A VERY FRUSTRATING MORNING
Saturday, October 17, 2020
My original plan was to get up early enough to get on the road by 7:30 and arrive at Minnewaska right when it opened... but I didn't get my butt in gear until 9:30, I knew I was in trouble when I passed the Mohonk Preserve visitor center which posted a sign saying "trailhead full." After that every parking area was full, including Minnewaska.
Eventually I managed to turn around so that I could get some food, gas, and use a restroom, but it was probably almost an hour before I was back on the Thruway headed north. I decided to try to run at the Greenport PCA, but found the parking lot there overflowing too, so even though I could have parked at the Town Park I decided to keep going - that's a small enough area that I would have been tripping over people the entire time I was there.
In the end I made it too Schodack Island State Park and found the parking lot not as busy as I'd feared it would be - but that also meant I 5 hours driving today to finally end up running at a park only an hour round trip from home.
It's also clear I'm going to have to rethink how I'm going to run the Summer Solstice course at Minnewaska (next week's Sky Lakes and Autumn Landscapes series run) since I'm sure the park will be packed tomorrow and probably next Saturday too (and while I could be disciplined and get there first thing, it will still end up being very busy for at least the latter parts of the run, and I just don't feel like dealing with that - plus with Covid cases on the rise, the fewer people I'm around, the better it is for my physical health as well as my mental health.)
