Date: 2005-08-19
From: Seven Lakes Dr. (just south of Bear Mountain)

To: Stealth camp just south of Canopus Lake viewpoint
Miles today: 24.6
Weather: scattered clouds

start: Seven Lakes Dr. (just south of Bear Mountain)finish: Stealth camp just south of Canopus Lake viewpointmiles: 24.6Well, I'm back in NY, filling in one of my yellow blazes. I was planning to do this in the cooler fall weather, but Stumpknocker is at this point in his southbound hike and it seemed a good opportunity to hike with him for a couple of days.Mrs. Moosie dropped us off this morning near Bear Mountain in NY, which is about a 1-1/2 hour drive from our house, and then she hurried home to get to work. Thanks honey! We're walking northbound for 2 days, covering almost 47 miles. Walking north gives Stumpie a chance to see more southbounders, and it's easier on Mrs. Moosie to do the evening pickup closer to home.When I mentioned this plan to Stump he sort of whined a bit and said "you mean we have to take our packs?". I think this slacking thing is getting out of hand.I was feeling pretty good climbing Bear Mountain after not hiking for 10 days. We got talking about stuff and the miles rolled by easily. The zoo wasn't quite open when we came to it, and we considered going around on the official alternate route, as this is a strange part of the AT where the white blazes go right through an area that's behind a sometimes locked gate. But instead we bought popsicles and waited 10 minutes for them to open up the real AT. We saw lions and tigers and bears, oh my! OK, just bears, and a fox, an otter, and some porcupines. The bear cubs looked like they were having fun playing on the fake tree limbs - the other animals looked pretty bored, though.Next, we crossed the Hudson River on the Bear Mountain Bridge, the lowest point on the AT at 180 feet above sea level.It started raining gently, which was kind of nice as it wasn't real hot, but the humidity was very high, and it wasn't enough rain to wash the sweat off. I started chafing pretty bad - I was trying a new anti-chafe system and it wasn't working. It consisted of my light running shorts with the underwear cut out and a separate pair of capilene briefs (some would say very-briefs). I tried this because of chafing problems I had been having with the sewn in underwear in Maine. Chafing is a nasty, hard to avoid problem hiking in humid summer weather. So, I decided to hike in just my underwear, to Stumpknocker's dismay. We didn't see too many people, but I did get a few strange looks. Just jealous, I guess.Typical of NY, the trail was dry - what little ground water we saw was nasty looking. The only water we had all day was from a spigot on Dennytown Rd. It was great when we ran across some trail magic - a cooler full of half melted ice water with bottles of berry flavored Gatorade. So-o-o cold. Just exactly what we needed. I was feeling tired and I think was partly from sweating out so much salt that I needed an electrolyte boost. This helped, and then at Dennytown Rd. I also took some of the salt and mineral solution I carry for this purpose. It gave me plenty of energy to finish the day.We hiked on about 5 miles past Dennytown to set us up for lunch at rt. 52 tomorrow, and found a decent stealth spot near the trail. Home sweet home.Biscuit, if you're reading this, I forgot that you're so close to Greymoor until we were sitting there in the field having some lunch. Otherwise I'd have definitely encouraged you and English Bob to come hike with us, or bring us food, or something. Of course it might have meant that I'd have to wear pants...