Camping near Green Pond

Camping near Green Pond

Fr. Dominic asked me to drive Fr. Hugo Orozco to the Marian Shrine on Thursday, Oct. 10.  Instantly, I saw a chance to go camping that wouldn’t have come up otherwise.  After all, Harriman State Park is less than 10 minutes from the Shrine.

There wasn’t any point in asking Fr. Jim Mulloy to come along; he teaches at DBP.

I decided to go to a site I used in May, about an hour’s hike from a parking lot along Kanawaukee Road (Rte 106), near the woods road that leads to Island Pond.  Fr. Jim and I have camped at Green Pond (actually, on a height above the pond) perhaps half a dozen times.  It’s in the village of Tuxedo Park, and you hear the traffic on the NY State Thruway all the time.

But the site is roomy, has a good fire pit, and is almost always quiet (except for the traffic) even tho it’s adjacent to 2 trails (Dunning and Nurian).  While exploring and hunting for water on some of those trips, I found a little plateau about a quarter mile beyond that Green Pond campsite.  Someone had set up a marvelous campsite there with a large and a small fire ring and stacked up a big pile of cord wood.  A little creek flowing out of Green Pond had water.  It’s quite secluded.

When I was there in May, I didn’t make a fire; it was plenty warm.

There were 3 cars in the parking lot on Thursday afternoon:  1 each from New York, Illinois, and Virginia.  The drivers of the Illinois car (a South Asian couple) showed up shortly after I arrived and drove off.  A couple more cars were on the side of the road where Island Pond Road starts into the woods.  As I headed north, I met 2 hikers coming back toward their cars.

Both the Nurian and the Dunning trails cross Island Pond Road (so does the Arden-Surebridge farther north), and both lead to Green Pond by slightly different paths.  I stopped to shoot some pictures on my way, and some pictures of a pair of deer on the Green Pond heights.  There wasn’t a lot of color in the foliage yet.

On reaching my campsite, I noticed that most of the cord wood had already been used.  But there are a lot of fallen trees and branches around; so firewood is no problem at all.

I pitched my tent—and used my phone to take a photo that I could share at once; in the photos I’ll link you to, it’s a little out of chronological sequence between pictures of Green Pond and the deer.  That done, I went down to the creek for water.  Oh, oh!  It was completely dry except for one stagnant pool, which didn’t appeal to me even thru a filter.

Green Pond has plenty of water, but it’s inaccessible because of thickets of reeds all around it.

So I hastened back up the hill to camp, almost emptied my backpack and put water filter, coffee pot, and 2-liter plastic bag into it.  (I filter water into the coffee pot, which has a much wider mouth than the plastic bag, then pour thru a funnel into the bag.)  I headed down the Nurian Trail (it descends steeply) into what the map labels the Valley of Boulders, where a brook flows down from Island Pond.  It takes about 20 minutes from Green Pond.  Alas, that also was completely dry!

It had never occurred to me that the creeks would be dry.  We had rain only a few days ago.  I was glad I’d added the half-liter of water to my load and sorry I hadn’t carried 2 liters instead.  (But my pack weighs about 35 pounds without that.)

And by now it was only about a half-hour before sunset.  So I hurried back to camp to do with the water I’d brought with me—a quart canteen and about half a liter in a bag.  That proved to be enuf for both supper and breakfast—but I skipped the freeze-dried dessert at the former and a 2d cup of coffee at the latter.  Supper was Ramen noodles with beef stirred in (left over from tacos), crystal lite, some trail mix, and dried pineapple.  Breakfast was granola, coffee, more trail mix, more pineapple.

With my water used up, I had to adjust my plan, which had been to stay until afternoon.  I didn’t even celebrate Mass, tho I’d brought my kit.  (I celebrated after I got home and cleaned up.)

The nite was starry (which usually betokens a chilly nite) with more than a half moon.  The northern lights showed briefly, but not where I could take a photo (largely obscured by trees).  I made a fine fire and sat by it, praying Evening Prayer and then reading a book till it got a little too chilly.  I retired around 9:15.

Indeed, the nite was cold.  I shut off my phone before I could check the temperature, but it was 42º when I was ready to get up at 6:45 a.m. on Friday.  Inside my tent.  I erred in not bringing my winter sleeping bag, and wasn’t very comfortable during the nite, tho I did sleep some.  I brought layers of clothes, but most of those became my pillow, stuffed inside the sleeping bag’s stuff sack.  More clothes on, less pillow.  But I coulda done better than I did.  Still learning better camping skills.

Well, I put on 6 top layers (and long johns under my pants) when I got up.  After breakfast and Divine Office, I broke camp methodically and was heading out around 9:15.  I got to the car about 10:20, having met just one hiker coming in toward Island Pond.  His was the only car up on Kanawauke Road, and my car was the only one in the lot.  All in all, a good trip that could’ve been better with more water and the winter bag.  The weather was perfect for hiking.

14 photos: https://link.shutterfly.com/Gb5uQSOyCNb