Date: 2016-06-09
From: Frahnestock State Park, NY

To: Morgan Stewart Shelter, NY
Miles today: 14.0
Weather: scattered clouds

Day 4914 miles in 9.5 hoursFahnestock State Park (1423.8) to Morgan Stewart Shelter, NY (1437.8)Weather: 70s, sunny, another great day to be outsideDinner: Greens and noodlesHikers: Five SOBO sectional hikers (4/5 female), Johnny Cash, one other at the shelterI didn't go back to my starting point at mile marker 1421.8 at the west end of the park. Instead I headed to the east end to pick up the trail at mile marker 1438.8, missing two miles along the ridge paralleling Canopus Lake, but hiking at least .8 miles or more to get there. Still, its not ¢official¢ AT mileage, so my cumulative total will still be short.The trail today was fantastic. Like I expect a trail to be. Some rocks, some roots, but mostly smooth sailing. A 1.5 mile section between Hosner Mountain Road and NY 52 was particularly charming. The trail maintainer built cairns and edging along the switchbacks and dabbed white dot blazes on some of the trail rocks in a non-ATC conforming (white rectangle) manner. It was not only smooth, but aesthetically pleasing and is one of my favorite parts of the trail thus far. Could be because the day was so nice to boot. Stopped for a look at the RPH Shelter and discovered I had missed some trail magic last night while voluntarily choosing to be stuck next to the freeway. Apparently someone provided a cookout for the hikers staying there that night. And the unimposing shed was really a very nice shelter.Turns out the freeway I camped next to last night is the Taconic State Thruway. The trail paralleled it for most of the day today. I finally put in my earbuds and listened to music for a second day in a row, but this time because the drone of the traffic was the nuisance. The trail eventually crossed under that and over I-84. Took a long lunch break on a view overlooking a farm in the valley below above Hosner Mountain Road on the other side of the ridge where the traffic was less of an auditorial assault of the senses. No one else was at the shelter when I arrived and I considered cooking dinner, then attempting a few more miles. The mosquitos were a little on the bad side. As I was cooking, Johnny Cash arrived. I know, weird isn't it? I had been reading the quiet vegetarian¢s reflective shelter journal entries for the past few weeks and had only just met him a few days earlier at Antons. Around dusk, another fellow arrived huffing and puffing after his first day back on the trail. Based upon his constantly bouncing knee, his talk about how this year¢s Trail Days was so lame compared to last year¢s hospitalizations and arrests and stories of how his 2015 bong-wielding companion got stares from 80-year old RVers (you think?), me thinks there was some huffing and puffing happening well before he stepped foot on the trail. The upcoming miles of the trail crosses roads and passes by Nuclear Lake. That sounded nice, the lake part, not the nuclear. I googled it to see if there might be any camping restrictions. In 1958, the area was home to a nuclear fuel testing site. In 1972 there was a plutonium spill, but in 1975 the Federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission declared it fit for instructed use. (NYTimes, March 24, 1986.) So, yeah. I think I stay put here tonight in spite of our wired party-seeking shelter mate.