We had a camping and hiking trip for this 4th of July in Catskill. I was lucky to get a camping spot in last minute. I booked it on 7/1, when I almost gave up and decided to stay in long island for the long weekend.
Our campsite is number 70 which is a hike-in campsite on the left side of the little pond. It's about 3 minutes walk from the parking lot. I saw some people bring a cart to carry cooler and food between car and campsite, I think it's a really good idea. Compare to beaver pond, where we've just been last month, the campsite here has more privacy. Each campsite are divided by lots of trees. Every remote hike-in site has its own pit toilet. It has toilet paper inside and doesn't smell too bad. We can not get any phone signal (AT&T) in the campsite, which is a good getaways from modern world.
After we sep up our tent, we decided to explore the lake. There are kayak, canoe, and row boat rental. The price for single kayak is 15 per day, and double is 20. We got two single kayaks. Since we arrived at 4pm, we only spent an hour kayaking, before returning it at 6pm. The pond is not that large, so we slowly went around the pond twice. The pond is really clean, and has a lot of fish.
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| Kayak at little pond campground |
Then, we had a delayed July 4th BBQ dinner. The main is burger, and desert is brownie orange. Last time we tried, the brownie just exploded like lava from volcano. This time we only filled the orange 1/3, wrapped with aluminum foil, put around the red ashes, and baked for 20 minutes. It turned out perfect, not too gooey.
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| Campfire brownie oranges |
Another thing I was really excited about is trying out the new sleeping bag (MHW photon 32). William has a photon 45 and are really satisfied with the quality after having it for three years. I bought a right zipper sleeping bag in order to zip with William's. I was so happy about this function before. However, after trying in this camping trip, both of us agreed that we won't use this function again=.=. There are two main disadvantages about zipping two sleeping bags together: one is the cold air get in easier. the other is whenever the other person turns, you can definitely feel it. I got really little sleep on that night.
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| Little pond campground #70 |
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| The view from our campsite |
The next day, we had a day hike in Minnewaska state park, which is about an hour drive from the campsite. Our route today is Lower Awosting (LA)-> Mossy Glen (MG)->Blueberry Run (BR)-> Castle point(CP)-> Rainbow falls (RF)->Lower Awosting (LA).The distance is 8.35 miles. It took us about 5hrs to finish. Only RF need a little bit scramble, other foot path are pretty easy.
When we came here last time in April, I wondered how the blueberry run gets the name. This time, I found out all the low bushes are almost all blueberry. It's blueberry season in July, we had a little blueberry picking. The rainbow falls is gorgeous. We had a lunch just underneath the falls.
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| Blueberry picking at Minnewaska |
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| Rainbow falls at Minnewaska state park |
We arrived almost the same time as another couple with their baby. We saw them again in the middle of Mossy Glen and Rainbow falls and almost arrived the parking lot at the same time. I am so amazed that the mom used baby carrier to carry her kid all the way. I hope I can do the same if one day I become a mom.
Thanks William for a great time.
