Date: 2020-08-26
From: Lake Canopus Beach

To: Telephone Pioneers Shelter
Miles today: 21.8
Weather: clear sky

Woke briefly on Lake Canopus beach to a scratching sound outside my tent, like a mouse was chewing on my guylines. But it was just the breeze rustling the fabric. The sky was clear and lots of stars were visible, even 50 miles from Times Square. One particularly bright one early morning in the east must have been a planet.After rising at first light to make sure my tent was down before the beach opened, I took an early morning swim. The air was cool, in the high 50s, but the water was pleasantly warm. I shivered a bit while air drying, finishing off the last of my calzone. Watched a bald eagle soar around the far side of the beach.A few miles into the day I crossed paths with Lady Slippers and Wanderlost. They had hiked to Katahdin from Pawling, and had just flipped back to Pawling to finish the trail southbound. I thought they were dayhikers as they approached because they were out-of-shape and their worn packs were so small they weren't visible from the front. They chatted me up, catching me by surprise but think I came across as distracted. I have to be more careful about jumping to conclusions.There was a deli and pizza place a half mile off trail in the middle of my day so of course I spent some time there. Packed out a "wedge" (or hoagie, as it's properly called) for dinner. Funny how I probably wouldn't go half a mile off trail for most views. But put a deli there and you got me.After New York I'm never complaining about downed trees again. My favorite is when the tree pulls up a huge mound of dirt that contains the trail, leaving a gaping hole to traverse. Also interesting are the blowdowns that take down other trees or fall on earlier blowdowns, creating a kind of giant game of pick-up-sticks for you to squeeze through or climb over. After a few years of this there would be no trail if not for maintainers regularly clearing them out. Imagine what the first thruhiker Earl Schaffer encountered in 1948 after nearly a decade of neglect around WWII.Met a couple of section hikers at Morgan Stewart Shelter. Richard is a fiftyish southbounder who claims he is just "messin' around" and doesn't care how far he gets. He seemed as interested in deli locations as I am. The other guy is doing a shakedown for a thruhike he hopes to attempt next year, figuring out what he does and doesn't need. Richard's answer? "All you need is a credit card. Just buy what you need when you need it. That way you won't bring anything extra."I soon caught up with a girl named Giggles sitting on a wooden bridge over a gurgling stream, the best water I've seen all day. She's sectioning currently. Hiked 1400 miles to the Hudson last year but had to get off to start at Georgetown Law. Classes start again on Monday. A few miles north at Nuclear Lake I swam in the dark, warm waters. While I dried off in the chilling breeze I ate my deli wedge on a rock jutting out into the lake under the late afternoon sun. No one else was around. Just a hawk circling on the breeze. Giggles caught up. As we chatted a flock of geese swam up to shore, honking to one another and wetting their beaks. Then one boldly walked ashore between Giggles and me, who were only ten feet apart, followed one by one by two dozen more geese. They waddled over to the grassy tenting area, pecked around and gaggled for a few minutes, then turned about face and marched single file between us back into the lake, acting like we weren't even there.Found the shelter at dusk and a southbounder named Freebird in it. He left Katahdin July 9th and hasn't seen another SOBO since New Hampshire. His 7 and 9 year-old grandkids climbed Katahdin and Mount Washington with him on this hike. They've also done a lot of the Adirondack peaks near his home north of Albany.