the Way of the Turtle

1.5 Mile Walk at the Mohonk Preserve 
(To & From the Race Start)
Wednesday, June 19, 2019

My plan was to park in the West Trapps lot and let the latecomers get redirected to the Visitor's Center, but just past the Visitor's Center there was a massive traffic backup due to road work being done on the road up and over the ridge - so I turned around and parked at the VC. Which of course meant I had a 3/4 mile walk to get the the Trapps Bridge start location... most of which was no big deal (nice wide carriage trail along the base of the cliffs) but the first 2/10's of a mile went pretty much straight up the mountain utilizing a series of steep steps made of carefully placed stones (and wow that must have been a delight to build.) Despite that I still managed to get to the start area, survived picking up my race number (which was complicated by the shift in location to the Mohonk Preserve, which required that everyone present either be a preserve member or purchase a day pass, and the staff member handing out the day passes was carefully explaining to everyone that if they brought them in with them the next time they visited, they could get a $15 discount off the year membership) and then had only a short wait until the first small group of early starters set off.

The fun really kicked on after the race... a relatively easy walk for half a mile downhill on fried legs, and then I had to navigate those blasted steps with bad knees, shaky legs, and an easily triggered sense of vertigo due to how steep some sections were. It took me 26 minutes to walk back to the car, and over half of that was crawling down those steps. I might have been better off walking along the side of the road...

JMH