Date: 2003-08-18
From: Graymoor Friary on Old West Point Road

To: Canopus Lake
Miles today: 11.8
Weather: broken clouds

There was no rain overnight and it was a bright morning, but the dew was so heavy that my tent was quite wet anyway by the time it was packed. Having enjoyed their facilities, I felt I should find out more about the Graymoor Friars of Atonement. The book and gift shop seemed a likely source of information, but to my surprise they had nothing specifically about Graymoor, and they directed me to an information centre inside the adminstration building. In here, the one clerk on duty was startled by my presence and confused by my request for information, before telling me, "You've come to the wrong department. we don't really have that here." Department? It hadn't really occurred to me that a friary, inhabited by friars and monks presumably, would have departments. But I was standing in a room that looked undeniably like an office in a rectangular building, with four or five floors, that had 'commercial enterprise' written all over it. Perhaps a layer of spiritual vice-presidents inhabited the upper floors. And maybe the great man himself had a penthouse suite on top of the building. I mean, of course, the CEO. I retreated back to the corridor which now echoed to the footsteps of a man approaching, still out of view, humming a religious incantation in an absent-minded kind of way. The way you or I would whistle a good tune. It felt quite creepy and I was suddenly in a hurry to leave the building. The walking today has been more demanding than yesterday but still very pleasant on the whole. On the last stretch before Lake Canopus, I found myself walking along an elevated path, a good twenty feet above the forest floor on either side. It was level, completely free of rocks and routes, and relatively straight. Reminiscent of the old rail lines I'd encountered by Rausch Gap in Pennsylvania. But the path was too narrow to have been a railroad track. I couldn't figure it out. A little further on, I met a man, a day hiker, coming the other way. He was the first person I'd seen all day, at least since leaving the Friary. I asked him about the pathway and he readily explained. Iron ore had been mined here in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The path had indeed been a railway line but of a very narrow gauge. The ore wagons had never been drawn by steam engine but by oxen. The ore was moved to Cold Spring near here, on the east bank of the Hudson, almost opposite West Point. Fuelled by charcoal provided by other operations in hills nearby, iron works in Cold Spring made artillery for the military, most famously the Parrott rifles used widely during the Civil War. We introduced ourselves. He was Greg, a local man who had just come from leaving a cooler of trail magic at the trailhead on NY301 less than a mile ahead. To my surprise, Greg recognised my name immediately. He reads Trailjournal.com and mine happens to be one of the journals he has been following this year. He was very complimentary and said how much he had been enjoying it. I was suitably modest, and said that the internet had made the world a much smaller place. In my case, it's hard to say whether modesty or originality is the stronger trait! It was a very pleasant encounter, it cheered me up near the end of the day, but we were being eaten alive by mosquitoes by this point, and my mind was also drifting off towards the trail magic up ahead, so we each went on our way. Less than half an hour later I came out at NY301 and found a large and happy group of SOBO's relaxing around Greg's cooler. I helped myself to a soda and an orange. Wonderful. Thanks, Greg, you made my day. The SOBO's - 'Junkie', 'Right On', 'Snail', 'Fisher King' and several others - were a likeable bunch and we headed down, more or less together, to Fahnestock State Park on Canopus Lake. There was some dilemma about where to bed down for the night. In the end, the SOBO's (not all of them have tents) have decided to put down their sleeping bags in the pavilion at the entrance to the park. I've decided to go another half-mile to the official camping area where I can put up my tent. It's free to thru-hikers and I want protection from the insects. Also, nearby are restrooms with running h/c water, hot showers, and a soda machine outside. I like it here. True I don't have any dollar bills to feed the soda machine, but it's still comforting to look at and know that it's there. The illuminated soda machine really stands out in the darkness, a red beacon placed here by a benevolent entity to guide and comfort mankind. Perhaps I should take my medication. With a drink of water. Here's to Coca-Cola!