A Sunday Hike

Today, Mom, Glenn, the Potters, and I went on a hike in the Hudson River Valley, near the West Point US Military Academy. Hoo-rah!

It was on a winding and steep trail near Storm King Mountain and looked down onto the Hudson river.

Wikipedia was nice enough to provide some history about the region so that we could study-up before the hike.

In 1965 the mountain became the focus of a landmark environmental battle when local activists formed the Scenic Hudson Preservation Coalition (today known as just Scenic Hudson) to fight against plans by utility Consolidated Edison to cut away part of the mountain near the river and build a pump storage power generator complete with transmission lines across it for an ambitious power generating scheme which would also have entailed creating a reservoir in much of what is now Black Rock Forest. In a lawsuit brought by the coalition, a judge ruled for the first time that aesthetic impacts could be considered in such projects. In 1979 Con Ed finally abandoned even a greatly scaled-down version of the project, and settled a parallel lawsuit brought against their Indian Point facility by agreeing to endow the Hudson River Foundation with $12 million.

After forest fires on the mountain during the dry summer of 1999, unexploded ordnance left over from 19th century artillery training at the nearby United States Military Academy was discovered in some areas close to the trails. As a result the mountain was closed to hiking until October 2002, when authorities could be sure it had been safely removed.

We hiked for three hours, covering about four miles. Or rather, Mom and rest of the group covered four miles, but for me and my running around like a puppy on speed, I probably covered twice that amount.

I went into creeks, up rock faces, over tall grass and almost caught myself a deer.

I did catch something else though! It was a tick! Mom identified it as an American Dog Tick, one that doesn't carry Lyme Disease -- Whew!

However, the American Dog Tick does carry another lovely disease: Rocky Mountain Fever. Mom will need to watch me to see if I show any symptoms: Fever, loss of appetite, depression, vomiting, diarrhea, and neurologic abnormalities. Redness of the eyes and a pussy discharge may also be seen and nasal discharge, coughing are frequent, too. Mom isn't too worried because in her research it says these ticks don't really settle into their blood meal and transmit disease until about five hours after being picked up. Mom found it at hour four.

Good work, Mom!

The little sucker's head was also not embedded in my skin yet, so she easily removed it with a tweezer and turned it into a crispy critter. En el fuego!