Jay Gaulard Blog

The Basketball Hoop Being Put to Good Use

Wednesday, June 25th, 2008

As promised, the basketball hoop is being enjoyed by someone who may have a bit of trouble dunking for some time…even when the hoop is on its lowest setting.

My brother stopped by a few days ago to pick up the whole thing. This, of course, is after I spent a good chunk of time with my sledgehammer getting that large ball of concrete off the bottom pipe. With a bit of sweat and a lot of energy, I removed the concrete. The hoop was as good as new.

I told you he was going to have a little trouble dunking. I can see it now, the next best basketball star telling his story about practicing in the mountains of Virginia.

Posted in Family & Friends | 1 Comment »

Hiking Up Mount Beacon

Sunday, June 10th, 2007

If you are reading this post, you have probably seen Mount Beacon (Beacon Mountain). Maybe you didn’t even know you were looking at it. Just doing a Google Search surprised me…there are so many people interested in this mountain. Here are some interesting links…

- Beauty atop Mount Beacon
- Gateway to Mount Beacon Park
- Save the Mount Beacon Fire Tower
- Mount Beacon Amateur Radio Club
- Mt. Beacon Incline Railway

I always knew there were a bunch of radio towers up on the moutain, but I was not aware of how many people love this place. I once new a guy…yeah, I knew a guy who used to ride a quad up Mount Beacon. Boy, he told me it sure was a difficult ride. The bottom was easy to get up, but once he hit the old ski slopes, it was nothing but huge rocks. That is pretty hard terrain for a quad.

I have heard many stories about Mount Beacon, but I really don’t know what to believe. Here is what I do know…the mountain offers a view over the City of Beacon, NY. There are radio towers, among other towers at the top of the mountain. There are also some old fire towers up there too. It offers some really great ATV riding as well, but you didn’t hear that from me.

Here are the rumors that I heard, which may very well be true. You can see New York City on a clear day. There used to be an old ski lodge at the top of the mountain with ski slopes going down the face. There was a trolly type thing that used to get pulled up the mountain. Who knows…

One of the most interesting things to me is the reservoir at the top of the mountain. I have some photos of that below. Well, what am I waiting for? Let’s see the photos…

See, I told you there was a reservoir on the mountain. This old broken down sign tells us that the reservoir holds 125 million gallons of water.

This is a view across the reservoir to one of the old fire towers. This particular one is towards the back/side of the mountain and is not as well known as the one people generally talk about at the front of the mountain.

This is a photo of the Mt. Beacon reservoir dam. Yeah, this holds all the water back, so don’t jump on it.

This photo is a view from the top of Mt. Beacon. This view overlooks the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge and the Hudson River.

This is a photo taken from the same spot as the last one, but looking more North up the Hudson River, towards Kingston, NY.

Do you have any fables, myths or truths about this mountain? I would love to hear them.