Saturday, October 3rd was the Ny-Nj Trail Conference’s 2nd Annual People for Trails Hike-a-Thon, which Liz & I participated in. It was at Bear Mountian State Park, NY, which is quite a nice park that we will be returning to in spring (unless we get a few nice days before winter). The weather left a bit to be desired, but after our week in Maine, we don’t let weather get us down, and had a good time. Liz & I didn’t arrive until 9:30, and the official start was at 7:30, so we found ourselves a bit lost. I felt things could have been organized a little better, but the rain may have caused issues for the organizers as well. It was not clear what we were supposed to do when we arrived, so we wandered over to what we hoped was the registration tent, and the people – although a bit flustered were friendly and helpful and got us registered and going quickly. When we made it back from the hike around 2pm, It seemed they were cleaning up and getting ready to leave. Maybe a more definite schedule would have been helpful.

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Last weekend Liz & I went camping at Worthington State Forest near the Deleware Water Gap in north-western NJ. I’ll write more about Worthington in another post, here I wanted to tell you about Dingmans Falls, which we visited while we were up there. I wasn’t too familiar with the Water Gap before going up there this time, and had only ever heard of Bushkill Falls. Turns out that Bushkill isn’t actually part of the NPS systems, and you have to pay a private owner a fee to go there. We were kind of short on funds, and the helpful ranger at the Kittatinny Point Visitor Center told us there are plenty of other waterfalls to see that are in the Deleware Water Gap NRA. We were going to go see Dingmans Falls & Raymondskill Falls, but we never made it to Raymondskill.

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Being fairly new to hiking, I’ve found some helpful websites that I thought I’d share:

American Hiking Society is a national organization to promote hiking and preserve open space. Besides offering great resources and information for hikers, they are constantly monitoring legislation that affects hiking. For instance, The Complete America’s Great Trails Act needs your support. Another great thing they offer are the Volunteer Vacations. I haven’t gone on one yet, but I love the idea and plan on taking one as soon as I have the opportunity. They are currently running a Member-Get-a-Member Campaign, so if you sign up, make sure to tell them Chris Townley sent you in the comments box.

Backpacker Magazine is a great resource for hiking, camping, and backpacking information. They have reviews of pretty much any gear you can find. Your membership to the American Hiking Society that you just signed up for will get you a free subscription.

New York-New Jersey Trail Conference: The NY-NJ Trail Conference is a good organization for those that live in the area. They offer information about local hikes, sell maps of the area, provide a way to get involved and volunteer to maintain and create trails, among other things. If you live in the NYC Metro area and enjoy hiking, you should become familiar with this group and their website.

Appalachian Mountain Club is another excellent resource for those of us who live near the Appalachian Mountains. They provide info on activities and volunteer opportunities.

Appalachian Trail Conservancy is a group focused on preserving and maintaining the AT. They also have a lot of info about the trail, naturally. If you are thinking about through hiking (Ten), or just doing a segment, check them out.

Local Hikes is a good site for finding are researching hikes. I have only used the New York/New Jersey area information, but it has been very helpful. The trail reviews are user submitted, and usually provide topo map overview, elevation profiles, trail head location, and a summary of the route. Sometimes there are pictures included and comments from other users that have hiked the same trail.

The Bubbles at Acadia National Park, Maine

The Bubbles are aptly named, as you can see, because they look like two huge granite bubbles, or if you have a less pure mind, a healthy girl on her back. I guess naming them  after female anatomy would have been poor taste. The shapes were carved by glacial ice moving over the granite thousands of years ago, which also carved most of the landscape on Mount Dessert Island.

Cloudy sunrise on Cadillac Mountain

This photo is the product of miss-adventure, but it was still fun. We wanted to wake up early and go see sunrise from the top of Cadillac Mountain, but we had put it off the first few mornings. Thursday we woke up at 4 AM, sunrise was at 4:48. When we got up, it was still fairly dark, we could not actually see the sky until we had already driven half way to Cadillac Mountain from our campsite, at which point it started to rain. Since we were already up, we figured we’d keep going and see if the weather cleared. It didn’t really, as you can see in the photo, but I still like it. We never did get to see sunrise, it was rained for the rest of the week.

Granite cliffs near Sand Beach, Acadia National Park

I took this photo while trying to capture the golden light of sunset on the shoreline in the distance, but soon realized this was more interesting. Originally we were headed for Cadillac Mountain, but realized we would not make it before the light was gone.