Labor Day Party / Hawk Mt. Dayhike: TRIP REPORT

“Saturday Morning

Deathmarch99 arrives at my house at 7AM from Indiana. Also calls me every 2 hours from 10pm Fri. night until his arrival Sat morning. Needless to say, we were both exhausted and went to bed when he got here until about noon when I woke up and let him sleep.

Saturday Afternoon

People begin to arrive for the Labor Day Party. Drinking begins for me, Deathmarch, and a couple of my friends around 2:30pm.

Saturday Evening

Phantomsoul and EarthNsky arrive almost simultaneously around 6pm. Other friends have also arrived and the party has really begun. Drinking games are played. The "I have never..." game was played. What secrets were shared during this game will NEVER be posted on TT, haha.

The party was fun... lots of laughs. Phantomsoul left around 11pm to go to another party in NY that he was already 2 hours late for, while the rest of us decided to go to a club/bar and continue partying. 4 of us (me, EarthNsky, Deathmarch, and my friend Valerie) went to a nearby club and were basically the only ones on the dance floor the entire night. ENS bust out his "unique" (to say the least) dance moves and cracked us up the entire night.

Arrived back at my house around 2am and talked til about 3 or 4 am and then crashed.

Sunday Morning

Woke up around noon (we're all bums) and ate donuts and aspirin for breakfast. ENS, DM, and myself decided to set up a 10 person tent outback and see how nasty it was (I had left it in the attic after a rainstorm). It actually was fine... so DM and I planned on camping on the AT tonight and then dayhike Hawk Mt. tomorrow. We're gonna test the "Tent Mahal" out tonight on the AT by Windsor Furnace shelter... I'm sure the hikers passing by will think we're nuts.



***Trip report will be continued after our return from Hawk Mt. tomorrow... hopefully my leg will hold out!”

“Oh crap, I forgot about your party. I really did want to come.

Hope your Hawk Mountain overnight goes well.”

“They got lost on the way.”

“they found there way though. They are at this time camping.”

“I'm really drun right now. So don't mind me. I am going to go back to listening to Tom Petty Wild Flowers. Man that album rocks. #&%!$ yeah~!!!!!!!”

“Ah, drunk and posting...not a good combination.”

“PUI. I don't even remember posting that one.”

“ens = el drunko

part 2 of the TR should be up sometime tonight after i get showered, eat something, and upload the pics.”

“Sunday afternoon

Begin the car ride to Windsor Furnace Shelter.

Sunday evening

Still in the car looking for Windsor Furnace Shelter

Sunday night

Finally find Windsor Furnace Shelter thanks to Deathmarch's friend JohnBoy who posted a thread on TT for us. Also, special thanks to Fritz, Nigal, and ENS.

After forever searching for this damn shelter, we finally hiked in with this HUUUUUGE 10-person tent ("Tent Mahal") and lots of other car-camping gear. It was only about 0.7 miles in to the shelter, so it wasn't too bad, but carrying all this extra SH-T made it pretty annoying.

Set up tent, gasped in awe at size, ate, started a fire (or at least tried to - there was no wood to be found! I think Fritz used it up last time we camped here LOL).

Freaked ourselves out a little when orbs and weird sounds started appearing... especially the sound of metal clinking together at approximately midnight.

Roped a bear bag, went to bed in Tent Mahal around 2am.

Monday morning

Hike all this crap back out to my car only to find a freaking parking ticket! As if our luck hadn't been enough on the way here. Pretty much every car in the lot had a ticket on their window.

Finally got to Hawk Mountain around 11:30am (just a LITTLE later than we planned!). Started out at South Lookout, hiked the mile trail to North Lookout and took the Blue Trail down to the second junction of Golden Eagle Trail. Took Golden Eagle Trail down to the River of Rocks (ROR) Trail, and hiked the ROR Trail back up to South Lookout and back to the car.

An awesome dayhike. My leg completely gave out on me the last mile or so. By the end of the hike, I had to keep stopping every 20 feet or so. BLAH! Going to the dr's this Wednesday,.. hopefully nothing serious.

Saturday (early) evening

On the way home from Hawk Mt., we sat in traffic for 5 miles... 5 miles took us ONE HOUR to get through due to traffic on 78E.

Back at home and showered now and full of Papa John's (mmmm, carbs!).

Lots of pictures to come. Stay tuned.”

“so hows the leg? good? better at least?

remember the ranger guy warned us last time about parking at the reservoir.”

“the leg is killing now, but it actually held out pretty much the entire hike... with a lot of rock hopping/scrambling, etc...

it REALLY gave out the last mile or so and now i can barely walk.”

“i don't remember the ranger saying that... but either way, it's not my fault (hehe).”

“Labor Day Party (pics taken by ENS)

and

Windsor Furnace Shelter / Hawk Mt. Dayhike”

“Hey Scorch, I got your message....on the way home tonight. The phone reception up by my dad's is really lousy. I hope you found the place alright.

Anywhoo, cool pics. Sounds like y'all had a great time after yous went out.”

“yea, it was a blast. sure am paying for it now with this darn leg.

glad i did it though. really wanted DM to see hawk mt after me yacking his ear off about it for almost a year!”

“DM is leaving today around 11am... he should be home around 11pm.”

“bump. for DM when he gets home tonight.”

“Next time you drunkenly vandalize a camp, don't advertise you are from TT.
Did you carve your names into the shelter walls also?

http://community.webshots.com/photo/184551973/184558753zqLZQR”

“first off, don't assume that we were drunk. we were completely sober.

and excuse me, but it was written in fire ash, you moron.”

“damn it scorch,

curious wasn't in the pull of people we thought would comment first. So who wins the bet?

and for future reference: she's one hell of a trooper. Should have seen her leg coming out of hawk Mt....yet she still hiked out completely under her own power.”

“pssh, curious this.”