[at-l] Hiking in New York (Installment 3)

[CHoover241@aol.com]

Guys,

Spent the morning of July 4th in the Bear Mountain NY area looking for a place
to stay and checking out the sights.  Found a wonderful place to stay that was
priced reasonably (thanks again Wingfoot).  Found room at the Bear Mountain
Bridge Motel.  It was small and had no phone, but was very comfortable.

As the afternoon approached, it was time for me to head up to the Bear
Mountain Inn to meet the thruhikers I was slacking for the day.  What a shock
I had there!  Couldn't park within a mile of the Inn.  There were people
everywhere and they were from everywhere.  Seems like every culture of the
world was represented at the State Park.  I was gonna have to change my plans
as to where to meet my new found thru hiking friends.

I hiked up to the trail and sat down next to a group of East Indian woman
dressed beautifully in traditional clothing who were picnicing near the trail.
Couldn't understand a word they said, but we all were enjoying the people
watching.  Then thru hikers started coming down into this craziness with
shocked looks on their faces.  It seems that as they were coming to the top of
Bear Mountain they were being mobbed by 100's of Chinese who had never seen
thruhikers before.  The main question was why they were carrying ski poles
with no snow on the ground.

The shock continued for this young man from Texas who had been in the woods
since March, when an East Indian man come up to him talking in his native
tongue on a cell phone and asked him for a match.  He gave one to the man, and
looked at me and said, "I guess we are not gonna get any burgers here." 

Anyways, Slyman and I had a restful sleep at the motel and returned the next
day to  a quiet Bear Mountain to do the sections of trail not gotten to the
previous days because they were covered by people.  The zoo was interesting
and I really enjoyed the climb to the tower (he couldn't get close to the
tower on the 4th because of all the Chinese). I left to come back to Maryland
and he went north crossing the Hudson River and heading towards the monastery.

end of installments lol

            choovers
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