[Journal entry for September 17, 2014; Summit Lake and Upper Twin Lake, Harriman State Park, New York].The afternoon is sunny and warm. I park at the hikers lot on the north side of Route 6, just east of the Route 293 junction. Before heading into the woods, I walk out onto the causeway between Lakes Massawippa and Te-Ata. The rush hour traffic noise is a bit loud, but the view of the two lakes is very striking. Lake Massawippa is especially beautiful, with blue waters reflecting puffy clouds to the north. For the most part, the trees surrounding the lake are still green, but the bushes along the shore and on a little rocky island are beginning to show some fall red.

I take the unpaved woods road that runs along the west shore of Lake Te-Ata southward. The hill to the west of the lake is very steep; some sections are a rocky scarp, in some places bare, in others, moss-covered. Many boulders are strewn around its base. Some of the large ones lean against one another, forming small caves. Trees grow right down to the lake shore, so viewpoints are rare, but one large rock ledge near the south end offers a vantage from which the lake can be viewed. I gaze across to the trees on the east side, now brightly lit by the late afternoon sun.

I bushwhacked up onto the hill above the lake and continued south, following a vague informal track. The hill top has no view, but nevertheless is fairly open, with only sparse trees set between large bare rock (gneiss) ledges and patches of blueberry bushes. The blueberry bushes are well into their fall colors, though perhaps the reds will deepen further in the coming weeks. I pass a large glacial erratic boulder of conglomerate. I follow the ridgeline southward until I near an old water tank, and then head east down into the valley. The hillside is vegetated by blueberries under hardwood trees.

I cross Popolopen Creek, which at this point is a meandering rocky trough about ten feet wide, with a rock bottom and very little water. It’s the outflow of Summit Lake, to the south, and the inflow to Barnes Lake, on the other side of Route 6. Its waters wander from lake to lake before emptying into the Hudson River at Popolopen Gorge. I cross Reynolds Road, the paved access road to a camp on Summit Lake. Like other camps in Harriman State Park, it is closed to the public, so I avoid both it and its access road by climbing up onto the next hill. Up on the ridgeline, I pass a large stone chimney from some now-defunct cabin and then descend down to the lakeshore at a point well south of the camp.

Summit Lake is a bit low on water. Muddy islands are exposed, especially around its northwest corner, where the camp is located. Nevertheless, the lake is very beautiful, with its blue waters reflecting the surrounding trees and skies. I sit for a few minutes by the lakeshore, in front of a beaver lodge. Stumps of trees are exposed mid-lake, dating I suppose before the lake was impounded by the dam that was built the north end of the valley. A Great Blue Heron flies by. I then walk along the west shore of the lake. One tree on the opposite shore is reddish orange; all the rest are still green. I encounter an informal trail and follow it south along the lake shore. I circle around the south end of the lake, which is rather marshy, cross a small inlet stream and push past blueberry bushes to reach a rock ledge on the lake shore. From there, I have a good view north along the long axis of the lake.

I then decide to bushwhack east to Upper Twin Lake, located one valley further east. The route proves arduous. I need to cross several groves of almost impassible Mountain Laurel, growing on the flanks of the ridge and then several patches of equally impassible thorn bushes, growing in the valley. I cross several substantial stone walls that seem bigger than those typical of other parts of the park. They are a reminder of an earlier era when the land was farmed. I sight a clearing that I assume to be the lake, but find instead that it is a marsh just south of the lake. I get my boot wet trying to make my way through it to the lake shore, which seemed just a few tens of yards ahead. It was a foolish route; my legs were soaked by the time I reached the lake. The view was very nice, though, and I saw a beaver swim by, right in front of me. The sun was very low in the sky, and its orange light was making the trees on the lake shore glow. I had an equally difficult and damp time making my way to the dry ground on western shore of the lake, but once I reached it, the going was much easier.

I detoured around the baseball field of YMCA Camp Discovery, on the northwestern corner of the lake, and then found another informal trail that led back up onto the ridge west of the lake. It led north, back towards Lake Te-Ata. Just before descending down to the lake, I came to a rock ledge that afforded a pretty good view of Lower Twin Lake. The lake was in shadow now, but the top of the hill beyond it was still lit up and it was reflected in the lake. A few minutes later, I rejoined the woods road on the west side of Lake Te-Ata. I passed an angler, the only person that I saw on the whole hike. I stopped briefly at the lakeshore; the lake was dark blue and purple in the twilight. In a few minutes, I was back at my car.

About three hours.