Trekking Up To Acra Point - Part 3

I was hiking in the Catskill Mountains with four of my dogs. We'd hiked up the side of a mountain and turned right onto the Escarpment Trail. We continued hiking that ridge-top trail until I saw a path turning off to Acra Point, our destination. I'd been there several times previously, so I knew what to look for. I remember that it wasn't so easy to figure it all out the first time. We walked a short distance to the edge of the ridge and saw this:

Acra Point s a rocky shelf projecting out over the steep side of a mountain and providing marvelous views of some of the Catskills. Because I had puppies with me and knew about the sharp drop-off, I'd planned to keep all the dogs leashed. But they had other ideas and I decided to trust their natural instinct for self preservation:

Acra Point looks out to the northeast to the Blackhead Mountains, three peaks which can be seen on the horizon from as far away as Albany:

I'm happy to report that the dogs behaved very sanely - even the puppies. And when I got nervous about them being too close to the edge, I simply called them back to me:

Daphne and Clover, the two Papillon puppies, were having lots of fun exploring and sniffing and discovering the world:

Seamus found a Balsam under whose shade he could rest. Two years ago I hiked here and at that time Seamus was the puppy, while Wally and Casey rested in the shade of that same fragrant Balsam:

But puppies have lots of energy, and Daphne had to see, smell and taste everything:

And so did Clover:

I wanted to sit down and relax in the glorious views, the sunshine and the aromas of the Balsams, but we hadn't yet been there long enough and the dogs (except for Seamus) weren't yet ready to settle down. So I kept walking and snapping photos. I'll post more tomorrow: