[at-l] weekend hike

[hudsom at us.ibm.com (Mark Hudson)]

I picked a glorious weekend for my annual combined first
overnighter/blowdown sweep. Over sixty degrees both days, sunny blue skies.
Left NY 52 about 9:30 Saturday morning, things have dried up considerably
since the last rain (two whole weekds ago?). I wasn't hitting much blowdown
to start with and thought I was going to get off easy. It turned out that
while the blowdowns were scattered they were large, larger than my small
saw would handle. I had to turn a couple of them into step-overs. That's OK
by me, it keeps the mountain bikers at bay.
There was enough work to do that I could tell it had been a hard winter.
But I was out to hike too... met several day hikers just before Rt 55 and I
woman backpacking south just after that. Met two more day hikers at Nuclear
Lake where I stopped for a break in the sun. I headed on to Telephone
Pioneers where I was the only one there for a very quiet night.
Spring was definitely in the air, I scared up three wild turkeys during the
day, the pileated woodpeckers were calling and drumming, the butterflies
were out and the bluets were coming up. I scared up three white tail below
the shelter, and then heading back on Sunday morning I took the old section
of the AT back to RT 55 and came upon a pile of moose droppings. Think
they're following the trail south?
Then I started hearing sirens, for nearly half an hour. When I got to Rt 55
traffic was being diverted, and as I came up on Old 55 a Med-Evac copter
came overhead, somebody was having a really bad day, but of course the
paper doesn't say anything about it today.
Took a break on the sunny ledges not too far from Morgan Stewart, and made
it back to the car about noon... great weekend!

skeeter