When Talk about Ranger, Ranger is Here
June 26, 2010
If I told you I only saw park ranger 3 times on the trail in last 15 years, you would understand ranger was a really rare animal in Harriman State Park. Now I knew probably he was around and waited for us to call him out. I had 16 participants today in this afternoon trip which included new hikers: Queenie, Tammy, May, Ada and Alex. Experienced hikers included Simon, Jocelyn, Sherry, Rose, Esther, Eric, Karen, Philip and Moon. Chung Kwong was brave enough to join this trip to test his wounded knees after 2 weeks treatments.
As there were 2 programs on the same day and the later one began at 5 pm, we arrived at Route 106 at 1 pm. I planned to have a 5 miles hike within 4 hours to cover Parker Cabin Mtn. and Lake Skenonta. It was also liked a compensatory trip for those 20 miles hikers because we had omitted the Tom Jones Shelter on that day. We started at 1:30 pm from R-D climbing up Tom Jones Mtn. It was a long steep uphill slope. Queenie and Tammy were new but very eager to stay at the front because they were afraid of being left behind. Tammy was curious to ask me about how to handle the encounter with snakes. When Queenie knew I had a watermelon in my backpack, she suggested I should bring cold beer under hot day. As it was illegal to drink alcohol in the State Park, she joked how about filled up a water bottle with beer so a ranger wouldn’t realize.
Rose, Esther, Jocelyn and Simon could hike fast but they preferred to spend time on photo taking. Philip had few friends joined so he taught May how to hike. Ada used her brand new hiking equipment and carried a heavy backpack because she said she had to train herself. Alex felt hungry after 15 minutes so took snack breaks without hesitation. Chung Kwong tried to overcome the hard time of his not 100% recovered knee pain. Eric was so happy to have Sherry next to him. Karen said she joined today because of the moon watching trip tonight. I tried but could not locate the Shelter at Tom Jones Mtn.. Luckily, I had one more chance because we would hike on this R-D again later this evening. We kept on R-D to climb Parker Cabin Mtn. We found a blueberry field at the summit but the fruits were too small and not ripened. Moon led us to the junction of Yellow Trail.
I instructed the fast team to descend along Yellow Trail while I had to wait for the rest of the teammates. We finished 2 miles and reached the pretty Lake Skenonta at 3 pm where I cut the cold watermelon to serve the group. The sky, water, vegetation and watermelon were unforgettable factors for the hikers. Tammy called her husband onsite to tell him about how enjoyable this moment with sweet cold watermelon in the mountain was. Most photographers wanted more time at the Lake but I was afraid we would be late to meet the other hikers in the parking lot. I requested to wrap up and left the Lake along Victory Blue Trail. I requested the photographers to take only fast shots by now. Someone joked and talked about digging up a blueberry plant and moved to his backyard, I told him it was again illegal and would be ticketed by a ranger. While I was telling them about the very low chance of seeing a ranger on the trail, a ranger in a vehicle suddenly appeared in front of us. Likely, Lake Skenonta was a hot spot of where campers stayed overnight so rangers had to patrol there to make sure no fire would be illegally set. This encounter could totally modify the Chinese phrase into “When talk about ranger, ranger is here”.
We spent extra 15 minutes at a lakeside spot where we took the group picture. The Blue Trail was longer than I expected. We finished the paved road and passed through a pine tree forest before entered back to narrow uphill trail. The group was segmented so I planned to give a more challenging option for the front hikers to do more exercises. Moon, Karen, Esther and Rose were willing to climb up R-D with me to find the Tom Jones Shelter while the others would go continuously on the flat Blue Trail. I was surprised that Esther would join the uphill team. She said she joined because the sun had been gone so she wouldn’t feel too hot. Moon found the Shelter on the right side off the trail which was quite hidden by the trees. Later, we heard she screamed because she was scared by a hissing snake at the summit. We had to switch to the side to pass that dangerous spot.
We descended from Tom Jones Mtn. and heard noise down at Route 106. We reached the cars almost the same time as the other group. Feng’s family and Clara’s group were there since 5 pm. We finished 5 miles at 5:15 pm. I rushed in re-packing my stuff into a big backpack for the moon watching trip afterwards.
