After a longer than expected drive, all I wanted was to get my body moving and out of the car! So we went for a hike. One hour into the expedition and our energies had already changed for better- we swapped trip fatigue/tension for physical fatigue and the magical effects of endorphins. It was a four-hour hike to Minnewaska Lake, including brisk walk through medium strenuous terrain and forests, and going down a small gorge to cross a rock-bedded stream of ice cold water - barefoot in chilly weather. Because they were repairing the trail leading to the lake, and because we wanted to get to the lake, this seemed the only way.
The Minnewaska lake is part of the Minnewaska State Park Preserve, a 8500 ha preserve on the Gunks. It is one of the three sky lakes within this preserve –together with Lake Awosting and Mud Pond. It is a mile long by a quarter-mile. There was a thin layer of ice melting in one end of the lake, so thin that it seemed transparent, like a solid massive spider web on the water.
Unfortunately the sun was about to set soon, so we could not stay longer in ‘paradise’, the flat stone beach of Minnewaska lake.
Ah, yes. When in life we are running too intensely, that ice cold water is so replenishing and welcomed by our system, as counterintuitive as it may seem to us.
Ah, yes. Sometimes when we want something so badly, it does not matter if the trail is shut down, we will do what it takes to get to our destination.
(*) The Shawagunks (aka, the Gunks) is the Northern end of a long ridge within the Appalachian Mountains that begins in Virginia.
Afternoon Sun on Minnewaska Lake.
Paradise. Or flatstone beach on Minnewaska Lake.
Ice melting on a tip of Minnewaska Lake.
2 comments:
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! That's my definition of Paradise... and I have always said that in defense of swimming in the freezing cold lakes of Patagonia. It's so beautiful, that the cold becomes a pro instead of a con because it actually makes you more aware of where you are!
Totally! Here it was not really warm weather and the water was freezing cold. However it was a great feeling. What was at first heart-stopping cold, then ended up being the "ahhhhh" that you say! And yes, i stayed longer than what it took to cross that stream. I learnt this year in Buenos Aires, while the Drakkar Rally was on that many pilots were using chrio-therapy (they would get zipped into a kind of sleeping bag with ice) to stand soreness from driving all day and to keep up endurance the next day. And, was it Katherine Herpburn who would go for swims into freezing cold lakes (even well into her 70s), this being one of her secrets for her 'youthful', graceful aging? ;)
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