Really great trail (or maybe just a fine mood?) in both the balance of Danby State Forest and afterwards over a lot of excellently-maintained private property, with scant road walking. The landscape is hilly forest with some great little creeks and bridges. In Shindagin Hollow State Forest we pass through an area crisscrossed by mountain bike trails, but nobody's biking today.
Heavy rain predicted for the evening, so we're heading for a shelter -- the Shindagin Lean-to, specifically recommended as scenic and peaceful by Karen of Karenville. As usual, I like the idea of leaning-to...
...while Deb is more cautious with her affections for this style of camping, usually persuadable only by the foulest weather or the most excellent architecture and landscaping. And though our spell at Karenville has softened our hearts a bit on short-term communal dwelling, we still can't help hoping that we'll get the place to ourselves.
Approaching the shelter, these hopes are dashed as we smell a campfire. But hey, last night's group campfire was a joy! We never (hardly ever) light one ourselves, but if someone else wants to do the work we're happy to crowd in...
Ah, but that depends on the crowd. One glance at the lean-to and we can see we're dealing with unabashed shelter hogs. Inside, camping gear is strewn on every surface, and two hammocks hang longwise, leaving no room for our sleeping bags. Outside is a large tent and a rigged clothing line with what looks like a week's laundry for a family of five. But they are only two! A heterosexual couple from Binghamton, we glean from the teensiest of small talk.
"Are you hiking the white trail or the blue trail?" inquires the male with poorly feigned comradery. This is a pretty silly question. The Finger Lakes Trail is blazed in white, while the blue blazes mark the short side trail that leads from the shelter to the outhouse. It's clear from the accumulata that these folks have been here for some days, and if they don't know their way to the privy, I shudder to think where they've been depositing their refuse. There are a lot of buckets and jugs scattered around, among the tarps, packs, hatchets, knives, stoves, and piles of unidentifiable equipment, mostly in camo.
Nonetheless, the rain is clearly coming, and what we expect -- standard operating procedure in this situation, universal hiker etiquette -- is that they would apologize for spreading over the whole shelter, clear room for us, and welcome us in. Especially in the rain. That's what's generally happened in these sorts of situations in the past, and we've been on both sides of it. Not a move was made in that direction though. The male, made aware of our desire to claim some space in the shelter, merely assures us that this is their last night and they'll be gone tomorrow. Well that doesn't do us a heck of a lot of good. The female only giggles sullenly, staring at the dirt.
Years ago, while hiking the Long Trail in northern Vermont, we'd been given an unsatisfactory welcome by a gloomy lean-to first-comer by the name of Greylock. He strongly encouraged us to make a little more distance and keep hiking to the next shelter, which he claimed was just over a mile away. Though his ulterior motive was clear enough, naively we trusted him and didn't even check the map. Well it was 4.3 miles away, it got dark, it rained like crazy, and Deb slipped on a slimy puncheon and seriously injured her knee, which compromised our entire trip. And we vowed never to heed inhospitable shelter vibes again, especially when pitted against inhospitable weather.
But Greylock was merely an obnoxious asshole. These guys are weird. And they're armed. I would not sleep peacefully amid their filth, beneath their hammocks. So, breaking the vow, I insist that we move on.
The rain's beginning to fall in earnest though, so we're frantically looking for a campsite with a few close trees to hang our tarp from. Just in time, I find the perfect spot! Okay, not quite just in time; in fact I'm absolutely soaked through while shoving in the last few stakes, but at least Deb's mostly dry. And it's not perfect; it's got a giant rock sticking up, but at least it's more or less in the middle.
...And I thought we'd pitched far enough away from the lean-to, but even through the rain we can hear the Binghamton shelter hogs hollering and whooping in the dark, enjoying the storm under their sturdy roof. Deb shouts at them to pipe down. And they do! Hey, we're weird and armed too.
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