From the Eastern Front: On Island Pond

Friday, September 11, 2020

On Island Pond

On Island Pond

My usual camping partner Fr. Jim Mulloy and I were joined by Fr. Paul from our New Rochelle community and prenovice Thomas Nguyen from Fr. Jim’s Ramsey community. We camped Friday-Saturday, Sept. 4-5, near the south shore of Island Pond in the northwest section of Harriman State Park (near Tuxedo Park). The Appalachian Trail runs by its north shore.

There were a lot of people fishing or paddling about the pond, and we met a few day hikers, including one with a very nice set-up near the ruins of a house on the rocky south shore.

He had a chair, food and beverages, and a book, and he told me he'd also been swimming. Later in the evening 3 people came to camp next to the ruins and made themselves a fine fire in its fireplace. They'd driven up from Philadelphia, they told us in the morning.

Fr. Jim had been to this area a few years ago and remembered an excellent camping spot, which he managed to find via a side path off the old woods road. It was more than ample, had a good fire ring, and had a view of the lake. Fr. Jim and Thomas set up hammocks, and Fr. Paul and I pitched our tents. Everyone was comfortable enuf.

As usual, Fr. Jim took care of fetching and filtering water.

Altho there was plenty of fallen wood about, the morons who'd been there last had cut a bunch of live wood for their fire--both pine and rhododendron. We didn't use that but gathered our own for both our cooking fire and our "atmosphere" fire. Having my folding saw helped a lot.

Fr. Paul at work

We cooked hamburgers on my little grill and munched on other goodies that we'd brought. Fr. Jim always brings cheese; he had a small block of cheddar but was distressed that he couldn't find the slices he'd brought for the burgers. (He found them in the morning.)

Fr. Jim and Fr. Paul returned to the lake at dusk to watch the sunset--which wasn't much because of the intervening western hill, but the sky was pretty--and view the stars.

I rigged up our bear bag, which was pretty heavy with 4 guys' remaining food plus our trash bag. But I overlooked a little cooler bag that Fr. Jim had brought, containing some sausages. And in the morning it was nowhere to be found; a raccoon had visited, we figured.

Thomas went to bed fairly early, evidently tired. I stayed up past 9:00, tending the fire and reading by flashlight. As I was turning in, with the fire down low, Fr. Jim came back, but Fr. Paul stayed out.

Very late, Fr. Paul met 2 hikers from Brooklyn lost in the dark and led them to our camp and had them set up just a few feet from us. They'd taken the train to Harriman and had a long hike southward and eastward, and apparently gotten a little disoriented. They didn't have a map. We enjoyed talking with them on Saturday a.m. as we broke camp, and the lady was delighted to accept some of my leftover instant coffee powder. Others gave them some of their leftover chow, too.