Buck Trail, Harriman State Park

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
4/14/2019	5.2 mile	2 hours 35 minutes	498'		93.9

Map: NYNJTC Southern Harriman
Parking: Sebago Lake, Seven Lakes Drive
Directions: Cross street from parking area. Follow blue/white blazed Seven Hills trail to the yellow blazed Buck trail. Turn left onto Buck Trail trail. Where the yellow blazed trail splits like a Y (both ways are yellow), stay on the left spur. At the end, turn right onto the dirt/gravel Pine Meadow Road. Where Pine Meadow Road splits at West Road, turn right onto the yellow blazed Buck trail (the other spur of the Y. This will bring you back to where the yellow trail originally split. Turn left and stay on yellow trail. Turn right on the blue/white blazed Seven Hills trail and return to the parking area.

We liked yesterday's hike, so decided we should try other trails in the area. I decided to bring both dogs, which I knew would be a challenge. Walking two dogs across the street and up the trail a ways on leash was challenging. Krummholz wants to pull, pull, pull. I had him in a front clip harness, but its too big for him, and not as effective as a head halter. Trek gets stressed because the puppy wasn't walking nicely. Once we got away from the road I let them off leash. Krummholz was very energetic today. Having Trek with him makes him want to run more, even when Trek stays close to us. Today's hike had no views. We saw 3 people/groups ahead of us during the hike. Each time I stopped & waited until they were out of sight & further away, so that I could keep hiking with Krummholz just dragging his long line. On one of those stops, I saw a coyote trotting through the woods. Krummholz didn't see it. I stepped on his leash, and we waited a few minutes for the coyote to get some distance away from us. Part of this hike was on a gravel road. The road was is used as a ski trail in the winter. Its not a road that cars go on. Maybe a park truck once in a blue moon.  This made for a great place to practice recalls where I could run away from Krummholz. Running on rocky trails with a backpack bouncing around is not so easy.

Glacial erratic

Where the yellow trail splits in a Y (we went left)

The left yellow spur ends at this dirt/gravel road. We turned right.

The gravel road splits. We stayed to the right.

Immediately after the split - the other spur of the yellow trail heads into the woods

Diamond Mountain, Harriman State Park

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
4/13/2019	3.9 mile	2 hours 17 minutes	606'		88.7

Map: NYNJTC Southern Harriman
Parking: Sebago Lake boat launch, Seven Lakes Drive
Directions: Cross street from parking area. Follow the blue/white blazed Seven Hills trail to Diamond Mountain. Return back the same way.

We've never parked at this location before - which means we are doing a hike in Harriman we've never done before! Sometimes it feels hard to find those. We didn't start our hike until 5pm. Going forward - no more weekend dog training classes. We want to get out more on weekends to hike. Which may mean two hikes - one with each dog.

The Sebago Lake parking lot had lots of cars in it. I'm not sure where all the people go. There is a boat launch there, but surely not all of those people were boating. When we started up the trail, we crossed paths with a few groups of people hiking back to the parking lot with fishing poles. I wonder where they were fishing. There is no trail that is very close to a lake. There is a lake in the area - Lake Wanoksink - maybe they go there? Once we passed the yellow blazed Buck trail, we saw no one for the rest of the hike.

We let Krummholz hike with a long line on. It was a pretty relaxing hike. He did well, and best of all - no people. Which meant we didn't have to worry about putting him back on leash. We did see a wild turkey. Krummholz saw it too. I stepped on his leash to make sure he didn't run off. Wild turkeys don't move too fast, so they are less interesting, say, than a squirrel. He did try to trot towards it, but I called him and he was good and came. We did a lot of recall training - I forgot my treats but happened to have a tug toy in my car, so his recall reward was tugging. This hike has some nice lake views - we both liked it a lot.

On the top of Diamond Mountain, we stopped and took a break. I played fetch with Krummholz - who did a good job considering I haven't taught him how to retrieve yet. I want him to learn how to hang out with us during a hiking break.

At the end of the hike, we walked over to the boat launch area in our parking lot. We walked Krummholz up to the water but he had no interest in swimming. We walked onto the floating dock - which moves around a bit. He plopped himself down and said he wanted nothing to do with it.

Play time!

Turkey Mountain training hike

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
4/8/2019	1 mile				84.8

Map: Turkey Mountain Map
Parking: Parking lot off of Route 118
Directions: Blue trail up part way, blue trail back down.

We are starting loose leash walking in Krummholz's online class. So, today was our first training hike. We hiked partway up the mountain on leash, and then back down off leash. We didn't make it to the summit. Glen hiked on ahead of us so he could. Krummholz and I are trying circling when he pulls. So, we get no where fast. I still got a workout in. Turkey Mountain has a couple short steep hills. I had to do circling on them. I kept praying he wouldn't pull when we were heading up hill - so I wouldn't have to circle back down the hill and reclimb, lol.

Trail Maintenance Hike, Harriman

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
4/7/2019	4.2 miles	3 hours 52 minutes	778'		83.8

Map: NYNJTC Harriman North map
Parking: Anthony Wayne Recreation area, southern parking log
Directions: Bike trail south. Pass intersection with the Appalachian Trail. Turn left on the Ramapo Dunderberg Trail. At Cats Elbow, turn left onto yellow blazed Surebridge Bear Mountain Trail. Follow this until the intersection of the blue blazed Timp Torne Trail. Retrace steps.

After seeing blow downs on yesterdays hike, we decided we wanted to visit the trail we maintain, to see how its doing. We hiked to our turnaround point, and then started on our trail maintenance. For this trip, Glen was focusing on fixing the metal tags that are used at points to mark the trail. The trail has a mix of painted blazes and metal tags. I worked on clearing branches and sticks from the trail. Glen also cut down a small tree and sawed through a tree going across the trail. We brought Trek along and left Krummholz at home. Trek loves trail maintenance - well, the stick clearing part. I throw sticks and he brings them back, lol. I try to trick him and throw a small twig one way, and then throw branches another way. He's caught on though.

Bald Mountain Shelter loop, Harriman

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
4/6/2019	3.8 miles	2 hours 20 minutes	455'		79.6

Map: NYNJTC Harriman North map
Parking: Kanawauke Road
Directions: Cross street from parking area and take the White Bar Trail. Turn right on the Nurian Trail, also white blazed. Turn left on the Ramapo Dunderberg Trail. Pass Bald Rocks shelter on the right. Turn left on yellow blazed Dunning trail. Turn left on White Bar trail. Turn right to stay on White Bar trail where Nurian trail splits off. Return to parking area.

We decided to take Krummholz for a hike after his class. I decided on a hike past Bald Mountain shelter. I'd like to do a short backpack soon with Trek to try out my new tent and sleeping pad. We've previously tented near the Fingerboard shelter in Harriman, but that shelter has a major bear problem now, so I want to avoid that. I couldn't remember the layout of the area near the Bald Rocks shelter, so I figured today I could check it out. I think we actually checked it out before, when I was looking for an easy backpack we could take Moxie on - but decided that some of the climbs would be too hard for her at her age - so we did the Fingerboard Shelter with her instead. The Bald Rocks shelter has lots of tent sites, but is a popular area - we saw a couple people in the shelter and maybe 7 tents set up already when we walked by at 5pm. I remembered what I decided on as my preferable tent site - it has a small bit of privacy on one side. So yes, I think this would be a great easy backpack for Trek and I to do together. There is no water source right at the shelter though. It looks like there is one a half mile away. Since its such a short hike, it looks like you should just carry in all the water you need.

On today's hike we had Krummholz drag a long line. It worked better than expected. Its a bit awkward when passing people, but amazingly it rarely got caught on anything. We are working on recalls. Having him drag a long line will make it easier for me to have him not visit anyone. It will also help me when he decides to chase a squirrel. Yes, he's discovered squirrels. Ack. Today he almost caught one. While he was looking for it, I was able to step on his long line. I had him come, and then I released him and the two of us went to look for the squirrel together (a second reward, okay because the squirrel was already safely up a tree). Today I worked on recalls where he is trotting away from me, and is not paying attention to me. They were on the slow side. So, we definitely need to spend a lot of time on this step. He met an off leash boxer today - the interaction went very well. The boxer had a nice temperament, and Krummholz got some sniffing in & was wagging his tail and trying to initiate play nicely.