[Journal entry for September 9, 2012; Long Mountain, Deep Hollow and Lake Massawippa, Harriman State Park] I parked at the hikers lot off Route 6, just west of Long Mountain Circle and took the Long Path up onto the top of Long Mountain. The day was sunny and the views of the Hudson Highlands were very nice. The summit area was quite crowded, with half-dozen or so hikers relaxing on the rock ledges there. I passed the memorial to Raymond Torrey, a journalist who in the 1920’s wrote a newspaper column that was instrumental in the development of the Long Path and the Appalachian Trail. It is a large bass relief cut into the rock pavement near the summit. I had a great view of Bear Mountain and Popolopan Torne. The latter is a tower-like hill of granite with a bare, rocky summit. I then descended eastward into Deep Hollow, via a steep downhill section of the Long Path. This area feels very wild and has especially tall trees. I crossed the main stream, stepping from rock to rock, for there was no bridge, and then several tributaries, too. I then ascended up onto Howell Mountain. Part of the upgrade follows the boundary between the park and the West Point Military Reservation, to the north. A lane of trees is clear-cut, like a power line right-away. I realized that I had snow-shoed up this lane during a winter, many years ago, when several feet of snow covered the land. Howell Mountain has no real panoramic views, but its summit area has open glades with rock ledges and fields of blueberry bushes. The latter were, for the most part, still green; they will turn bright red in the fall. I then descended into Brooks Hollow, which like Deep Hollow has a north-south axis. The stream at its bottom, which is the outlet stream for Lake Massawippa, is fairly substantial. It runs, in places, in a small gorge with cascades and small waterfalls. I crossed it stepping from stone to stone, for again there was no bridge. Finally, I ascended up onto Brooks Mountain, a long ridge which has some nice east-facing views. I had hoped to see Lake Massawippa from this vantage, for it lies in the southern part of Brooks Hollow, but the view was blocked by trees. I continued along the Long Path until it crosses Route 293, and took that road back to Route 6 and to the car. I crossed the dam at the southern end of the lake, which doubles for the dam at the north end of Lake Te-ata, to the south. The water level drops substantially from Te-ata to Massawippa, by twenty feet or so. I could see that Massawippa has a dam its northern end, too. Continuing along the highway, I passed a marsh on the north side of the road, and sighted a kingfisher flying above an open stretch of water. The vegetation in the marsh was starting to turn red. Heavy rain began to fall a few minutes before I reached the car, and I was fairly wet by the time I reached it. About three hours.

[Journal entry for September 10, 2012; Lake Massawippa, Harriman State Park]. I the mid-afternoon, I returned to lake Massawippa, taking with me my daughter Hannah’s dog, Estel (an Australian Cattle Dog). I parked at the hiker’s lot on Route 6, just east of the Route 293 intersection. I had never hiked from this lot, and so my first few minutes were exploratory. We found a woods road that wound north, to the shore of Barnes Lake, a small pond west of Lake Massawippa. We then took a woods road that headed east, but it faded away (as do many woods roads in Harriman State Park) before reaching Massawippa. Estel and I wound up bushwhacking the quarter mile to the lake, where we found (as indeed I had expected) an unblazed trail along the lake shore. We headed north along the trail, past several beaver-gnawed trees, until we reached the dam on the north end of the lake. Rather than to negotiate the spillway atop the dam, we bushwhacked north along the outlet stream to a point where we could easily jump across, and then bushwhacked south again to the lake. Estel didn’t mind jumping over the stream. I walked her slowly through the boulders on either side of the stream, because I worried that she would catch a leg between the stones. Hannah later said that this was unnecessary; Estel is a well-experienced hiker. We continued along the lake shore, walking down to the water in a few places. Estel waded happily, sniffing at rocks and plants. The trail on the east side of the lake passes several ruined lodges or camps, missing walls or roofs. Harriman State Park once hosted nearly fifty summer camps. Fewer than half are still in use. It’s sad. We joined Route 6 and walked across the dam between Lakes Massawippa and Te-ata. This was the only nerve-racking park of our hike. The traffic was heavy and I had to carefully control Estel to avoid an accident. We walked back along the west shore, completing the loop, and then bush-whacked through the woods back to the car. About two hours.