[Journal entry for February 19-20; the Stone House, Black Rock Forest, Cornwall New York]. Earlier in the week, I had made arrangements with the Black Rock Forest management to stay overnight at the Stone House. I parked at the bus lot in front of the Science Center at about 3PM. The afternoon was clear and a little below freezing. A few inches of crusty snow lay on the ground. Just as I was donning my pack and putting on my crampons, Matt Munson, the Facilities Manager drove by. He and I exchanges greetings before I set off.

I crossed Mailey’s Mill Brook by the pedestrian bridge and then took the Reservoir Trail (blazed in blue) and Stillman Trail (blazed in yellow) to White Oak Road. I walked the road for a bit and then rejoined the Stillman Trail and took to Aleck Meadow Reservoir. Its surface was snow-covered, and the late afternoon shadows of tree trunks fell across it. I then took the White Oak Trail through the woods to the Arthur Pond dam. The view down the length of the pond was terrific, especially with the sun lighting up the cliffs on the pond’s eastern shore.

I joined Continental Road and took it to the Stone House. It is a small, two story house with walls made of beige stone blocks. The lower floor is unfinished – a kind of mud room with a few picnic tables. The upper floor contains two bunk rooms, each with bunk beds, tables, chairs and a fireplace. The building was empty; I was to be the only inhabitant this night. I dropped off my pack and went back outside to watch the sunset.

I walked Chatfield Road to Moretti's Outpost, a wooden picnic pavilion on the shore of Tamarack Pond, set among a grove of tall conifer trees. I then followed Chatfield Road along the lakeshore, taking three short detours to viewpoints where I could gaze out across the lake. The most beautiful of these viewpoints consists of a rounded snow-covered rock ledge that drops off down to lake level. It is surrounded by Mountain Laurel bushes and arched over by trees. The sun was lighting up the snow and turning it slightly orange in color. I continued on to the dam, which is of a low, earth-fill type, and walked out to a point where the sun was lighting up the grass growing on it rim. I could see the entire pond from this vantage, including the small island near it far shore, and the lines of hill around it, too. A fire tower on a neighboring hill was lit by the sun. I could see one rock ledge viewpoint along the shore that I had never visited, for it is difficult to see in the summer when all the trees are leafed out. I bushwhacked over to it and discovered that it hosted a small bench made of rock slabs. It is connected to Chatfield Road by a hard to spot informal trail, whose location I memorized for future occasions. The sun was setting now behind orange clouds on the horizon. After a bit I made my way back to the Stone House.

I ate dinner at Moretti's Outpost, setting up my MSR PocketRocket stove on one of the picnic tables and cooking sausages and peppers and making hot water for tea. I left my pack at the Stone House, but this was a mistake, for I wound up making several trips back and forth before I had all the components for my dinner. I listened for animals as I cooked and ate, but heard very little, except for the very distant call of an owl.

I then returned to the Stone House, picking a bunk in the smaller of the two rooms. I put on my heavy down suit, which makes sitting around in an unheated space very comfortable.

I took a quick trip to the wood shed for some tinder, and then made a fire in the fireplace. The orange flickering flames lit up the bunk room. I tried closing the bunk room door, but this caused the room to fill will acrid wood smoke, so I wound up leaving it open for the night. I rested by the fire and sang a few songs. Just before bed, I took a moonlight stroll down Walter’s Way down to the Arthur’s Pond shore. The moon was shining through thin clouds, making the snow appear ivory in color. The frozen surface of the lake was still and cold. I returned to the Stone House, and after another cup of tea, went to bed. I used a heavy down bag and was not the least bit cold, even though the fire had long since burned away.

The morning was overcast. I cooked breakfast of scrambled eggs and sausage, washed down with tea. I packed up, swept the floor of the bunk room, and headed out. I made two short detours to visit streams on my way back. The first was to the confluence of the Arthurs’s Pond outlet stream and the Sphagnum Pond outlet stream, which is located near White Oak Road. The second was to a deep gulley near where this stream flows into Aleck Meadow Reservoir. I noticed, for the first time, that the Aleck Meadow Reservoir dam has a second now-unused spillway. It is located at the opposite end of the dam from the main spillway.

I was back at my car a few minutes later. The hike from the Science Center to the Stone House tales about an hour and a quarter. Overall, my trip took eighteen hours.