Can a 100 watt solar panel beat an occasionally run 150 amp alternator ?

A 100-watt solar panel in theory can put 7.35 amps at 13.6 volts. In contrast, an 150 amp alternator, run at highway speeds can in theory put out 150 amps at 13.6 volts. Except that 150 amp alternator will put out nearly half as much electricity at idle or maybe 70 amps due to the engine running at half it’s highway speed, and that’s before the regular electrical loads of an engine’s computer and headlights take their bite out of power supply.

When I camp, I usually use my deep cycle battery mounted under my truck’s hood to power my campsite, radio, and other equipment. It works fairly well, but after a while, it becomes discharged and I need to start the truck’s engine to charge it back up for 10 minutes when I hear the low battery alarm or the truck’s computer notices a low battery. I probably have to do this once every 1.5 to 2 hours. This keeps the battery fairly healthy, but it’s still not as strong as when I first arrived at the campsite, after often hours of charging at the maximum necessary charge provided by the alternator.

Energy Math

Amps are the amount of current Voltage is with how much force the current is moving, e.g. 13.6 watts Wattage is amount of work consumed, e.g. 12 watt LED bulb Amp Hours are the number of amps consumed per hour Watt Hours are the number of watts consumed per hour Amp = Wattage / Voltage

The Truck’s Charging At Idle

Alternator Peak Output – 150 amp Typical Output at Idle (possibly lower after predatory loads) – 70 amp Voltage – 13.6 volts Charging Hours – 10 minutes every 1.5 hours = 0.11 hour charging Amp Hours Charged (over 1.5 hours) – 7.7 amp/hr Watt Hours Charged (over 1.5 hours) – 105 watt/hr Watt Hour Charged per 10 hour day (assuming I start the truck every 1.5 hours during 10 hours) – 0.7 kW/hr

100 watt solar cell

Solar Cell Output – 7.35 amp Realistic Solar Output – 5.1 amp (70% of maximum on sunny day) Voltage – 13.6 volts Charging Hours – 1.5 hour Amp Hours Charged (over 1.5 hours) – 7.7 amp/hr Watt Hours Charged (over 1.5 hours) – 105 watt/hr Watt Hour Charged per 10 hour day – 0.7 kW/hr

A 100-watt solar panel which operates all day when the sun is it on will produce more energy than an alternator running only occasionally.

Started looking at solar power for camping

For some time now, I’ve wanted to learn more about solar electricity. I have read books on it and know how it works in principal, but I have basically no first hand experience as it comes to solar power. At the same time, my electrical load is growing on my truck when camping, especially once I install the CB radio installed in my truck.

Why I Am Thinking Of Going Solar

I hate having to turn on the truck to charge the battery every couple hours, especially when I am sticking around a campsite all day rather then traveling. With higher gas prices this year, due to being an election year, I am thinking of spending more time at a campsite – especially if I do more hunting and fishing this year.

Idling the truck works okay for creating electricity, especially in summer evenings when the darkness is short, and I’m usually not back to camp until 8 or 9 PM. But sometimes when I am hanging out in camp – especially in the morning – it’s a pain to have to start the engine up and listen to the racket it makes, in the quiet of the woods. A solar cell would start charging the battery as soon as the sun rises, and by the time I awoke, the deep-cycle would probably be almost fully charged.

I worry about idling my truck a lot too. Car and truck engines are not designed to idle at a set speed for long periods of time. While engines are a lot better then years past, I’ve always felt it puts a lot of strain on the engine doing this. That said, I had my previous truck until it was 13 years old, and the engine ran fine. I got rid of it because I wanted a new full-size truck and the old one had increased mechanical costs from things like brakes and suspension parts that kept breaking down in the boonies.

I’ve started looking at solar panels, especially in the light of the fact that solar power has come down so much in price. They say it’s about $1 a watt, although for the most part the solar panels I’ve looked at are closer to $1.40-$1.50 a watt. Even at the $1.50 watt price it’s not unreasonable, as I’ve seen several 100 watt panels below $150.

Not only that, but the modern solar panels are mono-crystalline, so they more produce more electricity in less space. The 100-watt mono-crystalline panels I’ve seen have dimensions of roughly 3.5 feet by 2.5 ft. Pretty darn small, especially compared to the amount of energy they generate. Have you ever tried generating 100 watts riding on stationary bike? It’s a lot of work – despite the fact we use incredible amounts of fossil energy in our homes. Even if I get only 50-60 watts out of the panel, that’s still a 1/2 a kilowatt hour per day.

Storage box I am thinking of building to store my solar panel when not using it camping.

Why I Don’t Use Solar Power Right Now

I’ve pondered solar power on and off. I’ve thought about mounting solar panels on my truck cap, but generally have frowned on the expense and the cost-benefit ratio. The reality is idling my truck to charge up the accessory battery works fairly well, and is low cost compared to driving it there and back.

Most of my energy use is at night when I am at camp for the night, sitting by the campfire, listening to music, lighting up the flag, the decorative lights, and LED lamps for general camp lighting. The sun doesn’t shine at night, so I would still have to use the alternator and idle as the battery runs low. Finding direct sunlight sometimes can sometimes be challenging at campsites far back in the woods. That’s why you have to make sure you have enough wire of sufficient gauge to put a solar panel a far distance away. But at 8.5 amp of current, the wire size shouldn’t have to be enormous.

I also had concerns about mounting the solar panels on the roof of my truck, going through car washes or if trees brushed along the roof top of my soon to be jacked up truck. I also figured it would reduce my fuel economy by wind resistance, canceling out all benefit to mounting it on the roof.

But the main reason I put off going solar, was it just seemed like very little power for a lot of money. Spending like $200 bucks for 5-6 amps of power, didn’t seem like a good use of money, especially when the alternator puts out so much current. However, unlike an alternator the solar panel runs whenever the sun is up, while the alternator only spins when the engine is running – typically 10 minutes every 1.5-2.5 hours.

Solar panel prices have come down a lot lately, and while they produce a lot less electricity then a big gas engine that is running, they produce it all the time when the sun is shinning.

My Evolving Views on Fracking

A few years ago, I was pretty supportive of fracking in New York State. I thought it would be good for the Southern Tier and Western NY, as there is already a fair bit of historical natural gas production in that part of state.

I always viewed the anti-frackers as being the same group of extreme lefties who decided they had to ban open burning on farms and rural locations to save the environment from rednecks burning a little bit of plastic in a fire. Or the same people who decided the entire state land holding in the Adirondacks could not ever be used for responsible timber production, like is common in our national and state forests. Or those at war on ATVs, snowmobiles, and even back-country campsites and trails. In other words, environmentalists who are opposed to fracking are generally bad people.

Over time claims that I once saw as best distorting the truth, are proving themselves somewhat true. Accidents happen and as you scale up, there is a potential for accidents get worst. Conventional natural gas production is not unlike the high volume horizontal wells, much like a convenience store is much like Super-Walmart. Much of the products and methods are the same but the scale is much larger than conventional processes. Bigger means bigger risk.

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Is it more dangerous or polluting than conventional wells? It depends how you look at it. Natural resource extraction, to a certain degree, is always polluting, although pollution can be controlled. Areas with a lot of natural gas drilling underway tend to be busy with heavy truck traffic and big construction equipment, which can certainly bring in a lot of pollution, at least temporarily. Even modern big-rig diesels can be pretty polluting, and many of the equipment is older and dirtier from the era before strong diesel emission regulations.

I measured some of the the high-volume fracked wells in Pennsylvania to conventional natural gas wells in New York on Google Maps. The footprint was in some cases 2-3 times larger, but in other cases about the same as a New York State Black River-Trenton formation well. Regardless, any drilling campaign uses some farmland and forest, and cumulative impacts have to evaluated to the environment, even if eventually the wells will be plugged and recovered when they run out of gas.

I also think some of the water pollution and methane contamination complaints are legitimate. As was cynical at first about such notions, and I am sure the anti-fracking activists tried to milk out every little accident and problem, but there are issues and accidents that need to be considered, especially when scaling things up. We need regulations that protect people’s water and ensure that any impacts on the land are temporary inconveniences not long-term headaches.

I believe in keeping an open mind. I still prefer strong regulation over an outright ban, but we will see where this evolves. Many will argue that fracking should be banned be banned in our state. New York State created the Forest Preserve many years ago, and while controversial, wasn’t the great disaster that some people proposed. It’s something to watch.

New York, as an urban state, will never be energy self-sufficient, but we could do better if we could manage our natural resources better.

While I am still not opposed to oil and gas production in NY State, I can see where the winds blow and realize like any policy choice there are pros-and-cons.

Replacing All My Camp Lighting Next Year with LEDs

Right now, my primary source of camp lighting is a set of two 100-watt equivalent florescent bulbs, hooked to my truck’s inverter. Due to the nature of camping, and because things often get wet or dropped, they really do not last very long, and frequently need replacing.

When they don’t get broken, I usually bring them home, and save them to the some day in the future when I return them for recycling. When they break — I don’t freak out — I usually just chuck them in the campfire, and pack out the glass and unburnt debris in the morning. I don’t really freak out about the mercury. But for environmental reasons, I would like to get away from mercury-based lighting, despite the relatively tiny amount of mercury in each bulb.

In recent years, I’ve been slow moving away florescent lighting whenever I can for camping. An early purchase of mine was LED Christmas light strings. The purpose of the Christmas lights was not so much for decoration — even though they’re pretty — but to provide a small amount of backlight to the campsite, so I don’t trip on things. A string of LED Christmas lights uses a fraction of the energy, even a smallish compact florescent uses.

This past year, I noticed that LED light bulbs have finally come down enough in price to reasonably affordable. I bought my first one this past July, a 40-watt equivalent bulb that uses only 7-watts of electricity, for a bright warm white lighting of my American flag. It not only seems quite durable and efficient, it always bright regardless of the temperature. It keeps the flag lit regardless of the weather.

With prices coming down even further, I bought a second LED bulb this fall for $10. It’s a 60-watt equivalent that uses only 10 watts of electricity. Best of all, even during the cold winter months, it works quite well. I wasn’t crazy about the heat shielding on the model I bought, but many of the newer ones lack the ugly heat shielding over the glass. Despite 15 degree temperatures, the 10 watt LED bulb kept things bright all night long.

LED lighting is the future. Fluorescent lighting not only contains mercury, it also uses more power and dims dramatically even under modest temperature drops. Florescent lighting is fine indoors, in relatively warm rooms. But it doesn’t work well outside, especially when camping, when air temperatures can 50 degrees or even lower in the even lower. Common fluorescent lamps dim in the cold, while LEDs shine their brightness, regardless of the cold.

Two years ago, when I bought my truck cap, I bought a series of LED strip lights to light up the cap. At the time, I had the choice between warm-color LEDs and cool-color LEDs. I bought the cool colored ones, as I thought they would look more neat in the truck cap. I’ve been thoroughly impressed with them since purchasing, and would consider having them as part of a future off-the-grid home.

What’s nice about LEDs is they are natively 12-volts, so they work well with batteries, solar-panels, and most renewable sources of energy. The onces I bought for my truck, required no transformer or adapter, as they worked on natively at that voltage. It’s also relatively easy to step down 120 volt AC power and run it through a diode to create 12 volts DC to run LED lamps. Most LED lights are natively dimmable with common thysor-based dimmers and require no ballast.

A decade ago, I toured an off-the-grid house in Clinton County. It was a neat home, and one of it’s best features was the use of 12-volt wiring for lighting. Rather then step up the voltage from the solar panels and batteries for lighting purposes, they chose to efficiently just use 12-volt DC lamps, mainly the relatively new LED bulbs and some halogens. They also had a large inverter to power 120-volt AC appliances and select number of florescent light bulbs.

I think LEDs are the future. I am sure after spending $10 a bulb to buy a third or fourth camp light, prices will come down even further, and I will look back and think what a waste of money.

Technological progress has meant LED bulbs are cheaper, more efficient, and work well in the cold outdoors conditions.

Lift Kits and Being White Trash

Friday I took off from work as a Personal Day. I have never taken an actual personal day for personal reasons from work in the 6-years I’ve worked for my company, despite them offering the time. I have taken personal time in the past, but usually it’s just another day for a long-weekend road trip to somewheres exotic – and not a bona-fide personal reason.

I had a list of things of things I wanted to get done that day, like a hair cut, getting my camera repaired, and grocery shopping. But it mostly ended up being a day when I slept in and didn’t do much besides go and talk to a couple of shops about getting my truck jacked up.

What I’m Leaning Towards

After thinking about it for a quite a bit, I am leaning towards going with 35s, a BDS-six inch lift, and 4.88 gearing. The shop said it would probably come out to between $5-6k, but I am not sure if that includes the re-gearing. A lot of money, but so be it – I’ve been saving my money, and my truck is my toy.

My top priorities for the lift kit is getting a truck that looks quite nice, has better ground-clearance especially in the snow, doesn’t break-down way out in the woods, doesn’t drink dramatically more fuel, and is economical to maintain. Those might be a tough combination with a lift-kit, but if I stay at 6-inches with the lift kit, get a good brand kit with necessary accessories, re-gear to avoid straining the transmission, and only put 35s on it, I should be okay. I’d rather spend the money now, rather get broke down somewheres in the boondocks and spending a lot of money for front-end repairs.

In my ideal world, I would love to do 37s and 6 inch lift plus a 3” body lift. But alas, money is no object, and indeed, I am afraid of the damage I would do the front end and the drive-shafts, putting so much weight and load on them. I’ve researched doing that on the interwebs, but and it might be a fun project if the truck was retired to be a mud-toy around the farm, but not when it’s something I’m taking on long-trips in the back country. Instead, I’d rather spend money a quality lift-kit that doesn’t put CV boots at a bad angle by replacing proper components, which I would have take somewhere to get fixed.

4.88 gearing with the 35s is a bit lower then a stock gears, but it will give me more power on the hills, and make crawling easier. I’ve always though the factory gearing was a bit high. From what I’ve read, it also won’t hurt gas mileage much compared to a higher gearing, e.g. 4.56s. It also leaves open the possibility of going to 37s when the 35s wear out and need to be replaced eventually, without regearing, if I am willing to sacrifice some power (e.g. 4.88s on 37s are about the factory gear ratio).

At any rate, the local shop seemed to think I could do that. I think it would make my truck look a lot more muscular, and give me a lot more ground-clearance in the snow and getting in and out of campsites, and on rough roads. It will be fun in April, once my truck jacked up, and I’m on my first road trip again with the higher vantage points and better views. If I want to go higher, I will think about the body lift later on.

Now the White Trash Part

So after I was looking at jacking up my truck, I had to swing by the Salvation Army to look for a new sports-coat. I was disappointed that I couldn’t find one, because the one I currently wear that after 7 years is wearing out. I only wear a sportscoat to work about 100 days a year, and a such, they tend to last. I really didn’t want to spend a fortunate, but I wanted to look good. I guess I will be stuck going to JC Penny or another large chain store to get a new sportscoat.

It really felt kind of guilty shopping at the thrift shop, looking for clothes for work, after looking at those expensive lift kits. But heck, it’s helping charity, and whatever – if it looks nice – who cares if I spent $30 or $70 on the jacket. But it sure seemed trashy going there, after drooling over off-road equipment at the off-road stores.

Then I had stop by the Freihofer’s Outlet store in Schenetady to stock up on bake goods and cookies. They tasted pretty awesome too. But it just seemed so trashy and tacky to be going to a discount bake goods place, after spending so much time looking at lift kits.

Note: Sample pictures used in this article are from OK 4WD’s Online Garage, which shows the quality work they do in Northwestern New Jersey. I didn’t ask permission to use the photos, and if they really object, please email me. They look like they do nice work, and I lived near them, would definately talk to their shop.

An afternoon spent visiting a 4x4 shop, then buying cheap pastries and shopping at a thrift store. It's called priorities.

And Then Winter Came Back Around on the Calender

It seems like it was just yesterday, and it was April 5^th, the first day on the calender I spend out in the wilderness camping. It was the wilds of Chenango County, camping at Balsam Lake with there still being a fair bit of snow on the ground in parts, and the pond was well frozen. It would be over a month until the leaves returned to the Adirondacks – I would go up to the Adirondacks two times after the 5^th, and there would still be no leaves on the trees and ice still around.

Where did the summer of my 30^th year go so fast? I guess there was many great adventures as my camera and dwindling checking account would suggest. And there would be another year of trips and places and small towns to see on my 31^st year, as soon as the winter relents in April. But in the mean-time there will be be winter. The camping gear has been packed away or is in the process of being packed away, the readily-burnable styrofoam plates and camping cooler have already been locked away in the attic. Christmas lights that kept the campsites cheery over the months, are now hung in the apartment, and inverter in my truck is just doing do light duty, keeping my cellphone charged during shorter road trips.

I thought about getting a snowmobile and spending more time in the back country in the winter, but put it off in favor of doing the lift kit on my truck next April. Winter is cold, and even with a sled, I don’t know how much camping I would do at any rate. Winter nights are long – something I learned on my last camping trip, when there was 15 hours of darkness with the sun setting around 4:15 PM. My snowshoes will work well enough for the occasional winter trip – I think I’d rather save the gasoline for more warm weather trips once the snow melts.

As much as anyone, I am looking forward to April after a few quite, solemn months, where I will spend writing new code for my blog, doing essays, and making up new maps. Winter is a good time to think about the next year’s adventures. Sitting by the warm radiator with a book beats sitting in the cold snow in darkness. April I will get the lift kit and the 35s on my truck, and be out on my first adventure – most likely to the Finger Lakes National Forest. It should be fun.

Weekend at Bear Springs Mountain, Delaware Wild Forest, Warren Highlands

Based on the forecast for the long weekend, I decided to head down to the Western Catskills rather then Moose River Plains. It certainly was a bit sunnier, drier, and less snowy then it looks like they got up at Moose Plains. I simply did not another Memorial Day Weekend at Moose Plains, sitting in rain and snow showers.

I ended up heading down to the Western Catskills. Didn’t leave home until after 10 AM, because I was putzing around. So be it. I also had to stop at Walmart to buy another blaze orange hat, for hiking, because I lost mine. I knew it would be hunting season down there, and figured better safe then sorry. The previous night, they didn’t have one at Glenmont Walmart, so had to visit the Decided to head out the Warren Anderson Expressway (I-88) down to NY 10, and take that all the way south to Walton.

Driving down NY 10, as soon as I reached Summit, you could see a dusting of snow on the summits around. Stopped in Stamford, drove up to Mount Utsaythana. There was a dusting of snow there too, in parts it looked like a winter wonderland. Then it was down to Walton, following NY 10 and the East Branch of Delaware River. Drove through Delhi, a small rural college town. I had been through Delhi years ago, meandering around Stamford, but not in years. Then I went down to Walton, climbed an enormous hill in the truck, and was at the Bear Spring Mountain Wildlife Management Area (aka Public Hunting Grounds).

At Bear Spring Mountain WMA there is a state DEC campground known as Bear Spring Mountain Campground. It consists of two parts, a fully developed campground with hot showers that is open during the summer months near Launt Pond, and the Spring Brook area with stud pends and a pit privy, similar to Charles Baker State Forest. Both areas are a $18 a night in summer, but from October to the end of hunting season, the lower area is free, but the water is shut-off down there. The designated campsites there are crunched together, and there is no privacy, so I can’t imagine it’s much fun camping there, especially with the smell of horses on a hot summer’s afternoon.

By the time I got down there, it was fairly early, so decided to explore a bit. Drove up to Corbett, explored the Corbett Suspension Bridge, and an old chimney from the “acid factory”, which made an acid from tree bark for smokelesss gunpowder. Decided to head back and explore Bear Spring Mountain WMA a bit more, and drove up West Trout Brook Road, past several hunters. There are some limited views from end of East Trout Brook Road, namely at the summit Bear Spring Mountain. There are better views from NY 206, climbing up from Walton, but with few view points. Also explored Beers Brook Road, which had some limited but nice views into the valley below, and Russ Gray Pond.

Bear Spring WMA, being a federally-funded public hunting grounds, does not allow camping. The only camping there is those tiny, smashed together developed campgrounds known as the Bear Spring State Campground, operated by the DEC. I decided it was getting late, and I would camp there tonight, especially because it looked like one of campers had packed up, and the only other person around, was a female bow hunter, on far end of the campground. I wasn’t thrilled, as it meant I would have to keep the music down, but at least the campground was deep in the valley, protected from the wind.

It wasn’t a bad night though. The pit privies were kind of gross, but probably not worst then most of the outhouses in the woods. There was surprisingly a lot of wood in woods near the campground. The truck worked well with keeping the lights on, since switching the truck’s radio back to the starting battery and evenly discharging both batteries. The radio shuts off automatically when the starting battery is starting to get a bit low, and Big Red’s DIC says “Battery Low: Start Engine Low”. Previously, with the starting battery at full charge, hooked up to the discharged auxiliary battery, the alternator wouldn’t kick up to full charge, so the auxiliary battery would fail to get fully charged. Now, with the starting battery slightly discharged – but with enough charge to crank the engine, things kept working well all night long. There was a little bit of sleet in the evening, but nothing major.

The next morning, I got a slow start. It was drizzling, and I kind of slept in. I didn’t have a tarp set up, which didn’t help. I probably didn’t break camp until 10:30 AM..I was thinking of hiking the NYC DEP trail that overlooks the Pepacton Reservoir, but I ended up turning off onto Holiday Brook Road, and deciding to check out Huggins Lake. Hugging Lake was a nice hike back, following an old woods road back there. There is a campsite down by the lake. Apparently on the ridge above Huggins Lake, there is an old growth forest, but I never got back there.

Then it was off to Mary Smith Road. On Campground Road, one of the cut-over roads, I got to a cover bridge, which had a clearance of 6’6”, which is about an inch too low for my pickup truck with the cap and racks on. So I had to turn around, and back track for about 5 miles. That sucked. Stopped and grabed a few pictures. When I got on Mary Smith Road, and back in forest preserve, I was pleasantly surprised to find three roadside campsites on it. I ended up camping at the most used of the sites – as witnessed by vegetation – along the Finger Lakes Trail/Mary Smith Trail/Middle Mountain Trail. It was a pretty nice roadside campsite.

About as soon as I scoped out the campsite, I realized it would be a pretty night up there. Despite the mountains on both sides, the north wind was whipping along the col. But I liked the campsite, and there was plenty of trees to hang a tarp up. I starting setting up camp at 2:30 PM – which was kind of early – but I figured it was too late to hike Mary Smith Hill (which wasn’t true), but it did start to rain/sleet a bit. Got the tarp up, then the lights strung up and flag up. A heavy sleet squall pounded the col, for a while bad enough I hid out in the cab of the truck. Then I went out, built a fire, and spent sometime listening to a podcast and reading a book about the 1964 World Fair in New York.

The new 60-watt equivalent LED bulb I bought worked real well in the cold, which got down below freezing that night.. But with the bulb focused on the book, it was easy reading and plenty bright. In the cold, the 60-watt equivalent LED bulb was actually brighter then the 100-watt florescent bulb I had at camp, even after fully warming up, because the cold wind made it impossible for the florescent tube to get warm enough to fully atomize the mercury in the fixture.

At times the wind picked up, and it was pretty darn cold, to say the least. I end up putting the fire out cold before bed, to reduce the risk of the fire spreading, and because the tarp partially covered the fire pit, I was afraid it could fall into the fire, and possibly set the truck on fire or cause dripping plastic to fall on it. The fire was out cold, and I went to bed around 10:30 PM. No nightmares.

After bedding down, the wind started to whip around. It literally was howling, and the tarp was snapping up and down, making quite a bit of noise. Morning came, and it was beautiful blue skies, but very cold. That was when I first saw car actually pass by on Mary Smith Hill Road – despite being a through-road, and not a super remote road at that. Had another slow breakfast, and built a small fire to burn up some camp garbage. Usually I don’t start fires in the morning, but I was chilly, and knowing that it may be a while until I got out camping again, I wanted to have a fire.

Once I finally got going, I hiked up Mary Smith Hill to the overlook. It really was a lot less further then I expected, and ha+d some interesting views to the north. Nothing totally breathtaking, but still an interesting short hike of maybe 20 minutes each way. Then I drove over to Russell Brook Falls, making a wrong turn and ending up going through Livingston Manor and the world famous fly fishing town, Roscoe. My impression of Roscoe, was it was a very a long and pokey 30 MPH zone, but with more stores then one would expect in such a rural, small town. I probably should have stopped, but I was burning daylight.

Finally made it to Morton Hill Road, and passed a Game Warden in a unmarked green suburbanite-style Jeep. The only reason I know that, was I saw him outside of the car talking to somebody in full uniform. Morton Hill Road climbs a lot from Roscoe out to where it hits Russell Brook Road. There are three campsites along Russell Brook Road, although in all of them there is a boulder barrier between the campsite and fire pit. One might still be able to use them for a pickup with a camper on them, I guess.

I hiked back to Russell Brook Falls – a beautiful but relatively unknown set of falls – at least to non-regulars to that part of state. They are less then quarter mile from the Russell Brook Falls parking area. I stopped and grabbed some pictures. Then, it’s easy hike back to back to Trout Pond, following a gated road 9/10th of a mile from the parking area. There is a slight incline on the road, but nothing to make one break a sweat, even a fat out of shape dude like me, who spends too much time sipping cold buds in the woods. The road is a designated route for people with disabilities – somebody very strong with a wheel chair could theoretically get back there, or maybe with a CP-4 disabled with an ATV permit.

Back at Trout Pond, there is a campsite on the easterly end, and the gated road continues to the west end of lake. On the west end of the lake, there are two other campsites, spaced a ¼ mile apart, along with two lean-tos. All are designed for those with disabilities. There is also a trout spawning shelter on one of the creeks leading into lake. One of the lean-tos was well equipped – somebody left behind some nice pots and pans, all cleaned up, and a selection of perfectly good adult beverages and soda along the back wall of the lean-to. Talk about paying it forward to the next person who will use that lean-to – most certainly a hunter this time of year.

It’s small game hunting season, heard several small game bullets ring out, while hiking back there. No hunters nearby, as far as I could see, but I did wear plenty of blaze orange. I am sure next week, there will be a lot more hunters back there. Wish them luck. Hiked back to my truck and explored Campbell Mountain Road and Campbell Brook Road, looking for additional roadside campsites, preferably the kind you can back a pickup all the way back to. No such luck. Oh, well.

Then I drove down NY 30, through the hamlet of Harvard, then East Branch. Took Old Route 17 to Hancock, then poked around the Poconos and the Warren Highlands in Pennsyltucky, before eventually ending up in Susquehanna and Great Bend. The area around Hancock is very mountainous and beautiful. The Warren Highlands were rough, mostly hunting and rural landscape country, with a relatively small amount of farming going on. Lots of open burning going on too – I love Pennsylvania..

I love that wild country, and everything Pennsylvania. Fueled up, picked up certain Pennsylvania products not legal in New York and/or cheaper then New York, then hopped on I-88/Warren Anderson Expressway, and made a bee-line back to Delmar, stopping only momentarily at the rest stop on I-88. That place was creepy as all hell after dark, and not well lit either. I seriously thought of just taking a piss in some farm

I made it back to Delmar around 7 PM. It was a good adventure. Burned through more gasoline, then I had planned, although on the trip back along I-88, I average 19.9 mpg in my Big Red Silverado pickup, so not complaining.

A long-weekend trip in early November to explore the the Western Catskills.

Andy Arthur.org

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