[at-l] (Guest Post) I'm In A NY State of Pain

[cballs@mindspring.com (Curtis Balls)]

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* by our guest Curtis Balls <cballs@mindspring.com>.
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June 2 - Day 2
Milepoint: 1402.1
(11.8 miles)

- Fhanestock State Park, NY

This morning at Graymoor after slurping down the cereal I packed I accepted the Scout leader's invitation to breakfast of eggs and pancakes, their main appeal being that they were cooked outside, albeit by men who obviously never cook at home, and were readily available, for free.  The coffee was good.  I offered to pay for the generously offered breakfast by way of a donation to the Chapter, which was hard for me because the Boy Scout's new anti-gay rules are silly and ridiculous and I try not to support such foolishness by the sweat of my queer brow, but I had eaten their eggs and pancakes and I do try to repay and honor hospitality.  Another reason for my offer was Margaret, the Chapter's designated hostess, who had been kind enough to allow me to store my food bag in her car saving me the chore of hanging it, and of course, the thrill of the flag burning ceremony of last evening.  My donation was politely declined with the suggestion that I make the donation to the friary, which I had already planned to do.

I crawled to the top of the mountain to the main building and went in to find someone who would take my money.  Two young women took it and said they would see it was given to the right people.  I hope they meant what I thought they meant.

I went out to wander around a bit and ran into Detour, the hikeniest dude on the AT.  From the sound of it he's been hiking for years.  It looked like he lived out of his car and I envied the cigarette he was smoking but since I've given up the cancer weed I resisted the temptation to bum one.  It was tough. Instead he gave me a new-fangled energy bar that he insisted I try.  It was pretty good and for the life of me I can't remember the name of the damn thing.  It might have been a new Cliff bar.  Anyway, we talked for a long while and promised to one day hike together somewhere along the AT.  He seemed full of energy so much that he could have out run his car.  I envied that too.  I have a lot to overcome.

The Trail is grinding at my knees and it has me worried.  I've never had any knee or leg problems before.  The NY section is full of a lot of little ups and downs and an occassional larger up along with a fair amount of rocks and roots.  I'm being twisted and my body is not responding well to it this time.  I almost stepped on a copperhead at the bog crossing just before the Old Albany Road.  He was lying between two of the stone steps leading up from the bog.  I started to take the first step when I caught sight of him and quickly retreated backward a few feet on the bog bridge.  I couldn't go around him without getting my boots wet and I didn't want to poke at him since he was about at eye level from where I was standing.  He was a brilliant coppery-orange color with darker markings around his body.  If he hadn't been such a menace, it would have been nice to admire his beauty for a while.  Before I could decide how to get around him, a youn man and woman came sauntering down the trail from the opposite direction.  I halted them with the news just before the girl stepped on the steps.  They were day hiking.  Since they didn't have a hiking stick, I passed them mine so that they could push him out of the way from above.  After a few gentle pokes, he slithered away between the rocks and the steps were safe to use.  Later I realized how lucky they were that I was standing there.  There was no way they could have seen the snake before stepping down on the step, directly on the snake.

The Trail ground me down so that by the time I reached NY55 I was ready to sit down for the night.  I walked the .8 miles to Fhanestock State Park where confusion, ignorance and bad directions had me walking up and down the road and lake bank searching vainly for the tentsites making my feet and legs even more unhappy.  I walked back to the Ranger station to catch the two young fellows rangering who were just getting ready to shove off for the day.  They explained again in more detail than before how I could find the tentsites.  The first time they told me they merely tossed their head around and said, "It's that way." The Parkway wasn't far away so the sound of rushing traffic kept me awake until the wee hours of morning.  They should tell people to follow the sound of the traffic to find the tentsites.  There was a shower at the sites so at least I went to bed clean.

Curtis