Beacon Firetower
October 31, 2010
by Dimitri Spanoudakis
One of the month’s runs was to the Beacon Trail in Beacon NY, hosted by HV4W. It
started out a little after 5AM, with Mark meeting me at the exit 52 rest stop
off the L.I.E., which to my surprise, had Joe L. as passenger as well. Midway
through traveling up to Beacon, we stopped a Dunkin Donuts since we all know
Mark can’t hold is bladder, which come to find out, none of us could either. Joe
treated us to some cups of coffee and breakfast treats even though if felt like
it took them 10 minutes to get 3 cups of coffee and 2 treats. They were speaking
Creole, had Stephanie been with us she would’ve put them in their place in 2
seconds flat!! So, we were off again and ended up getting to the trailer
parking, in Fishkill, around 7:30. Roughly took a little over 2 hours to get
there (construction traffic on Cross Bronx, go figure!) and we made it to the
meeting spot a couple minutes after 8 (in Beacon). There, we met a couple
members of HV4W, a couple from Eastern, and one guy from GC Land Cruiser Club. 7
rigs total for the day, Snow White’s twin sister (white YJ on 35s), TJ Rubicon
on 35s, ZJ on 35s, FJ80 on 35s, Snow White with her 35s, John C.’s Yota on 32s,
and my girl on 35s. All in all, a capable group.
Well, since our job for the day was to transport ironworkers to the summit to
work on the fire tower, we thought we were going to have a tame day to help out
and not much wheelin’. To our luck, the ironworkers cancelled and we had a full
day of wheelin’ ahead, WOOHOO! We aired down and disconnected at the meeting
spot since the trailhead was less than 3 minutes away, literally. Left the
meeting spot and were in the trail before 9, so, a great start. The first 30
minutes or so into the trail, nothing major. Nice trail to drive on, great
scenery since it’s a hiked trail, but no obstacles. Come to find out, the
obstacles start once you get higher in elevation. I was 2nd in line behind the
trail leader, James (twin YJ), and the obstacle you need to pass before you
start getting into the good stuff ended up getting the best of him. It’s 2 nice
sized boulders to test your flex at, you need to straddle the high side of one
so you won’t scrape paint on the other. No rig can squeeze in between them. He
tried a couple of times, I heard a big bang, and that’s when I shut my Jeep off
and walked over. He spit a driver’s side u-joint cap, inner and outer shafts
still intact unit he tried crawling it slowly, while winching, to get to a flat
spot. Nice crunching going on, he ate all the ears off both shafts. No problem,
quick axleshaft change and we’ll be on our way...WRONG!! Come to find out his
spare has 2 broken caps and the only good u-joint he has was on his passenger
side shaft. So, had to remove 2 u-joints to swap the good one into the correct
shaft...ONE AND A HALF HOURS later, we were done (one u-joint was totally seized
in and finally budged after my 3lb. sledge got on it). Snow White, the ZJ, and
my rig walked over it without an issue, the rest took the bypass around the
boulder with John C. giving it a good shot, he NEEDS some M/T tires, the A/Ts
weren’t doing what they were supposed to!!
So, the rest of the climb up had great obstacles, LOTS of rock ledges, off
camber situations where drop-offs into the abyss were next to you at times,
STEEP inclines, and the like. We get to the summit (which was after 12 and
supposedly you can get to the summit in an hour...) and had our lunch there. John
C. had some GREAT coffee in his portable JetBoil contraption (cool toy by the
way) in which a few of us drank to warm up. The views are breathtaking
overlooking all regions, even all the way to the NYC skyline in the backdrop.
Fall foliage was in the air, cool air, and lots of red and orange brush covering
all the trees. We make our way down again and come to another scenic rest area
before making our way back down and out of the trail. We were back at the
meeting spot before 5 to air up and say our goodbyes.
We make our way back to the trailer parking to load up Snow White and went to
grab dinner. Of course, Mark wants to rub it in and calls up Evan to tell him
how the trail was awesome, had a great day, and at the end...we’re grabbing
Cracker Barrel for dinner!! Man, way to rub it in!!! We went to the Cracker
Barrel off I84, the same one we went to when we were returning home from
Mettowee a few months ago. Again, Joe picked up the tab being the gentleman he
is, and we were back on the road by 6:30 and back on the Island by 8:15. All in
all, a great day with good friends and good wheelin’!
Editor's Note:
The Mount Beacon Fire Observation Tower, located on the summit of South Beacon Mountain,
is a 60-foot steel tower, built in 1931. It is currently being restored by volunteers for use by the public.
From 1902 through 1978 the historic
Mount Beacon Incline Railway traversed the 1,540' mountain.
Although they had fun, keep in mind that the four wheelers described above got up
at 4 something am, drove 4 hours round trip on their own dime and were willing to
volunteer their time and vehicles in support of the
Mt. Beacon Firetower Restoration Project.