Date: 2003-07-07
From: Mombasha High Point

To: William Brien Memorial Shelter
Miles today: 15.8
Weather: broken clouds

It was an overcast day which promised rain. I fell about a minute into my hike when I stepped on a rock which was covered by leaves. I came down hard on my left knee. Fortunately it dug into some soft dirt rather than a hard rock. I still got some nasty cuts which will scab over. I started hiking late (7:35) since I didn't want to get to NY Hwy 17, where I was going to get a meal and make a phone call, too soon since I would be calling to the west coast. It started raining at 8 and rained hard until about 9:30. Later in the day it rained some again.I saw 2 deer just after the Orange Turnpike and 2 more when I entered Harriman State Park. Inside the park I saw and photographed a stunning orange moth. It had a little black and white in it but was mostly bright orange. At Highway 17 I walked to the Deli and found it was the 2.1 miles listed in Wingfoot's handbook. The Red Apple Restaurant was supposed to be 1.8 miles, so I thought I had missed it. However, it is located about 2.6 or 2.8 miles from the trail directly across the highway from the Tuxedo Motel. The food was great at the restaurant including the pie ala mode. However the milkshake was really bad, very disappointing for a milkshake lover.At Fingerboard Shelter I walked 0.6 miles downhill to the lake then back up another 0.6 miles looking for water. There was none along the blue-blazed trail. A doe deer was laying about 50 yards from the shelter and watched me walk down and back and eat at the shelter. She never moved from her shady spot.Just before I got to the William Brien Memorial Shelter, I saw a red-tailed hawk sitting on a dead tree about eye level on the trail thirty feet from me. It had just stopped raining and it didn't seem to want to fly in the wet weather. I had used up all the film which was presently in my camera and had to take my pack off, open it up, and dig deep down into it to get a fresh roll of film. It took me at least 2 minutes to do this amid much rustling of plastic bags and moving zip lock bags in and out of my pack. The hawk, to my amazement, just watched my frustrating endeavors. Finally, with a new roll loaded, I took a photo. It was so dark the flash went off. I moved to 20 feet away and took another flash photo. Then I had to crawl over a large tree (2' diameter) which was blown down across the trail and the hawk was still watching me and seemed amazed at all my antics. At 15' I thought I had taken the last photo. The hawk still looked like a dot in the middle of the frame since I only had a point and shoot camera with a wide-angle to normal lens. But I slowly moved closer and got another shot at 10 feet and finally one at 6 feet. Now the hawk filled the photo. I chanced a little closer and at 5 feet, the hawk opened up its wings. I waited and as I inched closer, it finally flew. I got about half the hawk in the frame as it took off. It was amazing and was the highlight of my day.I made it to the shelter by 7:50 PM greeted by New Zealander and Walkabout. A group of Jewish youth were tented next to the shelter. Their leader said some of them would be going to Israel as part of their youth group experience.I decided to sleep in the shelter and see if my silk sleeping bag liner would act as a mosquito repellent along with my head net. It worked fine and I slept without my sleeping bag in comfort. The mosquitoes were humming, but not biting.