My pal Chris the magician got me out of the city and up into the Catskills during last week’s brutal heat wave. This is our favorite spot to camp. I think we’ve camped there twice before, the last time in 2009. Chris named it Camp Duomo because the trees above us reminded him of the domed roof of the Duomo in Florence. I’m going to try to be as vague about where it is as possible, though if you have any Google skills, I’m afraid you will be able to find our camp. And then I will have to kill you.

An 8 second exposure of the dome of trees above us, lit only by our campfire.

A few feet from our tents, an icy cold stream, deep enough to dunk yourself, once you stumble over the slippery rocks.

The same stream at dawn. Beautiful but an indication of how humid it was. It was definitely cooler at our camp than it must have been on the baking sidewalks of NYC, I think we were consistently 10 degrees F cooler than reported of NYC weather. But that doesn’t mean we didn’t do a lot of sweating.

Chris was the master of the campfire. The first couple of days we had a lot of trouble getting more flame than smoke from out campfire. But Chris studied on the problem late into the night along with his friend Cooler, developing his techniques and giving us blazing fires on Friday and Saturday. But it wasn’t easy, I blame the high humidity.

Chris working some LED Poi in rainbow mode in an 8 second exposure. Hire him for your party in the NYC area or fly him to an exotic location for magic, fire and juggling. chrismagic.net

Cairns underneath water dripping into the 25 foot deep swimming hole that I’m calling the Azure Abyss.

The rope swing at the Azure Abyss is an exciting spectacle and I enjoyed videoing this scene. But the next day we heard that an ambulance came to the swimming hole three times that same day. Park rangers keep cutting the rope, and the locals keep knotting additional scraps of rope to the cut end. It looked pretty dicey to me. The other times we camped here, the rope was cut, and this cold deep hole was invigorating and tranquil. But with all the falling young bodies I was not really comfortable swimming in the deep target area, especially under water and being dependent on the judgement, skill, and testosterone of these friendly teenagers. This trip we cooled off here every day, and the splash and spectacle of the constantly falling bodies was not relaxing. On our final day the rope was cut short enough that no one had been able to get to it and knot some clothesline or some-such on it. It was quiet, but by then I was nursing a sprained ankle and was having a difficult time navigating the slippery rocks of the Azure Abyss.

Someone, help me out. Doesn’t this look the face of a giant rock being from a movie? Name the movie. This is at another swimming hole. We spent as much time as possible in cool water, if only to avoid the unusually nasty horseflies this year. This year’s Defender of the Wilderness award goes to the horsefly.

I thought I had it figured out. I walked for a couple of hours upstream Saturday on the slippery rocks of this stream using a walking stick made from a branch. On my feet were a pair of phony crocks that did a fair job of protecting my tender feet from the rocks.

I was confident enough to take my camera out into the rushing water and slippery rocks. I didn’t fall here.

Chris mugging for the camera close to where I stumbled. Not that I was that close to the edge when I stumbled. The waterfall here is great. It reminded me of playing in an open fire hydrant as a kid.

It was strange my cheap rubbery sandals slipped on dry rock. I was off balance from carrying a heavy backpack full of sneakers, food, water and a beach towel, plus I had my camera bag slung over my shoulder. My left foot slipped on the sloping rock, I went down and I think I caught my right pinky finger on the walking stick.
My ankle was slightly sprained and my right pinky dislocated at the middle knuckle. I didn’t even notice this at first, being more concerned with my ankle. But when I looked over and saw the finger at a right angle to where it should be it was kind of surreal. I held it up for Chris to see, and he let out a worried yelp. I guess I should have gotten a shot of it for the blog, but I didn’t. I was in survival mode, and I remembered gruesome dislocation resetting details from the movies. I grabbed the tip of my finger and pulled and twisted it back into place. More or less treating it like I would approach a carpentry project. It really wasn’t that hard or that painful. Luckily I was able to keep both my ankle and finger cold in the stream, which helped to avoid bruising and swelling. I was able to walk out of there without assistance. Five days later, both my finger and ankle are a little tender but functional. The next time I go hiking up a stream I will have some sort of water friendly sports sandals.

Stone wall at one end of the campground.

I think we treated Camp Duomo well, and left it clean. We hope to not come back to find a sign like this (found at a nearby campsite) when we next visit.

Filed under: Photos , Camping, Catskills, GammaBlog Videos by gamma