Hiking the Berkshires
Sunset rock & Bash Bish Falls, the 26,281 day old man & a love story

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As by far the oldest of an upcoming travel party (72) who are planning a voyage in the northern wilderness, I feel I owe the rest of you a report on the status of my health and stamina, lest you worry unnecessarily about having to portage me overland or paddle me through the Quetico.

Ann has been whipping me into shape for our trip. The whipping began back in 1998 and continues to the present. And I'm happy to report I'm in good shape now. Ok it wasn't actually whipping with a whip. More like paddling with a canoe paddle.

Here is a report of our latest conditioning session: "a little birthday walk" that Ann planned for me last Friday the 11th when I was officially 26,281 days old (not counting leap years).

I suggested and Ann promised to plan the details of an easy little day-walk in the Berkshires with a picnic at some scenic spot.

She found an easy little loop in the Berkshires that would take us up past Sunset Rock - views of the Catskills - then back to a campground parking lot where we'd have left our car.

We left at a casual late morning hour as this was to be no exhausting day.

Stopping near home we picked up two hot-pastrami-with-melted-swiss-on-toasted-rye sandwiches, chips, and a couple of drinks. The deli chef is from Romania and recognizes me from the days when I used to stop by to order sandwiches for an entire construction crew. He puts on extra brown mustard.

I must say that within the next mile and still in the car we'd eaten one hot-pastrami-with-melted-swiss-on-toasted-rye and drunk half the day's supplies. That pastrami and swiss savory odor was just too much!

Closer to our hiking trail we found the NY State Park entry and Ann gave me a little update:

"One think I didn't mention", she smiled in that low-key but dangerous way, "is that the trail guide says this walk is mostly uphill for the first part ... but then my guide book is quite old and there's been a lot of weather since then so maybe the mountain has washed down a bit."

"Anyway the last part will be downhill and we can take our time."

I gave Ann my sweet-look.

We started off, or I should say we started up.

The park was empty except for the bodies of a pair of campers at the only occupied tent site: they'd probably drowned during the previous night's downpour.

The trail wasn't at all muddy and the mid-day air was still cool. Sunlight lit shafts of gold through the pines along our way. Bugs, little gnats, danced a cloudy chorus line around our eyes as we trudged upwards.

And upwards.

And pant upwards.

Ann was in the lead and stopped along a particularly scree-filled slope to look back at her 26,281 days old partner. While I was catching my breath and smacking at some gnats she called down to me.

"Look at this gorgeous rock" she exclaimed, pointing to a flat stone in the center of the scree-trail.

Pant Pant. "I'll be sure to check it out when I get up there." says 26,281.

We continue upwards, pausing from time to time to flick sweat-drowned gnats off of our faces and to admire the air, the sunlight, the rocks, the trees, the green moss, the fall flowers, and the sounds of squirrels shouting: my acorn, my acorn! in an endless cacophony of early fall.

I stopped to look at what I thought might be the gorgeous rock but there were actually quite a few rocks along the trail.

I don't want to disappoint my sweetheart so I shout:

"Yeah! Gorgeous!" in case the gorgeous rock was actually the one at which I was gazing.

As you know, hiking up a mountain offers lessons about false hopes. You look upwards and there seems to be an increase of daylight through the trees ahead.

That must be the summit, you think to yourself. We're nearly at the top.

You never are.

We continue upwards. Sometimes the trail levels off and our panting slows and sweat dries and the going is really easy.

We continue upwards. A smart hiker enjoys the walk rather than missing the trip for contemplation of the destination.

Ann has zigged to the left of the path into a stunning mossy knoll. Previous hikers put a few (nice looking but not actually-gorgeous) rocks where one would like to sit and admire the moss.

We sit. It is green. Everything is green with orange patches of sunlight. I'm thinking about the tardigrades who live in the dirt just under the moss and I want to collect some to look at under the microscope but this moss is far too beautiful to suffer the divots of curiosity. Instead I leave a little face of acorns, a leaf and some sticks on the moss by my seat.

Rest period is over and we continue. Up.

And up. And across, and up. The Berkshires are not really this high. Are they?

Suddenly the vegetation changes to short gnarled trees and roots and sunlight breaks on the path. There's a sign! Sunset rock.

Excited we head over to Sunset Rock - which is just a little bigger than a pebble, but not much. The view across to Slide Mountain and the other big Catskills is enchanting. Five idiots have carved their initials on one side of Sunset Rock.

After careful thought about the carvings I decide that the best place for them is under my butt. I sit. We sit. We look.

We eat the other hot-pastrami-with-melted-swiss-on-toasted-rye sandwich. (The chips are already mostly gone). This one, though just tepid now, tastes better than its ancestor.

In truth we've only hiked about 3 miles - up.

There are three ways to return from Sunset Rock - the summit: 1. back down the way you came - all downhill, 2. a short loop path back to the campground or 3. a longer loop down to a forest road, along the forest road, and another two miles back to the car.

Iglesia of course will always, at any trail juncture, opt for the longer, more scenic, more fun route. During our walks I'm always a good sport about the first opt. Later the opts can get a bit daunting.

We start down. Down and what I think is north. More down and some ups and some personal stops in the woods and more down.

A forest road suddenly appears - about a decade sooner than I expected to see it. There is a little clearing at the road where we retrieve some pruning tools the park service seems to have forgotten. They're now left hanging from a tree where their orange handles may lead to their recovery.

The forest road has been recently improved and widened; dirt is piled up against trees on our right where the mountain slopes away. The tree boles are covered, which is not recommended, but then I wasn't driving the grader. A fantastic gray mushroom has burst up out of the freshly graded stone, feeding on a buried log left below.

The road twists and turns and descends. Steep enough in parts the road sings a road song to one's knees and I demonstrate to Ann how I can walk backwards down a steep dirt road. The other approach is to walk in a crouch which looks equally ridiculous.

We continue down. There's another park sign suggesting we re-enter the woods on our left where, hiking up again it's promised another 2 miles to the campground.

Up.

Someone has driven a tractor along the path, apparently performing trail maintenance as a few holes have been filled-in.

Up some more. I'm not looking for the light at the summit but I know there will be a local high of some sort.

Up and on we love the change in trees and shrubs. Some berries are on the left, some wintergreen is at intervals under foot and various white and gold mushrooms wiggle and jiggle as we walk past.

The same squirrel who was chirruping as we ascended the other side of this little hill has come across to chirrup at us again. At least it sounds the same. My acorn! My acorn I tell you!

The gnats have lost track of us or have headed back to check the drowned campers so that now we can see clearly without squinching sweaty eyes at the maddening black-gnat-dots they give to one's vision.

I admit to being just a little tired. Not much but I'm ready to be headed back.

We come to a trail intersection. There is the ascending trail that we took earlier in the day. It's an easy lope down and we take it, turning right to look for Gorgeous Rock whom Ann wants to admire one more time.

A bit of downslope and there's the scree where Gorgeous is supposed to have been left in a spot of repose.

Gorgeous is still where Ann left her, so this time I know I'm admiring the right rock. (This is important in a relationship.)

Gorgeous is somewhat flat, with swirling bands of silver, gray and gold in an irregular but somewhat flat shape she captures in stone movement, light, and the beauty of the Berkshires. She is not the biggest rock we've ever admired, nor the smallest.

"I'm going to bring this rock home" Ann says.

She doesn't yet call Ms. Rock by her proper name as I haven't told her what it is. Once from another hike we brought back a much bigger river rock - about 4 x 3 ft and well over 200 pounds - it nearly killed us both and it barely fit in the trunk of our Saab.

With Fatso on board, the Saab car drove down the highway with its nose and headlights aimed at the trees until we got that rock out.

By comparison Gorgeous is a flyweight. Maybe 12 pounds.

Ann's carrying our day pack so I insist that I will carry Gorgeous.

This is God's truth. I was thinking of the rest of you canoers at that precise moment, and I was thinking "I need more weight-bearing training for portaging" - I mean what does sweat mean on carrying a little mountain rock if you're not carrying the Kitchen Pack? Ya think?

We continue down. I've got Gorgeous across my left shoulder. Later she's across both shoulders. Smoothly she shifts across my right shoulder. After so long in the scree, inching down the mountain in each rain or snow-melt, She now enjoys moving about as much as possible at the comparative jetspeed of human transport.

Ann, 26,281, and G.R. continue down-slope moving smoothly in the tepid afternoon air. No rush. Plenty of sunlight.

Gorgeous R. decides she'd like to be in front so she's carried at waist level slung low, a rock-baby whose lullaby is the shushing noise of four feet on wet pine needles.

We come to a turn. We could continue straight down to our car but Ann sees a better path off to the right.

"This looks good!" she exclaims, "We'll go this way - this loops back to the campground".

This new path is all down down down, which means to me that if we find ourselves somewhere in Massachusetts (we started in New York) and have to double back, our return will be up, up, up.

I give her my not-quite-so-sweet look.

"I'm going to be annoyed with you if we end up on some road miles from our car." I note.

Ann is confident. "I've never been here before, but I did look at the map and I trust my sense of direction."

I trust Ann's sense of direction too, she's only been wrong twice in the past 17 years. Sometimes wrong rhymes with long, ya know? Trust is inversely proportional to the estimated hours of remaining daylight.

We emerge through tall pines as straight as arrows and there it is: the edge of the campground.

One of the campers seems not to have actually drowned and he's fooling with his soggy tent. He looks up.

"Did you just get here?" he asks.

We try to sidle past.

Now this takes some explaining. I'm not exactly a generic liar though I will lie just a little bit to tell a better story. But I lied to the soggy survivor for no apparent reason. Well there was a reason. Actually it was a combination of factors.

Let me explain:

1. I was a little tired

2. I didn't want to attract more attention nor engage in a long conversation that might invite a question like:

Why are you carrying that big rock?

3. Neither Ann nor I wanted Soggy to see that we were stealing a rock from a Federal Campground.

"No, we've been here a while" - I was not exactly lying.

"So the tremendous thunderstorm last night didn't wash you away?" Sog inquires.

"Nah, we weren't bothered by the storm." - I was certainly not lying about that as during the thunderstorm we were at home in our bed.

Gorgeous Rock, carried the last way by Ann after I slipped and nearly dropped her (G not A), is plopped into the back of our car. The car settles back on its haunches as if it's about to leap forward.

We creep past the park ranger station where nobody steps out to check for stolen rocks and we're headed home. I think.

Suddenly Ann sees an old railroad depot that has become a general store.

"Let's stop there for a drink" she suggests - weeks ago we had already consumed everything edible and drinkable we'd been carrying.

The Harlem Valley Railroad Depot (now hosting a rail trail) carries 231 different beers. Ann tries one of them while 26,281 enjoys a cold tea and takes very important photographs of the rotting Yankee gutters on the depot's roof.

It feels good to be rested, snacked, and to be heading home.

Ann notices another little sign.

Bash Bish Falls This Way

"Hey, those are really beautiful falls. I swam here years ago. They're right up the path. Let's take a look."

A good hiker knows not only never to count on the daylight meaning the top of the mountain, but to follow a wonderful leader. Especially if her butt looks really good when you're following second in line.

We start off, or more accurately briefly off, then mostly up. And up.

I said up.

I'm not exactly whining, but after another ten minutes the river falls away to our right and this is the truth: we had now hiked into Massachusetts! BashBish is not even in New York!

I wonder aloud: "Hey Ann, I don't hear any waterfall".

"I do" she says. She's got better hearing.

We pass two retired couples just at the State Line. The women are looking at the stream. Both men are hunched over their cellphones. I saunter past pretending to be peppy: I'm not tired a bit.

Hunch on my left is texting to his friend:

"Hey Arnold, how the effin' far is it to the damn falls?"

The other hunchback holds his cellphone overhead, squinting upwards at its screen as if to call down help from the heavens - or from Google Maps.

We continue right ahead, now walking in our most-sprightly manner, all the way to Bash Bish where Ann once swam.

Huge red signs give this advice:

"Ann: NO SWIMMING, THIS MEANS YOU"

So we sit by the falls and enjoy the cooling spray from BashBish whose water is in fact tepid compared with the Quetico where all of us will soon paddle, portage, and bish about.

Above is Ann with arms waving at Bash Bish - zoom to see.

Below is the 26,281 days old man.

​And here is Gorgeous Rock herself. [Click to enlarge any image]

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