John Boyd Thacher State Park, is situated along the Helderberg Escarpment, one of the richest fossil-bearing formations in the world. Even as it safeguards six miles of limestone cliff-face, rock-strewn slopes, woodland and open fields, the park provides a marvelous panorama of the Hudson-Mohawk Valleys and the Adirondack and Green Mountains. The park has volleyball courts, playgrounds, ball fields and numerous picnic areas with nine reservable shelters. Interpretive programs are offered year-round, including guided tours of the famous Indian Ladder Trail. There are over 25 additional miles of trails for summer hiking and mountain biking, and winter cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, hiking, and snowmobiling.
Cold and rainy this work week then hot for the Friday through the weekend. 🏊♀️
Maybe I will have to get the mug-o-meter back out for the weekend on the blog. Seriously, this looks like this upcoming weekend would have been the one to spend at the Potholers and tubing in the East Canada Creek and the weekend that came and went. But you have to make choices, gas prices are $5 a gallon, groceries and supplies are big bucks, and this was the weekend I could get off, plus I got an extra day for free with the Juneteenth weekend. Just focus on the future, and 2022, which will likely to be declared the worse year ever, will be over in a little over 6 months.
Today. Feels like … May 19th.
Mostly cloudy.
South wind 10 to 14 mph.
and
72 degrees
,62 max dew point,
8:38 sunset.
Tonight. Feels like … June 18th.
A chance of showers, mainly after midnight. Mostly cloudy.
South wind 7 to 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 40%. New precipitation amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch possible.
and
58 degrees
,
5:16 sunrise.
Thursday. Feels like … May 19th.
Showers likely.
South wind around 9 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New rainfall amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms.
and
72 degrees
,60 max dew point,
8:38 sunset.
Thursday Night. Feels like … June 15th.
A chance of showers and thunderstorms before 8pm, then a slight chance of showers between 8pm and 2am. Patchy fog after 5am. Otherwise, mostly cloudy.
South wind around 6 mph becoming calm in the evening. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms.
and
57 degrees
,
5:16 sunrise.
Friday. Feels like … June 19th.
Patchy fog before 8am. Otherwise, mostly sunny.
Calm wind becoming northwest around 5 mph in the afternoon.
Good morning! What day is it? Back to Work Day, of course. 🏢
Oh was it a struggle to get up this morning, get milk, make coffee and make it down to the later express bus.
Mostly cloudy and 62 degrees at the Elm Ave Park and Ride. ☁ There is a south-southeast breeze at 10 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 59 degrees. The skies will clear Friday around 1 am.
What can I say, back to work. 🏢 It was nice to get away for five days, rare I do that outside of summer vacation. And unlike recent years when there was remote work 💻 this time was fully away from it all at Piseco Powley Road. I still haven’t turned on Facebook yet, I’ll probably do it once I have some content to post.
I didn’t get out for an early morning walk 🚶♀️ but between walking down to the express bus and around the Empire Plaza I should have 3,500 steps in before work 👣 and hopefully by evening I will have my 10,000 in for a day. I’ve been managing that record for 21 days now, so I don’t want to break it.
Over the weekend I had the ABS light come on in my truck. 🚗 It came on a few times when I was up north driving, and I noticed the ABS was being over active when braking but then driving home from my parents house last night it was off. Kind of hard to get it fixed if it stays off, but I will take a wait and see approach, maybe get it looked at before vacation. I like having the traction control especially with those big tires and lift kit, as it really helps when I push the truck too hard in curves to keep it on the road. Also, I have the Takata Air Bag Recall 🎈 which I should get addressed although this point, it’s been so long waiting for the part to come in, that I don’t know how much it matters.
I do want to get out of town again at some point, ⛽ but with gas prices and everything else, who knows when it will be. I am assuming it will be sometime in July. Maybe Independence Day Weekend, though I have my doubts. Certainly not next weekend. 🏕 With inflation so out of control, you really have to pick and choose when you want to spend time in wilderness. It’s just kind of a year of suck. While everybody talked about 2020 being the worse year ever, I actually had a lot of fun that year, and gas prices were quite affordable.
I guess as they say, it is what it is. At least the work week won’t be hot, but the weekend looks much warmer. This isn’t a Thacher Park weekend so no bus out there, so I’ll have to figure out something else closer to home. Maybe I could go kayaking again in the Hudson River.
Tonight. Feels like … June 18th.
Showers and possibly a thunderstorm before 3am, then a chance of showers. Low around 58. Southeast wind 5 to 7 mph becoming southwest in the evening. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New rainfall amounts between a half and three quarters of an inch possible.
and
58 degrees
,
5:16 sunrise.
Wednesday. Feels like … May 12th.
A chance of showers, mainly before 9am. Cloudy.
South wind 8 to 10 mph, with gusts as high as 21 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible.
and
70 degrees
,62 max dew point,
8:38 sunset.
Wednesday Night. Feels like … June 18th.
A chance of showers and thunderstorms before 9pm, then showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm between 9pm and 2am, then showers likely after 2am. Mostly cloudy.
South wind 6 to 8 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New rainfall amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms.
and
58 degrees
,
5:16 sunrise.
Thursday. Feels like … May 23rd.
Showers likely.
South wind 7 to 9 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New rainfall amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms.
and
73 degrees
,62 max dew point,
8:38 sunset.
Thursday Night. Feels like … June 15th.
A slight chance of showers and thunderstorms before 11pm, then a slight chance of showers between 11pm and 2am. Mostly cloudy.
South wind around 6 mph becoming calm in the evening. Chance of precipitation is 20%.
Actually, I guess summer started at 5:17 AM this morning, though I was fast asleep in the back of my pickup, after staying up late last night looking at the stars at Powley Place. Been unusually cold weekend, but it was nice to get away for five days, and not have any social media or emails to look at in the mean time.
Rain and 67 degrees in Delmar. ☁ There is a southeast breeze at 6 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 54 degrees. 0.22 inches of rain is expected before it ends around 9 pm.
I decided not to leave for the Adirondacks until Friday morning. 🌅 I left before 7:30 and took the Thruway to Schenectady, got gas there and supplies and groceries at the Walmart in Gloversville.
Explored Willie Marsh around 9:30 am, only some geese 🦆 and swallow tail butterflies 🦋 there. First time there, I wasn’t that impressed didn’t stay long. Nice bridges and handicap access but it’s a pretty generic marsh.
Got to camp around 11. ⛺ Got the campsite I like at the trailhead to House Pond across from the swimming hole and a relatively short hike to the Potholers.
Swam and did a floating on the tube ⭕ and drinking 🍻 beer and eating Giraldi sausage patties with mozzarella. 🍔 They’re so good even with inflation raising their prices.
Had a real big fire, 🔥 with six or seven foot flames for a while. Looked like a bonfire although maybe it was more like a bonfire with eight weeks of burnables going up in smoke and a strong breeze to feed the fire and blow what was probably somewhat black smoke after dark into the wilderness.
Saturday was incredibly cold 🌧️ with drizzle and rain a good portion of the day. I hiked down to another waterfall and swimming 🏊 hole I had heard rumored about but never explored before. l also hiked back to the Potholers. Didn’t swim, for a while I was so chilled through I found myself sitting by the propane heater ♨ to stay warm.
Sunday also was cold with a gusty breeze most of the day and temperatures in 50s and low 60s. 🌬️ Enough sun ☀ I did some floating on the the tube but it was cold enough that out of the water 💦 and put my hoodie back on and sat by the heater. ♨ Hiked again to the Potholers.
Read 📖 four books. Making up for lost time on my summer reading program. The first one was a book on Statistics for Dummies. Second one was Nate Silver’s Signal and the Noise. Third was Algorithms in a nutshell, fourth was Triggers : creating behavior that lasts–becoming the person you want to be and then finally I got a good way through Steven Rinella’s Meat eater : adventures from the life of an American hunter.
Monday I took down my campsite at House Pond Trailhead and spent the balance of the morning at the Potholers 🏊♂️ spending a lot of the morning in the sun ☀ reading 📖 and floating in the tube. ⭕ I went in the Potholers a bit but it was cold. Set up camp ⛺ at Powley Place 10, had another sausage paddy and hiked back to Goldmine Stream Falls.
Got back to camp around six, had some dinner and beer 🍻 🍔 then went tubing on the East Canada Creek until around 8:15. Paddled between the navigable section beaver dam 🐻 to the first beaver dam downstream of the bridge. Probably a mile or two. While the tube isn’t as fast as the kayak 🛶 it certainly can be used for leisurely navigation and is much lighter and easier to pack then the kayak.
I wasn’t going to have a fire 🔥 until I decided to have a small one, and stayed up to around eleven to look at the stars ✨. Some haze and clouds in the evening but still very starry and pretty walking along that sandy road in the remote country surrounded by the tall old growth Spruce trees.
This morning I managed to break some eggs 🥚 in the cooler accidentally and then with the remaining eggs made breakfast. 🍳 I’m trying to use up whatever is left as after five days in the wilderness the ice is all but done. I have a few hot dogs left 🌭 and breakfast sausage but I’m hoping for enough cool for them to survive. More drizzle and cool this morning, incentivized me to take camp ⛺ down early lest things get wet.
Hiked back to Big Alderbed this morning. 🐠 I’m watching the fish jump in the lake to grab flies. The East Canada Creek was low enough flowing from Big Alderbed I could cross without having to do the alternative Bushwhack along the south shore. Upper part of the trail past the stream cross is unmarked – that’s despite the big sign at the trail head and many markers on the obvious part of the trail. It’s like the DEC ran out of markers and just gave up. 🔵 Drizzle continued this morning.
I was disappointed to see a bunch of litter 🚮 at the Powley Bridge campsite. I picked up some of it although I didn’t have a bag or gloves 🧤 with me so I didn’t get it all. I don’t leave a mess or a even trace if I can avoid it. Maybe some stirred up dirt 💩 but that’s part of walking on the land and the grass will regrow.
Truth be told, I was in no rush to head home 🏡, I’ve enjoyed being disconnected from the world 🗺 and email 📧. No social media and I mostly didn’t listen to the radio 📻 news. There’s just been so much going on lately and I wanted to be away from it all. It may be a while until I get to go another weekend like this.
A couple of weeks ago I hiked up Goodnow Mountain, on a beautiful clear afternoon, that by the time I reached the mountain it started to cloud up and the humidity started to increase. I had previously in the morning attempted to hike up Giant Mountain in the High Peaks, and wanted to do something easier for the afternoon.
Goodnow Mountain is located at the SUNY ESF (Environmental Science-Forestry) College, just south of the Adirondack High Peaks on NY 28, just to the west of Newcomb. It’s a bit of a drive from the Adirondack Northway from the east or even a little ways from Long Lake to the west, but well worth it for the views.
About a quarter mile up the trail you pass an interesting tree grown over a rock. This is not as uncommon as you might think in the Adirondacks where the soils are poor and the ground is rocky, and trees seek to put down more roots to pick up nuetrants.
At about 1/2 mile you reach the old woods road that at one time, decades ago, provide vehicular access to the tower for forest rangers. Part of the trail is flat, but then it keeps steeper and erosion is noticable on the old road bed, no longer passable by anything then ATV in an emergency.
Further up the mountain, the trail follows a series of boardwalks that keeps most of the trail out of the mud and the muck.
Then you reach an old abandoned barn, a well, and some interesting old debris like what appears to be a tank from a hot water heater storage unit.
You ascend a ledge, with some limited views to the south.
Then their is a thick planation of White Pines along the trail as you make one relatively short ascent to the firetower.
Eventually at the last possible moment, you break through the White Pines to see the Goodnow Firetower, and almost instantly want to start climbing it for the views, unless your suffering from heat exhaustion, then you might want to look for the relatively limited shaded but open sections on the mountain.
SUNY ESF has restored to the Ranger’s cabin, and the porch is a farely popular place to sit, enjoy the view, beat the heat for a few moments.
There are many interesting views from the firetower. Here are the High Peaks looking North, the Vanderwhacker Wild Forest to the east, Kempshall Mountain / Long Lake to the west, and Blue Mountain / Blue Ridge to the South.
Everything you say can and will be used to ram Facebook advertising down your throat
Since installing the Facebook Lite app that uses very little data and memory space, I have to admit I’m using Facebook more then I probably should be and seeing more advertising for that priveledge. The truth is most of the advertising isn’t all that relevant to me and much of it is very scammy.
Lately the biggest chunk of advertising I’ve seen is for the “Community Solar” that is being aggressively promoted by green marketeers, ever since the state adopted a regulation mid-December that allowed solar farm operators to bill you for their energy produced to the grid. Community solar, allows one to buy “a share” of an industrial solar facility. I see a ton of these days as I’m often talking about off-grid living and the solar panel on my truck, but the Facebook algorithm doesn’t understand the issue. If anything, I’ve been critical of community solar farms, which I think have been permitted with too little scrutiny by regulators, and a somewhat dubious value to the grid or society as a whole. Roof-top solar — closely paired with a load — makes a lot of sense especially on hot summer days and will mean the dirtiest, most fossil-fuel intensive plants are kept off, but I’m not sure I agree with covering farm fields with solar panels and aluminum frames with no decommissioning plans.
The other big advertising I’ve seen a lot of is so-called geothermal heat pumps, that use electricity to pump heat from or into the ground as an alternative to fossil fuel boilers. I guess that’s a good thing if you have a large house as it eliminates on-site fossil burning, and carbon emissions but most heat pumps also consume an increadible amonut of energy — often doubling the electricity consumption of a modern suburban house, which is a lot of energy that still to this day is largely produced by burning fossil fuels, mostly natural gas in New York. Maybe you come out ahead with heat pumps, even if with the loses of converting gas into energy, but I’m skepitical. I just don’t think the standard suburban way of living in sustainable even if you green wash it. I guess it might be more reasonable if you also had a large grid-tied solar array on your home, but even that is unlikely to fill all the energy-hungry needs of geothermal heat pump.
Beyond all the green advertising I see being pushed down my throat with Facebook, there have been a lot of sponsored posts on financial services, but most of the ones being sold as “scamy” and of dubious value. There are the category of apps that are suppposed to make it easier to budget, those suggesting financial products you should buy before your 36th birthday, those trying to claim to be a better good then what I already have. Information is never a bad thing, but I think I’m an informed consumer and the products I already are investing in or have purchased are a better deal then what the marketers are selling. I don’t like the dishonesty of nature of those ads, trying to trick you into buying a product or service that really isn’t in your best interest. I think it’s good to care about money, to invest, work towards a better future, but I don’t like what I see in the ads.
Additionally, there is the category of ads that follow you around the internet of products you have looked at before, some of which you have already bought. Sometimes I will look at a product have seriously, mostly because I want to know the cost or what is out there to meet a need. Sometimes then I will build thing at home or find another way to make it work for less money. Other times, there are just interesting things out there to check out. Doesn’t mean I ever plan to buy it. Or even worse is advertisements for things you’ll already bought but they are continuing to push to you, as the algorithms just aren’t smart enough to do know the difference.
