A joyful morning on Owego Hill. Can't recommend this little hill enough. Looks like there used to be a small mine or stone quarry here.
Amid our joy, a little unspoken sadness. The elephant in the tent is that this hike will soon be over; in fact this will be our last full day on the trail. We're not ready to leave, and we're not at all close to home... we're still weeks away from even our Plan B goal of reaching the Catskills. But we've got some slightly pressing bits of business back in the city that might not keep well without our intervention. Plus we're not really well equipped for the colder weather that the coming weeks will probably bring. Another reason is the fall deer season, which starts October 1 for archery hunters. A lot of the private land trail sections will start closing for the season. It's still a week away, but in that week we're not going to find a better place to bail than the town of Cortland (with bus service back to NYC), which we'll be quite close to tomorrow.
So it's settled. Let's enjoy our last day and night on the FLT.
We breeze down to the lovely Foxfire Lean-to, which we'd considered aiming for last night. No regrets -- doesn't look like anyone was here, but there's a lot of trash from what looks like a recent Polynesian-themed party, to which a large family of mice was invited towards the end. We haven't encountered a trash can since Karenville and we're actually carrying more garbage than food at this point, but knowing that we'll be in town soon, I can't help cleaning up a bit... tragedy of the commons and all that.
The weather is perfect: bright and warm with just a little cool wind. The trail is lush but well-kept. We cross over Greek Peak and Virgil Mountain, small-scale skiing destinations. We nab the very last blackberries from a well-picked-over bush.
The map indicates that we will pass an old boiler on the side of the trail:
Indeed! But what did it boil? And why here?
Shortly we pass "Gatherings, Restaurant and Cabins," also called out on the hiking map. But it's changed its mission and now just does events, the kind of events where you'd want a cabin nearby after dinner I guess... weddings, reunions? No longer of much use to passing hikers; it's locked up tight, but we're thrilled to avail ourselves of their dumpster.
Back into a lovely pine woods dubbed Tuller Hill State Forest. Sadly it seems the whole place is subject to the constant drone from nearby Interstate 81, but here's where we'll spend our final night on the trail. There's a shelter here, Woodchuck Hollow Lean-to, decked out with Bibles and flags and patriotic bunting. No one there, but it sort of still feels claimed. Not that great a structure anyway, says Deb, and no table. We continue, but not far, because there's not far to go -- another few miles and we'll be down by the highway. In a soft spot near a rushing brook, we pitch our humble home for the last time.
Cheer up! Here are some more lovely fungi:
No comments:
Post a Comment