July 25

The Secret Campsite

We were all up really early, not wanting to hang around the ball feild in the daylight.  After getting packed up, all of us guys headed across the street to the playground to swing on the swingsets.  Then a mom and her kids started coming down the road, so we decided to leave so the real kids could play.  Leaving town took it's usual long time.  Technically, hitching is illegal in NY so we had to be incognito about it, and we split up into smaller groups.  Slims and I went toward the edge of town and stood at an intercetion for a while.  Then the craziest thing happened.  A local woman, driving an Audi, passed us, then turned around and came back to pick us up.  Rides in cars that nice never happen, haha!  She had done some day hikes in the area and said she thought we didn't look like crazy people, just hikers, so she thought it'd be okay to pick us up.  We got a ride back up the mountain to the trail head, and she told us to check out the creamery nearby.  The rest of the crew had gotten a ride, and dropped of there as well.  At the Bellvale Farms Creamery, I had the best icecream so far on the trail.  A homemade, fresh from the dairy, double scoop cone of mint chocolate chip and heiffer crunch (brown sugar with caramel swirl and toffee peices).  We hiked on in the afternoon over some fairly easy terrain to Fitzgerald Falls.  A local guy named 'Pooch', who had given the other guys a ride up to the creamery ealier, met us there.  His property was nearby, and he had a campsite on his land that he wanted us to check out.  We hiked about a mile off the trail to the top of another mountain to the campsite.  There was a nice fire pit and some tenting spots, and an amazing view to the west.  We set up, ate dinner, and watched the sunset from our rocky perch on top of that mountain.  I think this was the furthest off trail I have hiked to get to a campsite, other than into a town, and it was definitely a cool spot.  Only hiked about 5 miles, but it was a good day.