Search results

There are a lot of "weird rock piles" in the Catskills and also some debate on their origins. There is an extensive field of large cairns on Spruceton Road on the trail near Diamond Notch Falls. It's hard to imagine an agricultural purpose for them and they are not just piles of rocks, but large...

If someone was so attached to looking at themselves in the mirror that they carried it all the way up the mountain, they probably wouldn't toss it into a tree and leave it there. Is it visible from another mountain? Maybe someone was just trying to confirm what they were looking at from another...

I'm 5'2 and 120 lbs and have the same problem. I usually wear polar fleece pants that one of my daughters bought me in a short length, but they don't work real well when there is a lot of snow because the snow sticks to them from the snowshoes kicking it up. I found a cheap pair of ski pants at...

Even if the process is totally safe which does not seem to be the case, you still have the environmental impact of truck traffic and heavy industry in rural areas that don't have the best roads to begin with. Fracking is a temporary solution to a permanent problem. It amazes me that we've...

Thanks for the link. It was a good story and honest about a complicated issue. I hope I never have to see it in the Catskills, but someday it will all be ruins in the woods for hikers to find and hopefully we can still drink the water.

A good place to understand what this is all about is www.catskillmountainkeeper.org I think that people aren't really informed. All you need to do is see one youtube video of someone lighting their tap water with a match to think that hydrofracking might not be a great idea. Of course, it's...

I'm not sure where you get your drinking water from in New Jersey, but NYC water comes from the Catskill Reservoirs. I'm hoping that fact alone will protect the Catskill Mountains. I was kind of under the impression that when they made that nice blue line and called it a park that meant that...

h2o2 I've been a nurse for over 20 years and it's been awhile since we used peroxide on wounds and when we did we used saline afterwards to rinse. It's apparently now thought to be more damaging to tissue. I'd just use water if I was hiking, let it bleed a bit, rinse it, wrap it up and deal...

tivoli bays This is my favorite local place to hike. The trail network runs from behind the town hall in the village of Tivoli to Bard College. The bays are a really unique area with a lot of birds and some huge snapping turtles. There are several access points....Kidd Lane near the bridge is...

I have a pair of double knit wool mittens that I knitted quite a long time ago and when they got a few little holes I just used some wool yarn and a big needle (they make them for knitting) and sewed up the holes. It's not that complicated. :) I love them for hiking. Your hands stay warm even...

It was a good day for animal tracks. We followed coyote tracks up the trail to Table from Denning and saw where it marked it's territory along the way. It pretty much followed the marked trail with slight meandering to the side all the way to the summit. It looked like it turned around a few...

Nice story. The first (and only) time I've climbed Mt Washington was Memorial Day weekend 1981. My husband and I were 20. We had just gotten married in April and went on this trip to NH with my father in law. I don't remember it being difficult, but we spent all our free time in the woods back...

I like the sounds of adults playing in the snow. I like seeing the animal tracks. I never get tired of how beautiful the mountains are in the winter...how the sky is so incredibly blue, how everything just sparkles, how the branches are covered with ice and sound like chimes.......icicles. I...

fisher cats I saw a fisher this past spring while bike riding on the Catskill Scenic Trail. It wasn't as big as the one pictured in the article, more the size of a big house cat and very dark and furry. I have a vague memory of seeing one in the past and thinking it was a wolverine, but...

To further confuse things, there are actually several roads with almost the same name. What I've been calling Stissing Mt Road is actually Mountain Road which is accessed from Rt 82 via Stissing Lane heading towards Stanfordville. There is also a Stissing Road that runs into this Mountain Road...

I've enjoyed reading about your last two trips. It's almost more of an adventure to find those wild places in a place that isn't a wilderness. I'm a surgical nurse on a surgical/orthopedic floor and I understand the extreme effort you must have made just to do what you just did. A person...

stissing mt The trail from Stissing Mt Road is on private property and was only open for a few years around the time that they renovated the tower. I think there were concerns with vandalism. Hicks Hill Road has one of those state multiple use areas and there is supposed to be a trail to the...

After reading the Jay H had recently climbed Stissing Mountain, I decided that some of you might be interested in all my accumulated trivia about the mountain since I grew up in Pine Plains. There used to be a cabin until the late 1970's when some kids skipping school burned it down. I...

toe nails I've had the same boots forever and usually don't have problems, but I did loose a toenail off my big toe a few years ago after a hike that involved a great deal of downhill climbing. It took quite awhile, but it turned black and the new nail grew up underneath it and it was kind of...

The parking area at the end of Barnum Road is plowed. We put our snowshoes on in the parking lot. I carried my microspikes, but only because they are brand new and I haven't had a chance to use them yet, not because I actually thought we would need them. They were jingling like bells on my pack...