Condon Hollow Trail – Halcott Mountain Lean To

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The Condon Hollow Trail follows an old mountain pass that runs between South Vly Mountain and Sleeping Lion in the Hallcott Mountain Wild Forest. The lean-to is located 2.0 miles west of of the Condon Hollow Parking Area, or 1/2 mile east of the Turk Hollow Road. The col between the mountains is 2,860 elevation, an ascent of 800 feet from Condon Hollow Parking Area. The lean-to is at 2,380 feet, which roughly 300 ascent from the end of Turk Hollow Road or 400 feet below the col. Tailhead parking at: 42.21852779311055,-74.42673587591332

More information on this forest can be found on DEC website: https://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/28314.html

Condon Hollow Trail - Halcott Mountain Lean To

Map: Shelving Rock Road and Dacy Clearing Road

Caveat Emptor Banking

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I was reading about the scam fin-tech company, Yotta Bank, a financial services company masquerading as a bank. Unlike banks and credit unions, there is no government-backed insurance or supervision of bank assets in financial services companies compared to banks – even when they claim such backing. It is really essential to confirm a bank is a bank by searching the FDIC BankFind Suite, especially when putting money in a high-interest internet-only savings account – which makes sense as most retail banks and credit unions offer very low rates due to the high cost of offering in-person service. Credit unions offer similiar banking opportunities to banks, you can verify they are insured like an FDIC Bank through the NCUA Credit Union Locator service. People expect the government to protect them, but the government doesn’t always do that, so check yourself.

For going on 20-years now, I have had an high-interest savings account. It has changed hands several times since I opened it, but before opening it, I confirmed with the FDIC BankFind Suite that it’s an FDIC insurance was legimate and that it was a legitimate bank, even though it is associated with a large banking insitution. It has rolled over into a couple of different banks since then, and just recently I found out the bank name had changed again, and I promptly went to FDIC BankFind Suite to make sure my savings was still in a legitimate bank. While I doubt it would be legal for a FDIC insured banking institution to transfer funds from an FDIC account to a non-FDIC account, it is always good to regularly confirm such details, especially when the bank you are dealing with does not have a physical branch locally.

Terrain Map: Mahanoy Mountain
Map: Severence Hill Trail

Last Friday in June 2026 😶‍🌫️

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Rain held off until fairly late last night, now it’s cloudy but supposed to be clearing out. I was hoping to have more sunlight early as I wanted to check the solar to make sure all is good with the meter because I left for work, but it should be good after testing the connections last night.

The solar and batteries are hooked up now on the truck, 🔋 as of last night everything is charging. Wiring up a battery cable last night, it slipped and there was a massive arc flash when I accidentally touched a hot battery cable to the frame until a fuse popped. It was bright, 💥 especially as it was getting dark and it was inside my truck cap when it happened. Things now should be charging well.

Still need to wire up some lights and USB ports in the truck cap, 💡 but other then that, things are ready to go. Sunday I’ll move over my camping gear 🏕️ and clean out the old truck, get pictures and get it listed in a few places next week, or maybe I’ll wait until the 7th once I’m back so I don’t have to worry about it while I’m out of town, as I’m leaving Tuesday.

I plan to take off Tuesday afternoon, along with Wednesday and Thursday, and head up to the Adirondacks from June 30th to July 6th. 🎇 I want to do the second half of the weekend up at Moose River Plains, but the half will be either Speculator or maybe Piseco-Powley, though I’m kind of tired of Potholers. I might need to work remote on Wednesday or Thursday, so it might very well be Speculator. We’ll see how things play out.

Continuing to figure out the MapLibre GL API, 🖥️ I want to start using that more and more to do maps on the blog, and eventually replace leaflet with it, but the API is much different then what I’m used to. But the power of 3D Maps offers a lot of potential and is kind of cool. It depends how much downtime I have at work this summer. Need to look at get getting some e-books and audio books to enjoy on my six-night wilderness adventure 📚 starting next Tuesday.