Trip Review: Revisiting Harriman

Our tent on a nice boulder face

Background:

Having spent the previous weekend in the Texas Hill Country, we were feeling pent up after a week in the office. We decided to take advantage of the extra day on Memorial Day Weekend to do a quick trip to the outdoors and get our nature-fix. We had visited Harriman in the fall and were really impressed by the variety of terrain and the fantastic views. Wanting to further explore this lovely park, we picked out a trail that started near a train station and the rest of the pieces fell into place.

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Transportation:
This was by far my least favorite part of planning trips. Happily, since the last time I wrote a trip review, GoogleMaps has updated their beta public transit directions to both incorporate schedules from MTA/MetroNorth and NJ Transit as well as provide an option to choose when you will be traveling. This development makes it downright shameful for anyone to say that they can't get out of the city without a car.

Google told me to take a NJ Transit bus from the George Washington Bridge bus terminal (not far from our apartment, but for those farther downtown, it would be easier to take the NJ Transit operated Metro-North train on the Port Jervis line out of Penn Station) to a station in New Jersey and then get on the train there. We left our apartment at 7:50 and were on the trail by 10:30.

We did yoga on our sleeping pads and contemplated
the beautiful view from unusual angles while in each pose.
Jeff cooked our dinner while I goofed around with my camera.

Trail Conditions:
The wildlife was out and seemed to be just as excited as we were about the warm weather. We saw white-tailed deer, chipmunks left and right, lots of birds, toads and salamanders.

There were a few people out, though we didn't see them on Sunday. Monday morning we ran into some very loud college students who were not practicing Leave No Trace principles. Needless to say, Jeff and I were a bit peeved. I think I did a pretty good job of quietly guilt-tripping the group leader for leaving a campfire with live flames. Aside from that mild unpleasantry, the trip was quite nice.

Sun peeking out from thunderclouds

There weren't any particularly boggy sections of trail. The recent rains had been adequately absorbed by the newly verdant trees. We camped in one of our favorite sections of the park on a relatively flat granite boulder facing west, did some yoga, watched thunderstorms pass to either side of us, and made vegetarian chili for dinner.

delicious bubbling spices

Food:
We brought half a gallon of GORP, a sandwich bag of crushed potato chips, and chili fixings--1/2 sandwich bag parboiled pinto beans, 1/4 sandwich bag TVP, donated bag of tomato sauce (we usually carry a can of tomatoes), and a chili seasoning packet. We had pretty much no food left after we got out

Final Thoughts:
Thoughts of camping are rife with the cultural image of the campfire. Singing songs around the fire and eating stick-roasted foods hearkens back to an imagined past of pure human emotion. and makes us feel like we are really roughing it. Moreover building campfires was an integral part of how American dads were taught to camp, and that's how many families went camping when we were little. It's hard to react against this culturally hegemonic thought that "camping requires campfires," however, we should still try because campfires have incredibly detrimental ecological effects.

The Leave No Trace website does the best job of succinctly stating why we should avoid making campfires:
Fires vs. Stoves: The use of campfires, once a necessity for cooking and warmth, is steeped in history and tradition. Some people would not think of camping without a campfire. Campfire building is also an important skill for every camper. Yet, the natural appearance of many areas has been degraded by the overuse of fires and an increasing demand for firewood. The development of lightweight, efficient camp stoves has encouraged a shift away from the traditional fire. Stoves have become essential equipment for minimum-impact camping. They are fast, flexible, and eliminate firewood availability as a concern in campsite selection. Stoves operate in almost any weather condition, and they Leave No Trace.

We often forget how great of an impact we have on the natural environment because we so rarely visit it. It's easy to think, "what's one campfire going to do?" or "it's not so bad that I walked off trail to avoid mud because I'm just one person," but we can physically see the ramifications of universalizing this mindset across all hikers. Huge numbers of people visit the same places in the Northeast, and the accumulated impact of all these individuals is perfectly clear. The hills feel almost tame without naturally decaying trees, with Little Mermaid sing-alongs drowning out birdsong, with unfortunate plants trampled alongside the original trail. Dead trees are a crucial habitat for insects and birds. By burning them in campfires for the sake of tradition, we rupture the circle of life. And no one wants to ruin such a beautiful song.

More typical Harriman landscape