Northville Placid Trail Day 0-1: Miles 0-20

Day 0

The lead up to this hike was strange. I flew to Albany from MSP and took an Uber to Saugerties to participate in the Hunter x Hunter exam. My Uber had told me that it would be very difficult to get another Uber to take me to Northville afterwards. So even though I had one scheduled for Sunday morning at 6, I got a little scared and tried to get one for Saturday night. It worked, so I was heading up at 9 pm. I was hoping to get a butane stove to boil water (for all the food I brought), so I made the super stop, but Walmart didn’t have any.

So I came into town and Stewart’s Shop told me to wait for a few stores to open in the morning (5&10, Tops Markets, and Allen and Palmer). Allen and Palmer weren’t open on Sunday, Tops opened at 7 and 5&10 opened at 9. So I set up camp at Waterfront Park under one of the gazebos (it was projected to rain overnight and I didn’t want to set up the tent). to bed stressed.

Day 1

When morning came, I went to Tops and found only propane tanks. I started looking on Amazon to get a jetboil or a propane to butane converter from the Piseco post office. I decided to wait for 5&10 to open before making a decision and went to JF Farm Store for breakfast. I got a southwestern burrito and a maple glazed donut. The donut certainly made the morning better, I wish I had a second. When 5&10 finally opened, the staff said they didn’t have any butane stove containers in stock, so I spent some time looking to see if I could get some propane stoves to go. I finally found a bunch of jetboil canisters! So I was. Excited. I was ready to go down at 9:10. And although that was a little later than I had originally planned, I felt more excited than rushed.

epic donut

South terminal arch. We’re leaving!

road walk

I had another improvement from the morning when I was able to call my wife the entire first road walk! It was a beautiful day, it wasn’t raining, I was fed and fed. The ride along the road was beautiful and I never felt in danger from cars. It seemed like it hadn’t rained in a long time because the water level in the lake was low and there were many docks completely connected to land. I lost the connection when I got to the top of the hill on Collin-Gifford Rd.

I go there

The path

The trail was immediately beautiful! Having the leaves completely cover the ground was a novel experience for someone from the PNW. There were small streams flowing with water. I was excited! But I quickly realized that all those leaves made it quite difficult to find the trail. Searching for jagged blades of past footprints, I took many wrong turns. I could usually tell something was wrong because the ground would get very soft. I was never off the road for long, but it happened often. The trail markers were quite inconsistent, some of them were in trees back to back, while others couldn’t be seen for 60-100 steps.

Which path would you take if you didn’t see the trail marker?

Beautiful views at Mud Lake

The largest water crossing on the trail is West Stony Creek. I was quite surprised by its width. Even so, I managed to cross without touching the water. I guess I’m a different kind of rock jumper…

Can you see the trail sign?

Stream

Overall, the environment seemed to change quickly, but in small ways. The images below show two different color palettes displayed by the same birch trees an hour away from each other. Streams and other small water crossings were common, and the ground cover alternated between ferns and moss.

The day felt good. I initially intended to go 18 miles and get to Abner Brook, but I decided to go a little further and do 20. That brought me to West Stony Creek Campground, and I thought about going to Rock Lake, but decided not to go crazy. West Stony Creek #1 was further away than #2, but it was right next to a toilet, so it was worth the hike.

Now I’m green

now I’m orange

Transmit on the largest end without a bridge

Same stream ahead with a bridge. Just before the campsite

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