, we decided to take a shortcut on Sunk Mine Road to get to the Three Lakes Trail. We found the Three Lakes Trail, but after 30 feet it crossed a stream that we could not get across. The water was too deep and the rocks were too icy.
We agreed to go back and take an unmarked trail from Sunk Mine Road that also leads the the Three Lakes Trail. This worked and we were soon on the Three Lakes Trail heading back to Route 301. But then we encountered two hikers coming from the opposite direction who told us that they had turned around on the Three Lakes Trail because there was a different stream that they could not cross. I took out my map and we determined that they had missed the turnoff for the Appalachian Trail. So they joined us and we continued walking toward Route 301.
At one point, I was the last hiker in our group. I spotted a couple of weathered white blazes in the distance and thought, that looks funny. Were they old Appalachian Trail blazes that were not maintained? Then I saw a third white blaze that was freshly painted. I called out to my friends to turn around -- they had missed the Appalchian Trail. Everyone came back and thanked me. We returned to our cars via the Appalachian Trail.
Talking to the couple that we encountered on the trail, we realized that the woman had inquired about Campers’ Group a few days before and we had already exchanged e-mail addresses!
Most people had to leave and go directly home. Three of us went to dinner at Maya’s, a Mexican restaurant on Route 9. The food was very good and much more reasonably priced than the restaurants in Cold Spring. I recommend it highly if you are looking for a moderately priced meal.
David Levner
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