Cool stories. I envy those of you that live in beautiful places and have the opportunities to get outside. I am in New York about 30 miles north of the city. It has great schools for the kids and is beautiful in its own way, think of a Ralph Lauren ad or where all the people drive Range Rovers, wear Barbour quilted jackets, and Hunter boots September to May. We have the Adirondacks and New England but its not like out West.
West chester or The Commons??
Edit: Have you ever tried Harriman State Park? Some pretty damn good hiking trails up there.
Westchester near Mt. Kisco. Harriman is nice, did some backpacking there. But it suffers from the same NY issue - too many people!
Harriman is pretty big. You can definitely find some trails that others aren't on. Maybe i've been lucky going there?
Yes, part of the problem is that I am mostly only free on the weekends. Peak times. It it not so much the trails but the parking, check in etc. it gets crowded. COVID made it harder in the NY area at every trail somewhat close to me. I do have a couple lesser known trails that are close to me, as I am in northern westchester. We have Audubon sanctuaries and a few preserves that are not well know outside of our area. I grew up in CT and was used to half filled campgrounds, cheap cabins and solitary fly fishing (not just in CT). Not anymore and certainly not the opportunities that do still exist out west.
Amen and it will only be getting worse here in NY...
Where you at?
Long Beach, Long Island.
Nice spot. No mountains out there other than the LIE and the Sunrise Highway
Cool stories. I envy those of you that live in beautiful places and have the opportunities to get outside. I am in New York about 30 miles north of the city. It has great schools for the kids and is beautiful in its own way, think of a Ralph Lauren ad or where all the people drive Range Rovers, wear Barbour quilted jackets, and Hunter boots September to May. We have the Adirondacks and New England but its not like out West.
West chester or The Commons??
Edit: Have you ever tried Harriman State Park? Some pretty damn good hiking trails up there.
Westchester near Mt. Kisco. Harriman is nice, did some backpacking there. But it suffers from the same NY issue - too many people!
Harriman is pretty big. You can definitely find some trails that others aren't on. Maybe i've been lucky going there?
Yes, part of the problem is that I am mostly only free on the weekends. Peak times. It it not so much the trails but the parking, check in etc. it gets crowded. COVID made it harder in the NY area at every trail somewhat close to me. I do have a couple lesser known trails that are close to me, as I am in northern westchester. We have Audubon sanctuaries and a few preserves that are not well know outside of our area. I grew up in CT and was used to half filled campgrounds, cheap cabins and solitary fly fishing (not just in CT). Not anymore and certainly not the opportunities that do still exist out west.
Amen and it will only be getting worse here in NY...
Where you at?
Long Beach, Long Island.
Nice spot. No mountains out there other than the LIE and the Sunrise Highway
The hell you say. We have Mt Oceanside and Mt Merrick! Both former landfills, lol!!!
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brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 40,759
In another life we used to go down in the old mine shafts in cali, nevada and AZ. We would buy topo maps of areas and go searching for them or if we were driving wed look for large tailings and go there. We put ourselves in some crazy situations, albeit dumb ones, and are very lucky we lived.
The shit I could tell you...
There's a mine shaft about 20 minutes south of where we live that has a sign that warns that entering too far into the mine can create asphyxiation and death. Is that common?
Back around 1974, a friend and co-worker and I went down to the Mojave desert and rode motor cycles out around this area where we were camping. At one point, I saw an unmarked gaping hole right in from of me and managed to stop just in time. I think it was probably an old mine shaft. I tossed a rock down into it and never heard it hit bottom. Scarred the crap out of me.
Caves can be risky as well. A buddy of back in around '72 was given directions to a cave in the Santa Cruz mountains. It was hard to find and not close to the only small road nearby. We went way the hell down into this cave through all kinds of twists and turns and then both of our flashlights became low on batteries. Did we young idiots bring extras? Noooo! We reached this one spot that our dim lights showed us went straight downward. Again, tossed a rock down there and never heard it hit bottom. We turned around and we went different way. After crawling for God know how long we eventually saw a speck of light and found out way out.
I also nearly fell off high cliffs on two occasions. And I've had other close call in various situations. I guess you could say I've been lucky.
EDIT: I will say this though: Writer James Bishop Jr. said, "Many of today's arm chair born-again environmentalists like to portray nature as a peaceful, idyllic experience in contrast to the brutal harshness of urban America. ...[but] the natural order is not peaceful or safe, but independent and sometimes violent, with a rhythmic harmony of conflict and death..." Sometimes getting out there in nature is dangerous and, yes, sometimes when I was young I did it in ways that were not the smartest, but getting out and doing it for me have been the most real moments of my life. So much of the rest of life is necessary drudgery, or superfluous and amusing.
So yeah that was stupid Brian! lol You were lucky to get out of there. Once u have your flashlights gone there is no way to see. I'm surprised you both got out without falling or getting hurt.
We always had a group of 2 and if your flashlight was going you got out. We would rip the sleeve off our shirts and use it as a mask for breathing as we would kick up silt and dust sometimes.
So asphyxiation? Not that I know of and I'm still here. We have had professional tunnel diggers/miners and park rangers tell us the dangers of the mine shafts but never listened. We were very experienced but if there was ever a cave in or what not, we would have been toast.
We went to one huge mine shaft in Nevada and in one area there was a nasty chemical smell. That was the one time we were ever worried that we might lose air. We went into gold and silver mines so we weren't worried about gasses and lack of oxygen that was common in coal mines.
One thing we would look for also is the harder to get in the more cool things were left in them. Easy mines are just that, easy. Everyone could walk in them so nothing good was ever in them.
Yeah, I was young, stupid, and lucky, lol.
Sounds like you've done some interesting mine/ cave exploration!
Speaking of caves and such, I am very protective of my home:
Ha great pic!
We had ropes and wore harness' going into one mine and a ranger pulled up and I was talking to him then he sees a 6yo and his mom come out and he shakes his head. He sees another 10 people come out of the mine and explains to us the dangers.
We said "we know". and continued our years of exploration.
That was one of the first mines we went in. We were gung ho about it.
You are quite the adventurer, my man!
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
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Nice spot. No mountains out there other than the LIE and the Sunrise Highway
You are quite the adventurer, my man!