Good afternoon! That water in the Mine Kill Pool is so cold. 🏊‍♀️

It’s just so tough to swim in 60 degrees water. I can do a few laps before my muscles get hardened up from the cold.

Partly cloudy and 77 degrees at the Mine Kill State Park. ⛅ There is a west-southwest breeze at 11 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 66 degrees. The skies will clear tomorrow around 11 am.

Did some nice hiking yesterday. I hiked the Windham Path outside of Windham – a scenic nature trail right outside the village and then did the Catskill Scenic Trail 🚶 – a lightly traveled rail trail between Grand Gorge and Hubbell’s Corners, through the deep gap where there headwaters of the East Branch of the Delaware River run. 🗻 I wasn’t planning to drive through Windham but I ended up going that way as I got gas in Durham and got on the wrong road heading up over the ridge. ⛽

I always forget how big and dramatic the mountains are in the Catskills around Windham ⛰ as I rarely get up this way – and the places with the good camping on backcountry roads tends to be relatively flat. I like the mountains a lot but my feelings about the Catskills and all of New York State are kind of mixed. 💭 I just feel like taxes are so high in New York State 💵 and the state really likes to punish rural communities.

I was hoping to camp at Duck Pond again but that campsite was taken. 🏕 So I ended up camping on Betty Brook. I kind of like that campsite, it’s fully off the grid and is small so it’s easy to light and set up although it’s always a bit of a challenge to get Big Red backed in between the trees. 🌲🌲🛻 It got pretty muddy as I decided to take Red up Burnt Hill Road from Blenheim and that section is kind of rough. Muddy too, Big Red will need a bath 🛀 this week.

Looking Glass Pond was drained, 🎣 so no fishing while I was up there, although there was a dad and their kid working a trap line 🐀 harvesting muskrats along the shore line when I was walking there. 🌽 Got sweet corn and veggies at Shauls and then went for another swim. 🏊‍♂️ But alas the water 💦 is so cold so it’s hard to swim.