[Bill Menke’s journal entry for February 8-9, 2006] Camp out atop Tom Jones’s Mountain in Harriman Park. The weather has been extraordinarily warm – often in the fifties, Fahrenheit – since the beginning of the New Year. I put off my more-or-less annual winter campout until today, when finally the temperature dropped to something more wintry.

I drove up to Harriman Park in the late afternoon, and reached the tail head off of Route 106 at about 4PM. I donned my pack and headed up the short section of the Ramapo-Dunderberg trail that connects the road to the hilltop and to the lean-to located just beyond its summit. The sky was covered with light clouds, so while the sun was showing through, a little snow was also falling.

I picked up a straight and stout branch, and used it for a walking stick, intending also to burn it in a bonfire later that night. The trail crosses the summit, which is mostly bare rock pavement dotted with a few glacially transported boulders. The hill commands a wide view of the woods. Except for the Verizon phone tower over on Jackie Jones Mountain, few signs of habitation can be seen. Little Long Pond and Lake Sebago are visible to the east and south. They had more ice on their surfaces than I would have expected, though they had open stretches of water, too. By the time I reached the lean-to I had picked up five branches. With the strong winds that we’ve experienced recently, I did not expect that finding deadfall would be a problem, and indeed wood was plentiful.

I was the only person at the lean-to – not that I expected anyone else! I left my pack on the sleeping platform, and spent the next hour or so hiking around the hilltop, picking up more branches. A fallen and shattered tree located a few hundred yards to the south provided many choice pieces.

Back at the shelter, I started tea water boiling using my gasoline-fueled MSR stove. I’m afraid that I wasn’t planning to use the bonfire for anything more than ambience. I then broke, sawed and sorted the wood up into a several neat piles, for a fire that I planned to set after dark. I tested a new, light ‘Bear Saw’ that I had recently purchased. It worked well cutting 3-4 inch thick branches. Even though I had cleaned the MSR stove after the Zealand Falls Hut trip last month, I still had to disassemble the burner and clean the orifice before I was satisfied with its performance. After having some tea, I cooked my dinner – chicken soup, tea and a package of dehydrated beef chili. The chili is one of the last remaining packages of New Zealand manufactured food that were left over from Dallas’ Steward Island trip.

As the evening grew slowly dimmer, and as my now-sedentary body began to feel cold, I donned my The North Face Himalayan suit. Its two-inch thick down is great when sitting around outside in the cold. With the full moon tonight, the night was not completely dark. But after the sun set, I started up the wood fire in the rather dilapidated barbeque ring in front of the lean-to. My fire-starting technique is based on a small tin can filled with straw and doused with gasoline from the MSR stove. It burns for about ten minutes – more than long enough for a teepee of wood built over it to catch flame. I then relaxed on the ground next to the fire for about an hour, watching the flames.

When the fire had burned low, I set out my tarp and sleeping bag – next to the lean-to! I never actually sleep in them (except in rain), for I prefer to see the stars. I did see some of the brighter ones though the light clouds, along with the moon, which sported a white ring. Several times during the evening I heard the hoot of a great horned owl. I woke about 6AM, just as the eastern horizon was starting to show a bit of light. The temperature was 15F.

I got up, fired up the MSR stove again, and made tea and oatmeal. Most of my water had frozen, except for a small bottle left in my pack. I heated it and then poured it into the larger containers, to melt the ice. In addition to the food, I also prepared two hot water bottles. These proved handy to warm up my shoes - and hands, too, for at times I needed to work without my mittens. I watched the sunrise. The horizon gradually reddened, and the sun finally poked up at 6:58. I left shortly thereafter. I heard woodpeckers as I hiked back down the hill. Trip time: 15.5 hours.