Sunk Mine, Clarence Fahnestock State Park

On July 2nd, Liz and I hiked into Fahnestock wilderness from the first parking location on route 301 heading east from route 9. We followed the red trail south and made a left onto the yellow trail. The yellow trail lead up past a giant boulder and down a narrow lane of bushes. It became swampy and buggy. The trail disappeared into a swamp, in fact, and we had to bushwhack around it. On the other side of a shallow march we found the blue trail and back tracked on that a bit. We found the blue / yellow junction and stuck with the blue trail, passing where we originally emerged from the whack. We detoured off the blue trail after a brief slope and bend to try and spot the cave. After not finding it we hiked the blue trail for a 1/3 a mile into a wide dead-leaf valley between open rocks on either side. The entire landscape exists under a canopy of a few giant trees. The trail banks left and after the rock walls become drastically higher the trail descends and the walls end. Here we got off the trail to look for the cave / mine. We had to hike up a ridge of the valley and descend the other side. We almost slid directly into the mine which would have killed us. We had just seen a baby hawk or something teaching itself to fly. Then we went up the ridge a little more to eliminate any possibility of that not being the biggest cave. It turned out to be the cave in my opinion. We pushed through swarms of tiny buggies and some pricker to find an easy few steps naturally existing in the jagged edges of the cave. Then we came to the dark mouth where a dead tree lies in the caves throat. I went in to the bottom of the cave. Liz stayed a little ways back. We hiked out onto a road which brought us around to a blue trail that skirts a little reservoir. Then we reconnected with the red trail, having to just cross over the yellow which would have been smart to avoid in the first place. Took about 3 or 4 hours. We gained about 400 feet in 3 1/2 miles. Nice beer, clams, and burgers afterwards.