“The Hurley Trail Is Not a Loop”, and other lessons from upstate New York.
Thursday, July 2nd, 2009
Rain.
The two great things about the town of Hurley NY are that it’s just plain lovely, and it’s only seven minutes from our Kingston apartment.
So we’ve gone running a couple times on a beautiful, paved roadside trail in Hurley - where we get to take in the rolling fields and the deep green mountains to the West.
Today as we drove toward the trail, we spotted a place where the trail meandered back into the forest, and became an unpaved hiking trail. Naturally, we couldn’t resist… (Remember our foiled attempts at hiking last weekend?)
This trail didn’t require a permit, and the map at its beginning said the loop was 3.1 miles. Perfect! We had just enough time to jog the trail, beat the coming rainstorm, and get some work in at the apartment before heading into the studio.
This wooded portion of The Rail Trail, as it’s called, was gorgeous: Its colors were deep and rich from last night’s rain, and it’s way off the road, quiet, and spotted with tiny orange lizards.
We were feeling good as we neared our 3.1 mile marker. “Awesome! Here we are!”
But um — the trail entrance that spilled out onto that state route looked nothing like where we had started.
We looked at this entrance’s map, and it was the same as the other one. No “You Are Here” indicator, and that same nice, circular line that wound around from Rte 209 (where we’d started) and, seemingly, back again.
But here we were. (We *knew* the trail didn’t seem to be curving enough to loop us back!)
A friendly man working near this (wrong) trail entrance informed us that the quickest way back to where we started was - yes - the same trail that had brought us here.
So, we turned around and set off again — our nice, comfy 3.1 miles turning into a more challenging 6.2.
More troublesome than the double distance was the rainstorm we were going to miss with our nice short jog…
It found us somewhere around mile 4 on the way back. We kicked up the mud and water like champions (or maybe more like two city kids)… and two drenched Goldens eventually arrived back in Hurley.
A little late getting into the studio today.
Feeling in love with hot showers and dry clothes. And coffee.