2022-11-05 42 -78

Location

Allegany State Park, just off the Beehunter hiking trail.

Participants

Pedalpusher
J
Simon the dog
Myka the dog

Expedition

J and I had plans to hike this weekend and I was thinking McCarty Hill State Forest to check out a trail I previously found on an earlier expedition. However, when the hashpoints were published, I immediately suggested we should go hiking at Allegany. J had also asked a co-worker if she wanted to join us, but she (the co-worker) ended up not coming so we missed out on a new Drag-along. There were also no Geocaches in range of this hash either.

It was unseasonably warm (I think we broke the High record for the day by about 5 degrees Fahrenheit), and J was super excited to get out there. I wasn't quite ready by the time she arrived, so I was a little rushed, but we ended up getting to Allegany around 11:30. Turns out everyone else who was hiking the Beehunter trail arrived right when we did too. Two ladies with a dog were headed across the field as we parked. They took a really long time to get to the trailhead though so J wanted to see if the bathrooms were open at the beach across the road. As J was checking the bathroom, I took the dogs to the lake to get a drink and to cool down. J reported they were locked, but there was a playground across the creek the other way with a bathroom so we tried over there. On the way there, I saw another couple heading toward the trail too, but at least we found these bathrooms were open. After using them, we started for the trail.

As we approached the trailhead, I saw a couple people just in the woods with a couple dogs and I mentioned to J that I thought it was the two ladies we first saw. If they took 10 minutes to get to this point, at least we should be able to overtake them easily and never see them again. Turns out it was them, and another pair of ladies heading out with two other dogs. I like this trail because it's a longer one and for that reason, usually very un-populated. Once we finally hit the trail itself, they were just at the limit of our vision through the trees, but with a major elevation increase for the first KM or so, I figured we would catch right up. Apparently, it was now going to be a race? WTF are these people doing? The dogs were getting frustrated from being on the leashes for so long too. Finally, at the top of the incline we saw them stopped and it looked like they were stepping off the trail or something before they turned to face us. The one was surprised to see more hikers and they stepped off the trail saying they were turning around anyway. At least the dogs could now be free to run around. I periodically checked my phone to see how close we were from the hash, but knowing it wasn't until the turn-around point, I wasn't too worried. About 2 KM from the hash, I saw that second couple ahead of us so we decided to stop for lunch since it was about noon anyway. The dogs got a couple treats and I picked a couple ticks off the dogs, but we had a nice lunch otherwise. Giving them another good head start, we continued on our way. About 1 KM from the hash, I turned on my GPS, but saw I had a decent signal on my phone so I zoomed in to get the map to download as backup. I'm glad I did, because I was able to get 4 satellites to hook up to my GPS, but it still wouldn't give me a location. With my phone, I was able to navigate to the hash area but ended up having to do a wide sweeping GPS dance to get a good enough reading. After getting our pictures, we headed back to the trail. J didn't want to stick around due to the threat of ticks.

Almost back to the Beehunter Cabin Loop (where the other end of the trail finishes), we caught up to the couple again. They ended up stopping because the lady needed to clear her shoe so we were able to get by them quickly with the dogs on the leashes. Free again, we got to the end of the trail, walked down the cabin road and headed down the connecting bike trail towards the beach. After one last pit-stop at the creek for the dogs, and the bathroom again for J, we headed for home, tired but happy.