Sunday, May 27, 2012

Sunk Mine musings

Sunday, May 20, 2012. Because I hike every bit of trail twice every day, I very much *care* about the trail's character as I pass through it the first time - for the very reason that I'm going to have to negotiate the same features on the way back. I think that makes me pay attention a good deal more than a one-way through hiker might.

My morning section today took me past Sunk Mine - an old magnetite mine that had a narrow gauge railroad serving it.  The AT follows that railroad grade for more than a mile of easy level walking.  I appreciated that ever so much when my afternoon leg took me over two miles of unpleasantly difficult trail beside ('overlooking') Canopus Lake with never a view of the lake or anything else except adjacent opportunities to relocate the trail onto much more level, rock free terrain.   I can only guess that when the trail was originally built to traverse the lake-facing gnarly rocky side-slope, that there *was* a view, now lost behind the growth of trees.

My morning section then took me past a very pretty waterfall draining a beaver pond, said to be the actual site of Sunk Mine.  I appreciated that trail low point as much as I appreciated two high points on my afternoon section north of Canopus Lake.  There was this view of the lake itself from a  rock outcrop on the north end, and then there was the view, below, from Shenandoah Mountain looking up towards the Catskills.  The dim outlines of those higher mountains was nearly lost in the haze.

I'll never get to the Catskills.  Not on this adventure anyway.  The trail skirts them and heads into Connecticut.  Although I'm enjoying New York, I'm impatient to get to that state line.  I'll tell you why when I get there.

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Here's the track of today's hike and a link to more photos:

AT Day 127 - Canopus Lake at EveryTrail
EveryTrail - Find the best Hiking in Connecticut

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