Gleasman's Falls

That was a fun drive.

We made it out to the trail head after 4 wheeling down a muddy single lane road with lots of deep ruts.  The guidebook states that finding the trail head is one of the hardest things about this hike, and I agree.  Well, almost - but we'll get to that.



The trailhead

It's a short hike - only 6 miles round trip, but we're just getting started so we wanted something easy. 

It's an in and out hike, not a loop.  The goal of the trip is to get to Gleasman's Falls. 



Ryan on a rock in the Independence River

The falls are up past Slim, there (okay, I'm just jealous).  Sorry, I didn't get any good pics of the falls themselves (or is it, itself?) 

We ran into a group coming out, when we were going in.  They were some kind of youth group.  They wrote some strange stuff in the trail register - something about death - I don't recall exactly.  Some time after we ran into the kids, we ran into their counselor (or maybe warden - haha).  He wasn't much older.  He seemed a little stressed.  On top of the trail registers the NYS DEC mentions that filling in accurate information could SAVE YOUR LIFE (their caps, not mine).  We were dutiful in giving our information and how long we expected to be there.  We wrote 1 1/2 days.  There's a check mark that you're supposed to supply by your information when you come off the trail.  When we got back the next day, it had already been checked.  Rotten kids. 

Now, there are no "official" campsites on this trail - but there is an "informal" one.  We stayed at the informal one.  I'm pretty sure that the rules state you can camp anywhere on NYS land as long as you're 150 feet from the trail.  The site we stayed at was right on the trail.  I'm not sure if we were in the wrong or in the right for staying there.  There was a fire ring and clearly some spots for tents.  There were even cut logs for stools or tables.  Either way, we are committed to practicing "Leave No Trace". LNT is something my dad taught me in the Chiracahuas, and on Mount Graham, and in the Wetstones, and at the Cochise Stronghold, and on Mount Lemon, and Patagonia, etc. (you get the idea - that was really just a little appreciation shout-out to my dad for taking me to all of those great places on the weekends when I was a kid - we'd get back to camp from a hike and he'd always have a pocketful of trash that he picked up on the trail).

We did pass an old beaver dam/pond.  Those beavers are really cute, but boy can they do some damage to an area.




A beaver chewed log.

 


Skeletons

 

















So, what was the hardest part of the trip?  A few mosquitoes and a lot of little annoying flies.  We only had a few bites, and they didn't even itch that much, but on the way back, they were all around our heads.  When keeping a good pace, they didn't bother us. But goodness help you when you stop (resting with the short legged member of our group).

We saw some cool wildlife.  We were privately hoping for a bear (at least during the day), but didn't see anything bigger than a chipmunk.  In fact, we saw:  frogs, salamanders, toads, chipmunks and a hummingbird.  We heard all kinds of birds (the woodpeckers are cool) but really didn't see many.  The forest is mostly hardwoods: cherry, beech, maple and hemlock.  There are always some conifers. 





On the edge of the trail



Once we noticed the salamanders,
they seemed to be everywhere.







It was a great first outing. We've already planned our next trip.  We picked up some stuff that we wished we'd had:  baby wipes, pot scrubbers and Advil PM. 

For gear, today I'll write about shelters.

We use two shelters (although, I bet that in the not-so-distant future, we'll all use the same thing). 

Candie, Ryan and Riley sleep in a Sierra Designs Mojo 3.  It's an ultralight 3 person hybrid tent.  The hybrid part is because half of the tent is a single wall design (light, but tends to promote condensation from temperature differentials and vapor that escapes while breathing) and the other half (where you lay your head) is double wall.  It's a great tent that weighs 4 pounds.  That's really light when you break that weight down per person.  It did get a little wet inside, but aired out just fine.  It's a freestanding tent, so there aren't a lot of annoying guy lines coming off of it (to trip over).  I used to tubes of seam seal on it.  I'm really excited to see how well it performs in the rain.  We don't have a footprint for it (a piece of material that goes on the ground to protect the bottom), because I didn't want the extra weight.  Every gram counts when you're carrying everything up a hill.  I think I'm going to get some house wrap (Tyvek) and cut it to shape.  It's really light and really inexpensive.  It dries quickly when wet and can be stored outside the pack through a shock cord or strap.

I'm using a Warbonnet Blackbird 1.1 double layer hammock with a Mamajamba tarp.  Together the hammock and tarp weigh 2 1/2 pounds.  I'm pretty sure this is what we'll all be using eventually - when Riley gets bigger.  Using a hammock has garnered a huge following in the backpacking community.  The advantages include low environmental impact (you can hang it anywhere with trees - over rocks, over bushes, over water), lightweight and fast easy set up (about 2 minutes).  The tarp is set up over the hammock and can be put up first if it's raining, so you can keep all of your gear dry while putting everything else up.  You can even attach doors on either end of the tarp, making it fully enclosed.  There are no condensation issues.  There is no crawling on the ground.  You don't have to worry about critters getting at you.  The primary advantage, however, is comfort.  People often claim that they fall asleep and wake up in the same position because they sleep so soundly.  Also, people with backs that give them trouble love hammocks.  It seems strange, but it's true.  Also, there's no ground dampness to deal with.  There are special considerations for staying warm, and I'll get into that another time -but they can be used in temperatures below 0 degrees.

That's it for this report.  I've never written a blog before.  This is a pretty cool way of recounting a trip.  I heard recently that events happen in 3 stages: anticipation, participation and recollection.  We have a hard time remembering things because so many things in our life are at different stages.  People who wish they could remember events better are advised to do 2 things: think about an event you really want to remember while it is happening and acknowledge that you want to remember it (try to take mental snapshots of what you see, mental recordings of what you hear or what you feel - with descriptors of those feelings as the events unfold); the second is to actively recollect the event soon after it happens.  This is my recollection.




Ryan cruising ahead

 



Chubby cheeks