05/09/2026
THIS 1902 photo shows "Giant", an enormous boulder that rests up against Sugar Loaf mountain's West face, the mountain's steepest.
"Giant" is the only permanent boundary marker of Settler Hugh Dobbin's late1730s survey of his 100 acre mountain parcel, his first-ever land purchase.
Hugh's parcel began at the top of the mountain and ran down the current day "Face Route" ( a nice 5/8 climb) to "...a rock called 'Giant' at the southern end of Shugar Loafe Mountain's steepest side, in a Northerly direction 49 degrees 15 minutes east 22 1/2 chains to a point. Thence South 566 degrees east 62.10 chains to a point..." and so on.
The rock itself became a small tourist draw for NYS weekenders in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and by the 1930s it was commonly referred to as "The Wind Tunnel" due to the westerly winds that audibly roar through it.
Through the 1940s-80s, local kids and climbers honed our chimneying skills in the "Wind Tunnel", pushing horizontally across the gap with our feet against "Giant", and our back against the mountain, "chimneying" our way upward: Feet, then back, then feet...".
In the early 1980s, "The Wind Tunnel" was one of a handful of colony sites for a now NYS-extirpated ( locally extinct) species, the Allegheny Woodrat (Neotoma magister).
Our Historical Society's President described these novel sites to NYSDEC, NYSHP and USFWS biologists and led research trips for this now state-extinct species' populations in the early 1980s.
By 1988, the Allegheny Woodrat was declared extinct in New York State, lost to a specific roundworm (Baylisascaris procyonis) carried by Raccoons. The Woodrats, often called "Pack Rats" in the west, are attracted to shiny things, and thus found raccoon droppings, often shimmering 'metallic' with Beetle wings, to be attractive. Unfortunately, Raccoon f***s usually contain a great volume of Raccoon Roundworm eggs, and once inside the woodrat (as is the case when they enter human systems), the larval worms don't remain satisfied in the gastrointestinal system as they do in the intestines of Raccoons, Skunks, etc., but instead move through tissues to the brain, where they mature into large worms that kill their host.
( Teach your children to avoid handling, even indirectly,droppings of Raccoon, Skunk and other animals, and be sure to wash your hands after climbing trees or crawling on rocks where these f***s might be found, especially before touching food!).
In any event, a hike up to "Giant" or "The Wind Tunnel" makes for a nice scramble up the talus below or from the peripheral side trail from the South Trail....if and when Orange County, the current owner of the mountain, finally opens it to the public.
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We remain disappointed that the county government has rebuffed every offer from our NYS Education Department Incorporated Sugar Loaf Historical Society to help their staffers to navigate this parcel and provide useful ecological and historical information for educating future guests. Our president, alone, has several hundred hikes on this mountain under his belt, and nearly as many camp outs on its summit from the past half century, in addition to decades of intensive research of its ecological communities and species.
Hmm.
