Third Hiking Day- May 25- Alder Lake to Beaverkill Rd

 
This day was totally trail miles. The sun greeted us, slanting through the trees, as we crawled out of the tent. We had been sprinkled on a little bit, but since the past two years we've hiked in frigid, all-day rain, we were thrilled with this year's weather.



We had left a car at the day's destination, the end of Beaverkill Road, the night before. This gave us the chance to make an earlier start on the trail. We only had to drive a few miles to Alder Lake. There are the remains of a mansion on the site, but no information about who lived there. When we hiked past, several campers were bunked on the lower stone walls!



There's nothing like a level walk through a beautiful blue and green landscape to help even morning-bumbly me to wake up and "smell the roses."



Some ups and downs, but the big goal for the day was to reach the top of Balsam Mountain. It was a presence as we approached it for most of the day



Those slopes look so smooth from a distance, but the trail is rugged and rocky- a hallmark of the FLT in many places.



We passed this marker and knew we were getting close.



Actually, we didn't go all the way to the summit. That's an additional 60 feet higher off the Finger Lakes Trail at the fire tower. The trail reaches its high point on this mountain, however, at 3660 feet. We passed that point without even a marker. However, when the trail started down, we had no difficulty figuring out that we'd done it. The downhill was nearly vertical and brutal to knees. We met a lot of people walking up to the firetower as a day hike, since the parking lot (and our car) was just 1.5 miles away.



Mileage for the day- 8.4

	See Second Hiking Day
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