In addition to all the flies, I figured I was the first person on the trail. I was breaking all the spider webs on the way up, and probably ate about 20-30 spiders and rotting fly carcasses. I had borrowed my wife's poles for the day since my splints were hurting me and I wound up just waving them around in front of me to try to get the cobwebs out of the way before me.
I got back to the intersection pretty early, by about 1 and decided to skip the humidity and more bugs and not go for Big Indian. I'll go up there when I take the bushwack to Fir. I hiked back down past the lean-to.
When I was near the end of the trail, I stopped to take a picture and I spotted some sunglasses on the trail. I was thinking about bending down to pick them up, and all of a sudden there was instant pain in my arm, and in the back of my gaiter. I thought the fastener on my gaiter had caught on my skin or something and I looked and saw a giant bug biting me. I think it was a wasp or a hornet and no matter how many times i swatted it away it just kept jumping back on me. I ran away and finally got rid of it, but my arm and leg stung until I got back to NJ.
So yah, I got to the top of the mountain but the bugs won...
Here's the registration box and the sign reminding you that this trail passes through private land
The trail follows a stream, and it crosses it a few times. I imagine in high water a lot of these would be difficult. There is also some woods roads and a camp up here on the private land. Here's a bench I saw at the intersection with the road.
Here's a bridge where the woods road crosses the trail.
Entrance to private land
Nettles on both sides of the trail. There's a lot but not soo many that you can't snake through. I didn't get hit this time. whew.
I always tell my wife and my mom about them, and they don't understand about the tiny needles until I showed them this picture. Here's a closeup of the stem of a nettles.
I don't remember much of a climb. There's only two sections where it's steep enough to be considered "vertical" and even those sections are easily navigated. I would say that Eagle is a relatively easy climb compared to some of the other 3500 trails.
Here's me at a clearing that I decided was the summit, or close enough to it. I couldn't tell from mike's picture if there were any cairns or anything, and I saw this firepit that looks destroyed and decided it was probably it. I didn't see much of a trail west of here, and the flies were going crazy with me being the only smelly thing within a mile.
Here is a section of fern covered trail. There are some pines on this mountain, but they don't dominate.
Back by the lean-to
I assume this is a spring for the lean-to. It's flowing even though the stream is dry.
Waterfall from the bridge
Another small cascade with a pool below. It was right after this that I was stung by the wasp
Back at the car
