Hike and Seek - but not on purpose

Summer 2017 in the Catskills is nearly complete. The leaves and ferns are putting on their Autumn pre-game show mid-August and the thigh-high weeds, brush and grasses carpeting Bear Spring Mountain's multi-purpose trails are transitioning from vibrant green shades to dusky golden hues.

Signage is hampered by overgrown brush on Bear Spring Mountain in Delaware County.

This has been an unfortunate year for outdoor enthusiasts such as Charlie Browne and myself. We've extracted multiple ticks embedded in hard to reach places, and brushed off countless more; endured muddy, wet hiking boots for the majority of the season due to unseasonable - but nonetheless welcome - rain and become accustomed to the ear-buzzing, biting no-see-ums.

Pesky as those situations are, they are nothing compared to the inconvenience, danger and cost involved in locating hikers who become lost due to overgrown brush and hidden directional signs.

State trail maintenance crews are focused elsewhere, like mowing grass outside their garage on Beers Brook Road in Walton once a week. That task, as well as maintaining the annual flower beds at the garage, have taken priority over trail maintenance.

So far, not one hiker has gotten lost near the NYS DEC maintenance garage.

However, a hiker did get lost on the Finger Lakes Trail, which traverses Bear Spring Mountain and crosses into Campbell Mountain, in the town of Colchester.

The hiker blamed himself for getting lost. He was traveling east to west on the Finger Lakes Trail and was not versed in reading GPS location points or his compass, he admitted. He became disoriented after "losing" the trail because it is badly overgrown and directional signage is not clearly visible.

The same situation exists on Bear Spring Mountain. However, the NYS DEC has paid employees assigned to the task of maintenance, whereas the Finger Lakes Trail Conference operates strictly with volunteers.

It was a multi-hour "rescue" mission that was chaotically mis-managed by local police, who, instead of connecting him to the Finger Lakes Trail Conference via cellphone or providing with a telephone number as he requested,  told him to stay where he was and call 911. Multiple agencies were dispatched, including forest rangers and emergency services crews with local fire departments.

The police officer that took the initial call from the hiker is partnered with a drug-sniffing dog that is also trained in tracking, which is how the idea of a police dog was "sold" to the taxpayers in the municipality.

A lot of "what-ifs" and "how-muchs" arose from the incident. What if the police officer had used the dog for one of it's intended purposes? How much money was spent on dispatching personnel to locate the hiker though he said he didn't need to be rescued? What if the trails were adequately maintained before or after the incident?

We can only hope that this has also become a summer of learning opportunities as well.

*Between hikes, Lillian Browne writes about the environment, politics, crime and business in Delaware County. She is a NYS licensed outdoor adventure guide exploring the world around her, one step at a time, with her dog - Charlie.