C
Colin
Guest
Date of Hike: 1/28
Very nice hiking conditions. Pockets of ice until 2500 feet - including a heavily glazed over parking area. Above 2500 feet, we encountered fairly consistent snowcover; above 3000 feet we saw solid packed ice/snow the rest of the way.
We used microspikes the entire trip correctly anticipating the warm weather having packed things down a lot. This worked well for the conditions - snowshoes would be overkill; bareboot would have been very dangerous if not impossible.
Altogether, the nicest hike we've been on yet in the Catskills - beautiful day and stunning views as you come up Devil's Path towards the junction with the Hunter Mountain trail. I think this is a trail that is really worth doing in winter as these views open up through light deciduous tree cover.
We had intended to approach Hunter in a loop from Spruceton but discovered that Rt. 42 is closed at a point making this impossible coming south from rt. 23A, thus we started from Devil's Tombstone instead.
Very nice hiking conditions. Pockets of ice until 2500 feet - including a heavily glazed over parking area. Above 2500 feet, we encountered fairly consistent snowcover; above 3000 feet we saw solid packed ice/snow the rest of the way.
We used microspikes the entire trip correctly anticipating the warm weather having packed things down a lot. This worked well for the conditions - snowshoes would be overkill; bareboot would have been very dangerous if not impossible.
Altogether, the nicest hike we've been on yet in the Catskills - beautiful day and stunning views as you come up Devil's Path towards the junction with the Hunter Mountain trail. I think this is a trail that is really worth doing in winter as these views open up through light deciduous tree cover.
We had intended to approach Hunter in a loop from Spruceton but discovered that Rt. 42 is closed at a point making this impossible coming south from rt. 23A, thus we started from Devil's Tombstone instead.
