Date: 2013-07-20
From: On Shenandoah mtn 

To: Telephone Pioneers shelter
Miles today: 21.4
Weather: scattered clouds

I have various ways of pressuring myself. If I could have done 20 miles yesterday, I'd have had less to do today to get to Telephone Pioneers shelter, so I'd be poised to go to church tomorrow in Pawling. Since I didn't, I started as early as possible to do a long day today. At the top of Shenandoah Mtn., someone had painted an American Flag on the rock as a 9/11 memorial. Then it was down almost 1000 feet to RPH shelter, named for the Ralph's Peak Hikers, a former local hiking club. It is an enclosed building & looks pretty nice. I stopped for a snack & spoke with Fun Size & Bottle Cap, who were taking a leisurely time getting going in the morning. Soon after, came the crossing of the Taconic State Parkway. Unlike the two expressway crossings a couple of days ago, where hikers just walk across multiple lanes of traffic in each direction, this one had an underpass. We had been paralleling it all afternoon & evening yesterday, with constant road noise, so this crossing meant we were finally done with it. Then the Trail went up & over part of Hosner Mtn., one of several low Mtns. in the course of the day. Nothing is very high in this part of NY, but the ups & downs can still be wearing. And it continues to be hot, but we got some relief for a little while with a bit of light rain. At Rt 52, I walked 0.4 miles off the Trail to a little deli to get some water & a reuben sandwich. I was surprised to find out that in this area they make reubens with cole slaw rather than sauerkraut. Not my favorite! I also learned that you have to pay a deposit when you buy a drink in a container, but you can't get the deposit back at the same place you paid it ¢ you have to go to a redemption center. I bet most people don't bother, so it kind of defeats the whole purpose.Next it was up Mt. Egbert aka Depot Hill-- a long Mtn, therefore, not very steep. It was one of the few places with a view this afternoon. I stopped for supper at Morgan Stewart shelter but was determined to do 8 more miles today. In a few miles I went by Nuclear Pond [A former plutonium processing site was near here ¢ closed after an accident in 1972]. It is supposedly safe to walk by on the trail, but nobody guarantees the condition of the water. I saw a couple of hikers swimming out in the lake ¢ it looked inviting, but I knew I didn't have time to stop. After a brief break at an old stone wall, I continued up West Mtn. {Yes, another one] as it kept getting darker. The last hour to the shelter was in near-total darkness. I missed the view at the top of the Mtn. & descended on a rockier section of trail. The shelter was rather hard to find in the dark, even after I got on the blue-blazed side trail. I don't like to get in to shelters after everyone is asleep, but that may happen as the days keep getting shorter. Fortunately, this one was empty. There was someone camped nearby, & he came over to talk. He introduced himself as the editor of the local [Pawling] newspaper, camping out here for a week to interview hikers as they came thru. Apparently he had been seeing a lot of them till this evening. He couldn't tell me anything about the Telephone Pioneers group that must have had something to do with building this shelter in 1988. Back in Michigan, I knew a 93-year-old woman who had a certificate on her wall saying she was a member, but she never gave me any real explanation either [I knew she had worked for the telephone company in Chicago. From the internet, I learned that the group was founded in 1911 for people who had been real pioneers in telecommunications ¢ Alexander Graham Bell was the first member. Now it is more of a service group than a "remember the good old days" group.]. This shelter is on very rocky ground. When I got up in the dark, I missed a rock & went careening down the hill about 10 feet, barefoot, thankfully managing to stay upright. Scary, & hard on tired feet!I felt I was doing a little better today, tho still feeling slow. I also think I was learning to USE pack-weight momentum to help me up hills [more on that tomorrow].