Andrew and I took our father up to Bald Rocks for a Father's Day camping trip. To the best of my knowledge it is the first Clan of Rob trip that legitimately could have counted as a valid trip if it were 'reported.' The only rule it violated was the unwritten 'open invite' rule. At any rate, the invite was closed and the intention was simply to enjoy the weekend with our father.
The hike up was pretty standard, with stops at the usual viewpoints and typical recollections of the first time this or that happened. My father was interested to know what stories he had heard had occurred on this stretch of trail. There were no cars on Rt. 106, but when we arrived at the shelter there were two guys already there. They were middle-aged brothers from NYC and they had all the gear and experience of well-traveled campers. One of them mentioned it was his first time over-nighting in Harriman in over a decade.
My brother, father, and I immediately set to work building a fire to cook our burgers in armor. Andrew almost stepped on a fawn on the way down the hill from the shelter. It was easily the smallest deer I had ever seen-- barely larger than a beagle. We set up our gear on the rocks while the food cooked. We each had a different foil-application technique and we compared the quality of our cooking. My father's 6-layer method had be best combination of adequate heat without burning.
The Whip-poor-wills showed up right on time and put on a great display. One in particular perched repeatedly very close by and flew around our heads. It didn't seem to mind having a flashlight on it, which enables me to get some grainy pictures. From a birding perspective, it was awesome to see all of white markings on the birds. Later we turned to stargazing. I was navigating using Google Sky Map on my Droid while the guys from NYC were using the the analogous app on the iPhone. The Google product proved superior-- Despite it being after 9PM, the iPhone believed it was daytime, that we were in Southern California, and that North was East. Meanwhile the Droid knew what time it was, where we were, and what direction it was facing. Venus, Mars, and Saturn were all out along with a number of prominent constellations and stars.
It was a hot buggy night for my father and I who did not have the benefit of a bivy like Andrew did, thought I will say my new sleeping pad was excellent. The following morning the guys from NYC left early. Our trio headed out to the North after enjoying the fire for a while. Lots of birds were singing and four woodpecker species were heard, including a pair of Pileated. We swung west on Dunning and took White Bar and Nurian back to Black Rock. Back on R-D, Andrew and I tried for a cache to the East of the trail with no luck.
All in all it was a fun weekend with dad. We hadn't been camping together in at least ten years, maybe fifteen. It brought back some memories of Webelos camping trips long ago. Maybe an extensive father/son outing is in order for the future...
--Dan
Monday, June 21, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Live Fire: Cache Me If You Can
We're really trying to amp up this event for July 3, the first ever competitive Harrimaniacs event-- Cache Me If You Can. We're calling our competitive event series 'Live Fire,' as in it's the real deal.
Cache Me If You Can is a geocaching race in which teams will try to find the most caches in Harriman in a certain amount of time. Many of the participants will be new to geocaching, so don't be shy if this is your first time. Each team will have a GPS and will come ready with Harriman's caches preloaded. We'll meet in the park at a designated area TBA to form teams and briefly go over rules. Then each team will have several hours to find and photograph as many caches as possible. We'll all return to the finish line by an assigned time and see who won.
Once the winners are crowned we'll end with a huge BBQ! What a great way to celebrate Independence Day weekend. If you are interested please RSVP to the facebook.com event that will be posted in a few days (will be linked here) or contact me. Anyone is welcome to come late for just the BBQ as well. More details as they unfold...
Cache Me If You Can is a geocaching race in which teams will try to find the most caches in Harriman in a certain amount of time. Many of the participants will be new to geocaching, so don't be shy if this is your first time. Each team will have a GPS and will come ready with Harriman's caches preloaded. We'll meet in the park at a designated area TBA to form teams and briefly go over rules. Then each team will have several hours to find and photograph as many caches as possible. We'll all return to the finish line by an assigned time and see who won.
Once the winners are crowned we'll end with a huge BBQ! What a great way to celebrate Independence Day weekend. If you are interested please RSVP to the facebook.com event that will be posted in a few days (will be linked here) or contact me. Anyone is welcome to come late for just the BBQ as well. More details as they unfold...
Feeds for Harrimaniacs.com
We are working on integrating a feed from this blog into the Harrimaniacs.com website. Back when we were on Myspace, a blog entry would be posted for every trip. The practice was abandoned when we got our own domain name and URL because it was simply to complex to add to the fledgling website. It seems possible now, however, with all of the new technology and easy-to-use feed resources to re-institute this old practice with a new spin.
Our blog can be viewed directly at harrimaniacs.blogger.com already. There isn't much there yet and its basically just a sandbox to test stuff out. The goal is to get a bunch of different Harrimaniacs to post their experiences as they happen. If you have a gmail or google account, you already have a Blogger.com account. Go to blogger, get set up, and the Harrimaniacs Webmaster can give you the required permissions to be a 'contributer' to our blog. This will give you permission to post reports on trips or discussions of anything Harrimaniacal. The blog is public, which means anyone can read it. The content, however, is strictly monitored to make it strictly for us Harrimaniacs.
Go ahead and post stuff-- this is a great place to birth new trip plans, discuss new Homework Assignments, debate the rules of the charter, or just trash talk. Give it a shot.
--the webmaster
Our blog can be viewed directly at harrimaniacs.blogger.com already. There isn't much there yet and its basically just a sandbox to test stuff out. The goal is to get a bunch of different Harrimaniacs to post their experiences as they happen. If you have a gmail or google account, you already have a Blogger.com account. Go to blogger, get set up, and the Harrimaniacs Webmaster can give you the required permissions to be a 'contributer' to our blog. This will give you permission to post reports on trips or discussions of anything Harrimaniacal. The blog is public, which means anyone can read it. The content, however, is strictly monitored to make it strictly for us Harrimaniacs.
Go ahead and post stuff-- this is a great place to birth new trip plans, discuss new Homework Assignments, debate the rules of the charter, or just trash talk. Give it a shot.
--the webmaster
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
10th Year
As of June 1st we entered into our tenth year of the Harrimaniacs! Next June will be the tenth anniversary. If anyone has ideas for a major tenth Aniversary Event, let me know.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
104-100202 Slippery 'the Situation' Overnight
I was shocked and amazed this past week when none other than Pete walked into my school and announced that he was in NJ for 3 days. He arrived at my school at just the right time after organizing this with Lori--It was absolutely the best gift she ever gave me.
Anyway, standing in the 800 wing of IHHS it was clear that a camping trip was in order. We decided we'd leave the next night, about 30 hours away. Pete had no gear with him, on leave from CA/Oki, so he would scrounge for his brother's left over gear and borrow the rest from me. I quickly analyzed Pete's stats and determined the best new shelter for him to visit would be Stone Memorial. We didn't plan much except to meet at his parents house the next day at 6PM. It was just like the old days--meet at Pete's with no particular plan.
When I arrived, I presented Pete with his Harrimaniacs "WEAK" sweatshirt. Getti and Andrew tagged along to say hi, but they had to return to their working lives. I had called out, knowing I would pay the price in work load for being truant. We grabbed some paella and pasta, then headed out to the supermarket. We arrived at the Sebago Boat Launch Parking area around 7:30PM via Rt. 59 and Seven Lakes. Snow showers were predicted and no sooner did we hit the first hill on Seven Hills than a few flakes started to fall.
To preserve the nostalgic feel of the trip I decided to run the GPS but not consult it for directions. We just used a good old fashion map. A few times we overshot or missed intended turns and we simply kept going and changed our route. We passed Monitor Rock, visited the incinerator, and headed southeast past the lakes to Pine Meadow via Conklin's Crossing. The snow was becoming steady by the time we arrived at the abandoned cabin on Pine Meadow, with temps in the mid-twenties.
As we ascended the final hill to Stone Memorial I got a chance to break out my Kahtoola 'snow chains' on 2 long stretched of ice. They get 2 thumbs up. A thin coating of snow rested on the ground when Pete and I finally arrived at the shelter. We started looking for wood and started a fire. Pete took his obligatory fall of the trip trying to come up the hill from the stream while carrying a ton of wood.
Next we got a message (late) from Rob around 9:45 that he was finally in the parking lot. He was the only one able to squeeze in a random, mid-week trip besides myself. He arrived at the shelter a little before midnight.
The next day we awoke late to about 3/4 to an inch of snow. We departed the shelter at 9:30 to very slippery conditions and by the time we arrived at the Egg I put my spikes back on. Pete and Rob had to fend for themselves. The morning was filled with Fight Club quotes and commentary about the Jersey Shore. We explored Conkin Cemetery and also realized "Poached Egg" is a trail, not a scenic element. We headed South on Poached and then Raccoon Brook.
Back at Pete's house I had suggested we try to head south to the Ramapo Torne for the great view of NJ that Pete had never seen. We intended, however, to be back around lunch so I could finish the inordinate amount of work I had to do. After getting a late start it was apparent we would not be able to do both. Pete and Rob both wanted to try for the Torne and I felt like, "What's 3 hours? I won't see Pete for months. I'll just stay up late and hate myself tomorrow." As expected, we continued South.
We consumed most of a bag of trail mix on the way as we hit a number of trails that none of us had ever hiked. There were many great viewpoints near Pulpit and we had good views of the Russian Bear and the Torne on the way. It was great to have Pete again after being absent for 18 months and 30 trips. Not only that, it was exciting to once again be exploring a new area in Harriman with Pete just like things were when we started all of this years ago. What I like most about camping, especially with Pete and Rob, is the incredibly flexible 'we can do it' attitude that we take on. We miss a trail, take a wrong turn, take too long, encounter a setback? No problem. Whatever comes our way we can and will overcome. To me that's one of the foundational parts of ToD.
We finally arrived at the Torne, freezing from the wind, overheated and sweating, hungry, tired, and feet worn. We stopped for a while to rest and regroup. I changed the batteries in the GPS and dropped my spikes because the final stretch of HTS coming into the Torne was mostly clear of snow. When we finally got going again we had a hard time finding the steep part of HTS that descends the Torne to the west.
Most of the way down the hill we encountered a steep woods road on the shadowed and snow-covered west side of the hill. While trying to 'run it out' I found myself going too fast with too much snow-slip to stop or turn. Eventually my feet found a patch of ice while running nearly full-bore and immediately I came down hard, barely steering myself to the left of a bowling-ball sized rock on the edge of the trail. Rob, doing the same about 20 feet behind me, was not so lucky. The rock stopped his ice-driven, sliding crash. Of course Pete took the oppertunity to take photos of us on the ground.
We traveled through easier terrain now as the snow was just starting to melt a bit. After reaching the visitor's center we headed north and paralleled the stream all the way to the end of Stony Brook Trail. We hiked the final stretch of Seven Lakes Drive and arrived at the parking area at 3:50PM. We made good time, especially considering the type of topography and trail conditions.
There will be more blog entries spurred by this trip. I'm going to need to post something of an expose about the other philosophical and nostalgic aspects of the trip and Pete put me in contact with Brian, a One-Night-Wonder from trip #4 from whom I am seeking an account of that early trip. But for now, let me wrap this one up by saying this was an excellent trip. The scenery was awesome, the weather and snow perfect, the distance (14.5mi) and difficulty were there, and of course having Pete in town is always priceless. This will be without question the highlight of the winter ToD season for me, if not the highlight of the entire year.
Anyway, standing in the 800 wing of IHHS it was clear that a camping trip was in order. We decided we'd leave the next night, about 30 hours away. Pete had no gear with him, on leave from CA/Oki, so he would scrounge for his brother's left over gear and borrow the rest from me. I quickly analyzed Pete's stats and determined the best new shelter for him to visit would be Stone Memorial. We didn't plan much except to meet at his parents house the next day at 6PM. It was just like the old days--meet at Pete's with no particular plan.
When I arrived, I presented Pete with his Harrimaniacs "WEAK" sweatshirt. Getti and Andrew tagged along to say hi, but they had to return to their working lives. I had called out, knowing I would pay the price in work load for being truant. We grabbed some paella and pasta, then headed out to the supermarket. We arrived at the Sebago Boat Launch Parking area around 7:30PM via Rt. 59 and Seven Lakes. Snow showers were predicted and no sooner did we hit the first hill on Seven Hills than a few flakes started to fall.
To preserve the nostalgic feel of the trip I decided to run the GPS but not consult it for directions. We just used a good old fashion map. A few times we overshot or missed intended turns and we simply kept going and changed our route. We passed Monitor Rock, visited the incinerator, and headed southeast past the lakes to Pine Meadow via Conklin's Crossing. The snow was becoming steady by the time we arrived at the abandoned cabin on Pine Meadow, with temps in the mid-twenties.
As we ascended the final hill to Stone Memorial I got a chance to break out my Kahtoola 'snow chains' on 2 long stretched of ice. They get 2 thumbs up. A thin coating of snow rested on the ground when Pete and I finally arrived at the shelter. We started looking for wood and started a fire. Pete took his obligatory fall of the trip trying to come up the hill from the stream while carrying a ton of wood.
Next we got a message (late) from Rob around 9:45 that he was finally in the parking lot. He was the only one able to squeeze in a random, mid-week trip besides myself. He arrived at the shelter a little before midnight.
The next day we awoke late to about 3/4 to an inch of snow. We departed the shelter at 9:30 to very slippery conditions and by the time we arrived at the Egg I put my spikes back on. Pete and Rob had to fend for themselves. The morning was filled with Fight Club quotes and commentary about the Jersey Shore. We explored Conkin Cemetery and also realized "Poached Egg" is a trail, not a scenic element. We headed South on Poached and then Raccoon Brook.
Back at Pete's house I had suggested we try to head south to the Ramapo Torne for the great view of NJ that Pete had never seen. We intended, however, to be back around lunch so I could finish the inordinate amount of work I had to do. After getting a late start it was apparent we would not be able to do both. Pete and Rob both wanted to try for the Torne and I felt like, "What's 3 hours? I won't see Pete for months. I'll just stay up late and hate myself tomorrow." As expected, we continued South.
We consumed most of a bag of trail mix on the way as we hit a number of trails that none of us had ever hiked. There were many great viewpoints near Pulpit and we had good views of the Russian Bear and the Torne on the way. It was great to have Pete again after being absent for 18 months and 30 trips. Not only that, it was exciting to once again be exploring a new area in Harriman with Pete just like things were when we started all of this years ago. What I like most about camping, especially with Pete and Rob, is the incredibly flexible 'we can do it' attitude that we take on. We miss a trail, take a wrong turn, take too long, encounter a setback? No problem. Whatever comes our way we can and will overcome. To me that's one of the foundational parts of ToD.
We finally arrived at the Torne, freezing from the wind, overheated and sweating, hungry, tired, and feet worn. We stopped for a while to rest and regroup. I changed the batteries in the GPS and dropped my spikes because the final stretch of HTS coming into the Torne was mostly clear of snow. When we finally got going again we had a hard time finding the steep part of HTS that descends the Torne to the west.
Most of the way down the hill we encountered a steep woods road on the shadowed and snow-covered west side of the hill. While trying to 'run it out' I found myself going too fast with too much snow-slip to stop or turn. Eventually my feet found a patch of ice while running nearly full-bore and immediately I came down hard, barely steering myself to the left of a bowling-ball sized rock on the edge of the trail. Rob, doing the same about 20 feet behind me, was not so lucky. The rock stopped his ice-driven, sliding crash. Of course Pete took the oppertunity to take photos of us on the ground.
We traveled through easier terrain now as the snow was just starting to melt a bit. After reaching the visitor's center we headed north and paralleled the stream all the way to the end of Stony Brook Trail. We hiked the final stretch of Seven Lakes Drive and arrived at the parking area at 3:50PM. We made good time, especially considering the type of topography and trail conditions.
There will be more blog entries spurred by this trip. I'm going to need to post something of an expose about the other philosophical and nostalgic aspects of the trip and Pete put me in contact with Brian, a One-Night-Wonder from trip #4 from whom I am seeking an account of that early trip. But for now, let me wrap this one up by saying this was an excellent trip. The scenery was awesome, the weather and snow perfect, the distance (14.5mi) and difficulty were there, and of course having Pete in town is always priceless. This will be without question the highlight of the winter ToD season for me, if not the highlight of the entire year.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Proposed Ramapo Rampart Hike
We've been talking about having a long day of hiking for while and now that we are finally doing one I am gonna be kinda bummed if not many people show up. ESPECIALLY since we will be hitting two trails that we have never been on before. Where's your sense of adventure guys?
Not only that, anybody who wants to complete 'the Guide' homework assignment is going to need these trails. I can't imagine when we are going to hike this again...
Not only that, anybody who wants to complete 'the Guide' homework assignment is going to need these trails. I can't imagine when we are going to hike this again...
Monday, December 14, 2009
Post-Christmas 2-Nighter & Rock Bottoms
I'm getting pretty psyched for the upcoming south Harriman 2-Nighter. We're doing this one old skool style-- no name, no plan. The only thing we are planning ahead is where to stay. First night will be in the Cladius Smith area, second will be at Stone Memorial. The route in between will be a game-day decision.
This will be a 'Rock Bottom' trip-- For those of you who are not in the know, we formulated the 'Rock Bottom' label to solve a certain problem we encountered in trip planning. We really wanted to stick with the Fight Club mantra, "Free to all." On the other hand, it's a major downer when trips have to be downsized or cut short because some people got in waaaaaaay over their head. We are all for people hitting rock bottom, but I realized everyone has a limit. We want to push the limit, but the limit is still there at the beginning. Enter "Rock Bottom:" The designation is a good way to alert potential campers that the trip will likely be >20 miles, incorporate difficult terrain, and/or have lousy weather and trail conditions. "You decide your own level of involvement."
Ss, this will be a Rock Bottom trip. I intend to make this a 30 mile trip. We'll probably bow north towards the first circle and the Phantom Shelter during the full-day hike. More to come. We're just 2 weeks out.
This will be a 'Rock Bottom' trip-- For those of you who are not in the know, we formulated the 'Rock Bottom' label to solve a certain problem we encountered in trip planning. We really wanted to stick with the Fight Club mantra, "Free to all." On the other hand, it's a major downer when trips have to be downsized or cut short because some people got in waaaaaaay over their head. We are all for people hitting rock bottom, but I realized everyone has a limit. We want to push the limit, but the limit is still there at the beginning. Enter "Rock Bottom:" The designation is a good way to alert potential campers that the trip will likely be >20 miles, incorporate difficult terrain, and/or have lousy weather and trail conditions. "You decide your own level of involvement."
Ss, this will be a Rock Bottom trip. I intend to make this a 30 mile trip. We'll probably bow north towards the first circle and the Phantom Shelter during the full-day hike. More to come. We're just 2 weeks out.
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