MattC
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- Joined
- Sep 2, 2004
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Halite and I had a blast on the two westernmost Catskill hike peaks. Hit the trail a hair before nine, and had the snowshoes on right from the beginning. Maybe four to six inches at the TH, a foot or so at higher elevations, all on top of a packed base. It was cold enought that nothing was melting, but there was very little wind until the summit of Graham, and then on the way back.
We intended to hit Graham first, but missed the woods road/herd path and all of a sudden we were at the trail junction. We headed up to Balsam Lake Mt summit, which was so socked in we didn't even bother taking off the 'shoes to climb the tower. It was now about 10:45 so we had an early lunch, studied the map a bit, and headed down. The descent was fun and easy as we walked and slid down the well-broken trail. Halite had already had BC skiing on the brain for a while at this point and was scoping out various parts of the trail for their potential.
Back on the Dry Brook Trail, we found the Graham path pretty quickly, just a little north of the junction. Easy going at first, but there were no tracks (except deer and snowshoe hare!) so we ended up using a combination of stuff to find our way for the couple hours. At many points it was obvious, even w/o tracks, due to width of the gap in the trees, the depression in the snow, and hiker-broken branches on the small, scruby beech. Halite also kept track of our bearing, which was pretty much due east. We got around the little hill between the two mountains, and passed the spur which heads down into Turner Hollow. We were on and off the trail quite a bit due to blowdown, but eventually we started to turn a little to the south and to ascend. I second-guessed a time or two and wanted to start heading straight up a couple slopes, but fortunately Halite kept us going along the shoulder and ascending more gradually.
At one point we were off the herd path and were just on the edge of a small stand of conifers, which really stand out on Graham due to their scarcity. At that point I knew we had to continue a little more east since I knew the path didn't come that close to conifers. Soon we were back on the path again, and headed up the final slope. We knew we were almost there when the hardwoods got kind of dwarfed and the wind started blasting away. We made the summit and took a little shelter from the wind in the relay tower ruin, had a quick snack and headed down. The summit was as socked as Balsam Lake had been, but we got some views from the slopes on the descent. I was pretty blown out on the walk back along the shoulder, but soon we were back on the Dry Brook Trail and it was a piece of cake from there. The sun was finally out a bit and it was pretty windy. We were back at the car around 3:30ish and on our way. Thanks again Halite for coming out and driving all the way to the TH. It made my Saturday, since I doubt I would have done this as a solo. Glad to see you're home safe already (Just saw your post on hiking addict thread!) Hope you'll come back for one of your Catskills "bread runs" real soon...
Matt
We intended to hit Graham first, but missed the woods road/herd path and all of a sudden we were at the trail junction. We headed up to Balsam Lake Mt summit, which was so socked in we didn't even bother taking off the 'shoes to climb the tower. It was now about 10:45 so we had an early lunch, studied the map a bit, and headed down. The descent was fun and easy as we walked and slid down the well-broken trail. Halite had already had BC skiing on the brain for a while at this point and was scoping out various parts of the trail for their potential.
Back on the Dry Brook Trail, we found the Graham path pretty quickly, just a little north of the junction. Easy going at first, but there were no tracks (except deer and snowshoe hare!) so we ended up using a combination of stuff to find our way for the couple hours. At many points it was obvious, even w/o tracks, due to width of the gap in the trees, the depression in the snow, and hiker-broken branches on the small, scruby beech. Halite also kept track of our bearing, which was pretty much due east. We got around the little hill between the two mountains, and passed the spur which heads down into Turner Hollow. We were on and off the trail quite a bit due to blowdown, but eventually we started to turn a little to the south and to ascend. I second-guessed a time or two and wanted to start heading straight up a couple slopes, but fortunately Halite kept us going along the shoulder and ascending more gradually.
At one point we were off the herd path and were just on the edge of a small stand of conifers, which really stand out on Graham due to their scarcity. At that point I knew we had to continue a little more east since I knew the path didn't come that close to conifers. Soon we were back on the path again, and headed up the final slope. We knew we were almost there when the hardwoods got kind of dwarfed and the wind started blasting away. We made the summit and took a little shelter from the wind in the relay tower ruin, had a quick snack and headed down. The summit was as socked as Balsam Lake had been, but we got some views from the slopes on the descent. I was pretty blown out on the walk back along the shoulder, but soon we were back on the Dry Brook Trail and it was a piece of cake from there. The sun was finally out a bit and it was pretty windy. We were back at the car around 3:30ish and on our way. Thanks again Halite for coming out and driving all the way to the TH. It made my Saturday, since I doubt I would have done this as a solo. Glad to see you're home safe already (Just saw your post on hiking addict thread!) Hope you'll come back for one of your Catskills "bread runs" real soon...
Matt
