Even though spring is slow to come to this part of the world, it is slower still to come to Tahawus, and there was still a considerable amount of snow back in the woods where we camped...
There are apparently lots of bears in the area, but with proper precautions, we didn't see any during our weekend camping trip...
I fit all of my gear for the weekend: clothes, shelter, food, gear, booze, cigars, in this pack, and we walked in to our camping spot back behind the ghost town...back in the woods, not too far from some of the abandoned buildings that are set back in the regrown forest...
I slept the weekend in my Hennessy Hammock, a camping hammock that provides me with an incredibly comfortable night's sleep...
Once we had set up camp, we explored the buildings around us, and all over the town...I found this hatch covering a tank by stepping on it, and feeling the lid give a little under my weight...it was hidden under the leaves, and could have been a nasty surprise, but we were careful...
One of the buildings had the remnants of cedar bark siding on it...something that makes sense, although it had never occurred to me...
We explored a dramatically collapsed building with a phenomenal fieldstone fireplace...
This child's cart/toy outside one of the buildings reminded me of "The Godfather II"...
This beautiful brick fireplace was in great shape, as was the rest of the house, except for the right half of the room...
Exploring the upstairs of one house was really neat, until we came on a gap in the floor that ade us wonder at the overall stability of the building...
After exploring Tahawus pretty extensively, we headed over to the blast furnace, from 1850, which is almost 100 yards tall and constructed from massive stones...
I was able to crawl inside, through a hole in the base, and get a view up through the center of the stack...
There are also massive bellows still in place on the ground outside of the furnace, used to feed the flames...these gears would have made a wheel about 60 feet in diameter...
We all climbed a nearby hill for a group picture...
The next day we took a walk in the factory zone, which was beautiful and incredibly quiet...we scared up a huge group of white-tail deer...afterwards, we set up a range and did a bit of shooting for a while, until the rain started...
Once the rain began in earnest, we found an intact building and set up a movie theater and picnic zone...yes, it was a zombie movie...
After the movie, we moved back to camp and set up some tarp-based shelter and got out fire going to ward off the cold and damp as we headed into our second night in the ghost town...
There was just one more challenge awaiting a select few of us...crossing the Hudson river to explore a few buildings on the far side that have been less picked over/through than the ones on our side of the Hudson...the snow in the High Peaks is still melting, and it had rained most of the day Saturday, so the Hudson River was full and fast and freezing...
Two of us went into the water, and although the water was thigh-deep, and the current was very strong, we both climbed out on the far side a few minutes later...we warmed up in the sun and ate some snacks to replenish our bodies before bushwhacking the rest of the way to the buildings...
They were in great shape, fixtures and an amazing amount of detail still intact (note the drapes in the far room...all of the main doors were missing the stairs leading up to them, so we had to climb in through this window...
This room was likely a dining room at one point...the woodwork and glass was still in place throughout the room...
In another spot though, some water had leaked in, and over time had soaked the insulation layer between floor and ceiling, and the weight plus time resulted in a collapse...
The kitchen was in great shape, with some pots and pans still present, and a towl waiting by the sink...
There was a great breezeway behind the kitchen that led up and away towards what might have been a pantry or storage area, or servants' quarters...it was a raised walkway with some great Adirondack details...
My friend Kevin and I found a place that was more shallow, but significantly wider, for the crossing back over to the civilized side of the Hudson...we traded an easier/safer crossing for a longer time in the extremely cold water...we posed, in the water (up to about our knees this time) for a victory picture...the crossing and exploration on the far side of the Hudson was a remarkable adventure...
We had a great time in Tahawus!
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