Last week the New York Times published an article by Casey Kelbaugh about hiking New York’s Long Path. As faithful readers of this newsletter will know, I have been section hiking the Long Path since 2021, and to be honest I thought I might eventually pitch the Times a story about it after I finished it. Alas, I sat on my ass too long, and now that ship has sailed.
So I’ve been working through some painful feelings: disappointment, jealousy, envy, frustration. I know I don’t own the trail, or have exclusive rights to writing about it. But I am bummed that someone else got it in the Times first. And he’s apparently working on a Long Path book, too!1
I have consoled myself with the fact that the Times is not the only publication that might be interested in a story about the Long Path. After all, I wrote about the Northville-Placid Trail for National Geographic, and was asked to write about it again for Adirondack Life.2 My Long Path story would not be the same as his, even if it trod the same territory.
(There’s also no guarantee that the Travel editor would have taken my pitch! After all, Kelbaugh is a longtime contributing photographer for the Times, so he had an advantage there.)
In spite of these Big Feelings, I read Kelbaugh’s essay several times through with pleasure. It’s always interesting to see how other hikers and writers approach a trail you’re familiar with.
Kelbaugh did not hike the Long Path in its entirety—he hiked from his apartment in Alphabet City to his second home in Edgewood, in the Catskills.3 This reminded me irresistibly of Bill McKibben, who wrote a book about walking from his house in Ripton, Vermont, to his other house in the Adirondacks. Just elite media things! But seriously, I can’t make fun of them too much because if I had that kind of wealth and privilege I’d probably do the same thing (own a second home—and hike to it, if I could).
Kelbaugh’s section hike was a big one—around 300 miles over 27 days. This means that he had to stealth camp overnight while hiking the first 45 miles—where there are no legal campsites—setting up his hammock in secluded park recesses. I do not envy him this! (I avoided it in my section hike by doing monster day trips.)
At a shelter in Harriman he rubbed shoulders with Appalachian Trail hikers, although they didn’t leave the best impression, apparently: “those I met all shared a wearied determination. They seemed to have enough energy in reserve to tell their tales, but when it came to discussing anything beyond the lock-step march in front of them, they just couldn’t seem to find the calories.”
Kelbaugh seems to be more of an outgoing hiker than I am. (I’m trying and failing to imagine myself sharing “a bucket of balls at a driving range in Goshen with a veteran just back from Kuwait,” or with anyone else, for that matter!) But I related deeply to his desire to seek out “every swimming hole, public pool and waterfall into which I could sink my battered body.”
His account is, by necessity, highly abridged, compared to my wordy dispatches here. But in its sharp succinctness, it’s really quite a lovely essay.
Reading list
Speaking of rich people buying up the Mountain West, here’s an enraging story about how a wealthy software executive started a luxury hunting retreat in Utah and got the state to pay him more than $5 million to raze trees because he “wanted to see wildlife.” And you wouldn’t believe where he got the idea for his bulldozing method, which can raze up to 100 acres a day:
Inspired by an article Mr. Siaperas saw in a 1950 issue of Popular Mechanics, roller felling involves a cable strung between two bulldozers. A 10,000-pound barrel in the center keeps the cable suspended four feet high so it doesn’t catch on stumps. The process uproots everything in its path.
“It’s kind of like going in and removing cancer from a body,” he told lawmakers as he sought more funding for his work this year.
This isn’t the only time the state’s conservative lawmakers have backed projects with dubious ecological benefits:
One plan lawmakers endorsed—selling off Utah’s biggest freshwater lake to a private company purporting to solve its water quality issues—was deemed unconstitutional by the state attorney general. Another endeavor has funded lobbying against federal protections for wolves, even though none inhabit the state.
If there’s a cancer in the state, it sure as heck isn’t the trees… [Leia Larsen for the New York Times]
Earlier this month a hiker fell to his death on Mont Blanc just a day after the remains of four climbers who got caught out in bad weather were found. In 2022, a French mayor said that wannabe climbers should pay a 10,000 Euro deposit to cover potential rescue and funeral costs. Part of the given reason at the time was that warmer than usual temperatures from climate change were making rockfalls more likely and destabilizing some of the hiking and climbing routes. [CBS/AFP, Laurence Peter for BBC News]
A profile of the CitiBike hustlers (aka how imperfect algorithms can inspire unintended behaviors). [Christopher Maag for the New York Times]
Also, I am here for the proposal to cap Citibike fees at the cost of a subway ride. [Noorulain Khawaja for Spectrum News]
My take on this article about adding trees and other structures that provide shade to school playgrounds is that playgrounds should have had trees in the first place. I don’t think it will surprise anyone to learn that I split my time in elementary school between the monkey bars (I swung until my palms bled, visited the nurse, and then kept swinging) and playing “house” among the row of pine trees at the edge of the schoolyard. We would push the needles to form circles around the base of each tree (our “house”). [Somini Sengupta for the New York Times]
Finally: You might ask yourself, “Jessica, what does the Olivia Nuzzi-RFK Jr. affair have to do with Pinch of Dirt?” Well, because it seems like they first met on a hike. [Oliver Darcy for Status]
E thinks I should reach out and offer to moderate a conversation at his eventual book launch but I don’t know, is that weird? Casey, if you’re reading this, we should be Long Path friends.
Sadly this is not available online, but now that it’s off newsstands, I’m thinking of asking the editor permission to upload a PDF to my website. Friends, let me know if that might be of interest! I know a regional magazine is hard to acquire in other parts of the country.
It isn’t clear to me if he actually walked the ~10 miles from Alphabet City to the trailhead at the 175th Street A Station, or if he took the train, but I’m not sure anyone but me would quibble about that.