Good morning! Happy Sunday from up here at camp. ☺

Just another day during Labor Day Weekend, not a real sunny day, as it was yesterday. Hear occasional shots of a 22 long rifle down in the valley as somebody harvests tree rats a true sign of the autumn to come. 🍂

Mostly cloudy and 59 degrees at Perkins Clearing. 🌥 There are a few breaks of sun and blue sky here and there. There is a south breeze at 5 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 55 degrees. The skies will clear around 10 pm.

Yesterday was probably the nicest day of the holiday weekend and I wasted it ☀ not feeling really ambitious and choosing to walk some of the skid roads in the conservation easement 🚶 rather than go somewhere crowded 👪 like the Pillsbury Firetower trail. Rather than great views, I often prefer quiet, rarely used trails that I can walk to without driving.

I ended up hiking along the Jessup River Road 🚶 out to NY 30 and then to Hatch Brook Falls, the Brisker Brook Road (permanently closed due to wash out) and through the conservation easement. Brister Brook Snowmobile Trail between Jessup River and Spectulator is very quiet, a bit overgrown though 🌿. Lots of monarch butterflies 🦋, very lightly traveled this time of year, watch for high grass and culverts that are falling apart. Didn’t see anyone back there at all.

Drove out to Sled Harbor last evening hoping to see the Pillsbury Firetower or possibly the Snowy Firetower lit up but it wasn’t dark enough and then it was too dark and I couldn’t spot the mountain or clearings to see the mountain from the road. 🗼 Well, I tried. Maybe they didn’t light up Pillsbury this year – I spotted it earlier on but not lit then. Maybe I should have hiked Pillsbury last night but it’s a long hike back down in the dark and the trail is steep. If it’s nice on Monday, maybe I’ll hike it then.

Then I came back and had a nice camp fire. 🔥 It is nice whoever camped here before left a big pile of try split firewood although after last week’s rain ☔ it was still a bit damp and needed to be split. This morning I split the some more wood and got a tarp over it as rain is expected in the afternoon. Stayed up until midnight ✨, by then the stars were clouding out the skies.

Kind of buggy this morning 🐜 but if it gets too bad the screen tent is set up. 🎪 I think the noseeums don’t like bright sunny days. Usually on the hammock the bugs aren’t bad either 😴 as they find it hard to bite a moving target.