Famous Forestport - Day 170

  For as long as I've been involved with the North Country Trail, Forestport, NY, has been one of those key places that are as pivotal as the termini. It's always been referred to as the jumping off point where the trail would enter the Adirondacks. It was this major place in my mind. Imagine my surprise when I first went there in 2008 and discovered it is so small it's not even incorporated. In New York, those are called hamlets. There's a larger area, the town (township) of Forestport. The town has 79 square miles, and a population of 1500.

But, it has a diner! And I knew it had a diner. The forecasted day of drizzle turned out to be an all-day rain, and I was thinking a dry place to eat and hot food sounded good. I was focused on getting there in time for lunch. I thought I recalled that it was open for breakfast and lunch. Of course, for all I knew, it might be gone. But I was hopeful, so I walked fast.

Made it! This is the owner, Dave. He knows about the trail, and that it goes in front of his business. He likes it when hikers stop. So far, there are precious few of us. Recommended! Everyday good food at affordable prices. I had a grilled ham and cheese sandwich. And they make donuts fresh every day. I'm not a huge donut fan, but had a cinnamon sugar one and it was light and not greasy. Winner! I wasn't particularly cold, but the hot lunch felt really good. Forestport Diner. (Notice my wet hair plastered to my head but just starting to dry.)

To get to Forestport from Boonville, you follow yet another canal. This is the Black River Feeder Canal. Its sole purpose was to provide adequate water to the Black River Canal that I blogged about yesterday. It has no locks. It's been cleaned up and is now a recreational waterway. You know I chose a particularly nice place to take a picture, but seriously, it looks pretty much like this for the entire 10 miles of its length.

On such a dismal day, I wasn't sure I'd see any recreational paddlers, but I did. There was a school group out for a morning on the water. They didn't know much about paddling, but they were having fun. This is a really safe place to learn how to handle a canoe.

The Forestport railroad station is currently vacant. It's had various uses in recent times. I hope someone figures out how to save it; it's such an interesting building. It was on the New York Central.

But the thing I love most about Forestport is the Black River. What is the first thing you notice about this river?

I hope you said that the rocks look a lot different from anything you've seen yet on this hike. Yup, After FOUR MONTHS, I'm finally off the Allegheny Plateau and into the volcanic region of the Adirondacks. The Adirondacks were once higher than the Rocky Mountains. They are an odd little circular bubble (literally) of volcanic origin that has no geologic relationship to any of the surrounding area.

I won't be hiking tomorrow, or the next day, or maybe even the next. Lots of planning and logistics to get this backpacking section set up to walk 175 miles to Crown Point. Meanwhile, look what happened today...

Miles today: 15.4. Total miles so far: 2200.6. I'm over 2200! This is more miles than the Appalachian Trail is long. This is approximately half of my first end-to-end hike (4395 without Vermont, and 4455 with Vermont). It's not half of the current length of the NCT.

See Black River Canal