Things You Never Knew Existed: Opus 40

So here we were, snugly moved into Rip Van Winkle RV Park in Saugerties, New York.  It poured buckets last night, and the rain continued into this morning.  Once the rain had passed and we had walked the cats, we wondered what we could do in the area with the half day remaining after lunch.

We finally decided to visit Opus 40, a large environmental sculpture created by sculptor and quarryman Harvey Fite, a sprawling series of dry-stone ramps, pedestals and platforms covering 6.5 acres of a bluestone quarry.  It was listed as the best thing to do in our area by TripAdvisor.

Harvey Fite, then a professor of sculpture and theater at Bard College, purchased the disused quarry site in 1938, expecting to use it as a source of raw stone for his representational sculpture. Instead, inspired by a season of work restoring Mayan ruins in Honduras, he began creating a space to display the large carved statues he was beginning to create out of native bluestone.  He built terraces, ramps and walkways to lead to the individual works, doing all the work by hand, and using the traditional hand tools that had been used by the local quarrymen before him. As the rampwork of his open-air gallery expanded, Fite realized that the statue, Flame, which had occupied the central pedestal --

-- had become too small for the scale to which his work had grown, and he replaced it in 1962 with a 9.5-ton bluestone pillar he had found in a nearby streambed:

Afterward, Fite realized that what he had originally conceived as a setting for sculpture had become a coherent sculpture in its own right, and a new kind of sculpture, in which carved representational work was out of place. Fite removed his other sculptures and relocated them on the surrounding grounds, and continued to work on this new sculptural concept for the remainder of his life.

In the early 1970s, after he had retired in 1969 from 35 years as a professor at Bard College, Fite built the Quarryman's Museum on the grounds, a collection of folk tools and artifacts of the quarrying era.  We visited the Museum and found many quirky assemblages of old tools:

Fite finally succumbed to the pressure to give his masterwork a name. Stating tongue-in-cheek that “Classical composers don’t have to name things; they can just number them, Opus One, Opus Two, and so on,” Fite eventually arrived at what he felt was an apropos name. Opus is the Latin word for work, and 40 refers to the number of years he expected he would need to complete the work.

Fite died on May 9, 1976, in the 37th year of his creation, in an accidental fall while working on the ongoing project. His widow, Barbara Fite, created a nonprofit group to administer Opus 40, and opened the grounds to public access to help support its preservation.  Brendan Gill, in the March 1989 edition of Architectural Digest, called Opus 40 "one of the largest and most beguiling works of art on the entire continent," and he has also called it “the greatest earthwork sculpture I have ever seen.” Though Harvey Fite was not associated with the Land Art or Earthworks sculptural movement of the 1970s, he came to be known as a pioneer of that movement, and was recognized in 1977 by the Hirshhorn Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, in a show entitled “Probing the Earth: Contemporary Land Projects,” as a forefather of the earthworks movement.

We purchased a timed ticket and drove over at the appointed hour, where Kathy found the entrance sign and pointed the way in to the reception tent:

Our path followed an old farm road, along what appeared to be a colonial stone wall:

When we arrived, we were greeted with this view of the Amphitheater, where numerous events and performances occur.  A Sonny Rollins concert was filmed at Opus 40 in 1986 for Robert Mugge's documentary, "Saxophone Colossus"; the band Mercury Rev recorded "Opus 40", a song about the site, on their 1998 album, "Deserter's Songs"; and musical artist Amanda Palmer made a 2017 music video cover of Pink Floyd's song, "Mother," at the Opus 40 Amphitheater.

Once we were checked in, we started exploring the site.  Our first stop was a flat, white surface marked by parallel, straight grooves which were etched by pebbles etched by Ice Age glaciers:

Nearby, we could see, and then walked through, subterranean passageways:

Here is how the passageways looked from within:

We got a good look at the Fite home, which remains a private residence.  Its design was fascinating, but we could not explore it because it was not open to the public:

Below the bluestone pillar was a circular platform overlooking the "his and hers" pools:

In the early days, when the house had no plumbing or electricity, the pools served as refrigerators.  A mesh bag with milk, butter or eggs could be lowered into the water, kept cool, and pulled up when needed:

Here is a view of the pillar from the far side of the pools:

In the back yard of the home, we found the House Pool, which is a natural quarry pool that was excavated at the same time as the house was built.  The statue, "The Bather," has stood watch over the pool since the house was built:

After exploring the quarry, sculpture and house and yard, we walked over to the Museum and Gift Shop.  The upper floor of the Museum displayed old iron-forged tools.  This room, on the lower floor, was a temporary exhibit of the work of Melora Kuhn:

We finished exploring the Museum and Gift Shop, and then returned to a quarry shelf above the Amphitheater, which is one area which visitors are allowed to play with the rocks.  Most people have stacked rocks into inuksuks and other similar shapes.  Kathy wanted to do the same:

Here, Kathy starts the sculpture -- an artist at work!

And here she is, the artist with her completed sculpture:

Maybe we'll call it, "Opus 41."

Ascending Owl's Head Fire Tower

Tuesday, September 13, 2021

Hi Blog!

Tuesday was our last full day in the Adirondacks. After Monday's fishing adventure on Eaton Lake, we decided we wanted a hiking day. When we paddled around Eaton Lake, we had great views of Owls Head Mountain. Turns out, Owls Head has a fire tower and a 3.1 mile trail that takes you right to the tower. We wanted to get an early start, but it was foggy most of the morning. No sense climbing to the top of a mountain to take in the views if there are no views. We busied ourselves with pre-move chores. By 10:00 a.m. the skies began to clear. We packed our packs and reached the trailhead by 10:30.

 

In 1970, the State of New York stopped manning the fire towers. Several were taken down while others had their bottom flights of stairs removed. It took 30 years before these fire towers were re-opened. Many of the towers have been adopted by local hiking groups. The Owls Head Tower and trail are maintained by the Friends of Owls Head Fire Tower. Below, Dave poses with some of their handiwork.

We recently learned of the Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK) Fire Tower Hiking Challenge. In 2001, the ADK published Views from on High: Fire Tower Trails in the Adirondacks and Catskills. The book describes 30 fire tower trails accompanied by photos, maps, and GPS coordinates for trailheads. It includes a chapter on the history of the Forest Preserve fire towers and describes towers located in both the Adirondacks and Catskills Parks. To complete the Fire Tower Challenge, you only have to hike to 23 of the 30 towers in both parks, document your hikes, send in your list and $5.00 to the ADK, and you get a patch! This will be our fourth tower in the Adirondacks. We have a couple in the Catskills, but that's for another blog.

Owls Head Mountain is part of the Sargent Ponds Wild Forest, which covers an impressive approximately 45,000 acres. Owls Head is a prominent peak in the Long Lake area and is made up of four separate summits, two of which are referred to as the horns. These horns give the mountain the look of an owl's head - a great horned owl's head to be exact.

Moving up the trail from the bridge, we first noted how many more colorful leaves littered the trail.  While the trees themselves are still generally green and don't display extensive color, the trail was a beautiful Jackson Pollock painting:

As to the fire tower itself, which was our goal, it was first a wooden fire tower erected by the Commission Corps in September of 1911, which was replaced by the current 35′ steel Aermotor LS40 tower in 1919. Observers (the title of the people who watch for fires in New York) originally stayed in tents until the Observer’s Cabin was built below the summit, the latest being built in 1929.  A phone line ran up the mountain and the small poles are still visible along the trail, many boasting trail markers.

Aerial detection of forest fires by planes and radar have replaced the need (i.e. cost) for manning fire towers across the state. The Owls Head tower closed at the end of the 1970 season and the Observer’s Cabin was burned in 1979 as “non-conforming” to the natural state of the forest. All that's left of the cabin are the front steps and concrete footings. Dave knocked, but no one answered!

Some hiker used the old footings as a stove.

The Owls Head Tower is half as tall as the Wakely Tower, which we hiked a few days ago. However, from Owls Head, you can see eight other fire towers. In order to pinpoint the location of a fire, two towers were needed to triangulate. Owl Head might be small, but was it was mighty important.

Dave went up the tower stairs first, just to make sure it was safe. Kathy waited patiently below for the all clear.  (Can you spot her in the photo below?)

The views from the top of the tower were expansive:

Its windows seemed to frame innumerable lakes, which surrounded us at every compass direction:

The lakes and peaks stretched out as far as the eye could see:

We even spotted what we believed was Lake Eaton below, where we had paddled and fished the day before.  Our trail connected with a trail that would have taken us over to the Lake Eaton campground, "only" another 3.8 miles out and 3.8 miles back.  We decided to pass on that option.

We kept our heads in the clouds as long as we could, but our tummies began to rumble. We slowly descended back to earth. We found a nice smooth rock with a pleasant view and enjoyed our lunch. Sit back and enjoy the views!

Just as we finished, another couple reached the tower. It was time to get back on the trail.  We exchanged pleasantries before descending some slick, flat, steep rock faces that gave us pause as we climbed up, and gave us even more pause as we climbed (slid?) down.  Yet, heading down, we spotted more workarounds than we had seen climbing up, and the rock faces proved not to be as challenging as they had been on the uphill.

There are some hikers who don't like out and back trails. They prefer long point to point hikes or circular hikes. They don't want to cover the same ground twice. We feel that the trail is always different on the way back. You are not as focused on your destination. You have time to relax and enjoy what's around you, whether it be a babbling brook or convenient log seat.

We move on to the Catskills next. Not sure what adventures await us, but that's half the fun! Until next we meet, stay thirsty my friends.

One Bite, One Fish at Lake Eaton

It's Monday, September 13, 2021, and here was our chance to do some fishing in the Adirondacks near Indian Lake.  Weather has not been overly kind to us, and we've had to pay close attention to temperature, warmth and wind in planning our fishing and paddling outings.  Today was to be our last chance at this stay.

Kathy did the research and found the most likely candidate.  Lake Eaton was well-stocked with trout in the Spring, is not too large a lake, and does not appear to be as heavily fished as other Adirondack lakes.  Happily, it is only a half hour's drive from our campground.  So, after gearing up, off we drove.

While there is a state park at Lake Eaton and the campground is full, the boat ramp and lake were not heavily populated.  We spotted one or two other fishermen, and a pair of kayakers, as well as a couple of scullers sharing a racing shell (more on that later).

It was a chilly but sunny morning, and, layered up, we put our kayaks in the water with great anticipation.  Here is Kathy setting out from a small beach we selected for our boat ramp: 

Lake Eaton is not developed commercially, although we could see campsites along the lakeshore to the north of where we put our kayaks in the water:

The boat ramp had several small boats resting on the shoreline, waiting for their turn in the water:

The sun and clouds spread glimmerglass across the water:

It was much windier than we would have liked.  As we paddled out into the middle of the lake, we found that we had to deal with the wind and waves more than we wanted.  This interfered with our casting and made it difficult to focus on our fishing.

Neverthless, soon after we headed out onto the water, as we were talking about the waves and weather, David got a bite!  It was a large fish that fought hard, and strong enough that it certainly could have broken the line, and perhaps even have overcome David's rod.  But he played the fish long enough to get it into the net and on the boat:

Once David had landed the fish, it was almost lunchtime, so we decided to take the finny one back to shore to measure and clean it.  As we examined the fish, we realized that it was not a trout, or a landlocked salmon, or a bullhead.  We were not sure what species it was, but it measured over 14 inches long!  Some research later showed that it was a smallmouth bass -- large for this type of fish.

We cleaned the fish, washed up, and found a picnic table near the beach to eat our sandwiches.  While we were eating, a woman rowed her scull up to the shore and met her male partner.  They discussed the rowing, and she mentioned that she had seen eight loons on the other side of the lake.  We were jealous!

Having finished lunch, we set out on the lake again.  The wind had calmed, but we decided nevertheless to paddle across the lake this time and let the wind blow us back toward this beach.  In this way, we could focus on our fishing, rather than paddling to fight the breeze.  As we neared a point midway across the lake, we spotted this man putting his kayak onto shore behind some water grasses:

Color is starting to show in the trees along the shore:

The fall colors are even gracing the water grasses, which glowed yellow, green and orange between the water and the shore:

The pastel colors gracing some of the deciduous trees made a pleasing landscape with the varied greens still surviving from summer and the blue and white of the sky:

Kathy led the way past the near point, toward the opposite shore:

We reached the other shore and let the wind push us back across the lake as we cast and changed flies, hoping to get a little more luck in our afternoon fishing session.  It was not to be.  After an hour-and-a-half or so drifting across the lake, and changing flies three times, we called it a day.

An unusual day it was for fishing.  Between us we got one bite, and it resulted in one fish caught -- and not a trout.  When we got home, Kathy eagerly prepared the fish and put it in brine for smoking tomorrow.  We'll report to you how smoked bass tastes once we've smoked and tasted it!

EPILOGUE

Well, here is the bass, all filleted and smoked, ready for finishing by pan-frying on the stove:

Kathy served it pan-fried, with no spice other than alder smoke, and it was delicious!

Climbing to the Wakely Mountain Fire Tower

Friday, September 10, 2021

Hi Blog!

On Wednesday, we traveled from Ausable Chasm to Thornbush Acres in Indian Lake, New York. We are camped in the heart of the Adirondack Mountains. We had last stayed here back in 2014. At that time, we were able to hike to two of the 25 fire towers in the Adirondacks. Today, we added another tower to our collection. Wakely Mountain’s 70-foot tower is one of the highest in New York state, and the tower affords excellent views of the West Canada Lakes Wilderness to the south and the High Peaks to the north. 

We started our hike on an old logging road.

Logging in the Adirondack forests began shortly after the English replaced the Dutch as the landlords of New Netherlands and changed its name to New York. Logging operations generated wealth, opened up land for farming, and removed the cover that provided a haven for Indians. After the Revolutionary War, the Crown lands passed to the people of New York State. Needing money to discharge war debts, the new government sold nearly all the original public acreage - some 7 million acres - for pennies an acre.

By 1850, the destruction of Adirondack forests became a growing concern, as the continued depletion of watershed woodlands reduced the soil's ability to hold water, hastening topsoil erosion and exaggerating periods of flooding. Lumbering was not alone in impoverishing the forest: the tanning industry depleted the hemlock; the paper industry consumed spruce and fir; and the charcoal industry devoured wood of all sizes and shapes. 

Even today, you can still find remnants of the industry that ravaged the mountains.  A short way up the trail, we found this twisted wreckage of what appeared to be an old pickup truck.  How it got here, and how it became so mangled, are mysteries we will not be able to solve.

To try and save the forest, the Adirondack Park was established in 1892 for “the free use of all the people for their health and pleasure,” and for watershed protection. The park's boundary roughly corresponds with the Adirondack Mountains. Unlike most state parks, about 52 percent of the land is privately-owned in-holdings. State lands within the park are known as Forest Preserve. Land use on public and private lands in the park is regulated by the Adirondack Park Agency. This area contains 102 towns and villages, as well as numerous farms, businesses and an active timber-harvesting industry. The year-round population is 132,000, with 200,000 seasonal residents. But with 6.1 million acres, it is easy to wander around the woods and not see another soul.

There is no doubt Fall is here.  We saw lots of colorful leaves on the trail, although the trees themselves are still green with only small touches of Autumn color.

The first two miles of the trail were relatively level. We had several stream crossings. Pictured below, Kathy takes a moment to check out the log bridge across an unnamed creek that eventually empties into Cedar River. 

Much of the trail work in the Adirondacks is done by volunteers from the Adirondack Mountain Club. The ADK was founded in 1922 to help develop and maintain hiking trails, to construct and maintain campsites and permanent camps, to publish trail maps and guidebooks, and to educate the public regarding the conservation of natural resources and prevention of forest fires. The ADK has approximately 30,000 members. Gifford Pinchot, first chief of the U.S. Forest Service, was an early member, and Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt were lifetime members of the ADK. Thanks to the efforts of the trail crew, we could cross the stream without getting out feet wet.

At the two mile mark, the trail leaves the original fire tower road, which had been an old logging road, and heads almost straight up the mountain to the fire tower. We took a break and prepared ourselves for the challenges ahead, which were greater than we expected.

Fall color is definitely starting to show in more ways than one. It's so cold, this plant is turning purple!

After leaving the old road, the trail changes dramatically. It begins a steady and fairly steep climb of about 1150 feet over the next mile. There are only a few switchbacks during this entire section. Much of this part of the trail is eroded down to the bedrock. Yesterday's rain made the smooth rock very slippery. In the photo below, Kathy is not eager to try her luck on the wet rockface. Instead, she carefully picks her way around the edge.

You never know what you are going to find along a hike. Sometimes it is the little things that draw your attention. This fun guy decided to make his home on the stump of an old tree. 

While much of this part of the trail was undeveloped, we did encounter a few hand rails and one ladder on our way up, which were very useful on the way down.

Back in 1972, the old caretakers cabin was dismantled. This field was cleared and a helecopter pad constructed so that materials for the new caretaker cabin could be delivered.

We climbed up on the platform and were rewarded with views of the Cedar River Flow and the mountains beyond.

One of the unique facts of the Wakely Fire Tower is that it was one of the first ten built in the Adirondack Park in 1916.  The towers were adapted from windmills, which did not need daily access, and had a vertical ladders on the outside of the tower.  All later towers across the park were built with the standard staircase we now see.  The original ten were eventually refitted with “modern” stairs (1930), but only this tower still has the original vertical ladder attached.  The lower section of the ladder was removed to prevent climbing.

After climbing 89 stairs and a 6 rung ladder, we made our way onto the viewing platform at the top of the tower. As we looked down, we could see the helicopter pad.

With temperatures in the 50s and 30 mile per hour winds, we only stayed above tree line long enough to take a few photos and enjoy the views.

The caretakers cabin looks snug as a bug in a green rug!

We met only one other hiker the whole day. While we saw bear scat on the trail, we saw no wildlife while we were in the forest. However, as soon as we started to drive back to Indian Lake, a small herd of deer walked across the road:

If the weather cooperates, we hope to climb to at least one more fire tower. There are also a number of lakes, ponds and rivers that would be fun to paddle. So, stay tuned.