BLM and Woodpecker Ridge

[Tom Rankin]

Laurie and I started up BLM Friday evening at 6:15. It was a little nippy and the Sun had almost set. We hoofed it up to the summit by 7:30, glad the last light of twilight was visible straight up the path when we got to the cabin. It was almost totally dark under the Fir trees at this point. But at least we had the keys!

We started a fire, made dinner, and got the place warmed up a little. We fell asleep early, and I woke up several times to a cold room and dead fire. The little stove works fine when you're awake, but you have to keep feeding it! I stepped out at around 3AM and the stars were just incredible! Orion was rising in the East, a really cool sight!

In the morning, my toes were numb! It was 27 degrees outside but thankfully, little wind. The views from the tower were awesome. As you can tell, we never get tired of this place!

Saturday, the destination was Woodpecker Ridge. It's not far from BLM, and we set out down the trail towards Alder Lake with a clear blue sky. We reached the summit about 1:15 minutes later. The bushwhack part of the hike was very easy, as it is very open deciduous trees. The top of this little peak is very flat, so we wandered around for a while, and declared victory at no particular place. The Blackberries all along the trail were still great!

The hike back to the tower was more up than down. Even though it was getting overcast, and eventually rained, 21 people (and 3 dogs) made the trip up to the tower during the rest of the day. The first group up was fellow VFTTer DeanMacG, and his wife, who also live in Poughkeepsie. Nice talking with you!

We saw one of our friendly neighboorhood snow-shoe hare lates in the afternoon, not 5 feet from the cabin. There is a pair up on the summit, one brown, the other black, except for their white feet. They'll start turning all white soon.

Saturday night it rained and was windy, but thankfully, it was a little warmer outside, and inside!

Sunday, we packed up and headed out early as it appeared to still be raining. But it cleared up we walked down. We cleared out the water bars as we went down and built some stone steps over some of the muddiest parts of the road, but we were out in plenty of time to get back to my house for my family's yearly 4-person birthday party!

 

[ROCKYSUMMIT]

Hey Tom, nice report. Must have been a beautiful morning. Wondering if your views included low clouds and fog in the valleys below the perfectly blue skies up top? My drive down Bramley Mtn. in Delaware County, on my way to hike Hunter, was just that. Perfect blue skies with thick fog in the valleys. I was wishing I was on the summit at that moment.

 

[Tom Rankin]

Hey Tom, nice report. Must have been a beautiful morning. Wondering if your views included low clouds and fog in the valleys below the perfectly blue skies up top? My drive down Bramley Mtn. in Delaware County, on my way to hike Hunter, was just that. Perfect blue skies with thick fog in the valleys. I was wishing I was on the summit at that moment.

Your wish is my command!

Laurie took these with her new digital camera.

 

[ROCKYSUMMIT]

Oh yeah, that's what I'm talkin about! Excellent shots. What kind of camera did Laurie get?

 

[Mark Schaefer]

Yes, super photos Laurie! It looks like the rebirth of the ancient Catskill delta.

Nice trip report Tom. Woody Woodpecker Ridge is one of the typically flat Catskill HH summits. It has been a good year for blackberries. They seem to tolerate light frost fairly well, and with the warmer weather in recent years early October is becoming prime berry season as well.

 

[Tom Rankin]

Yes, super photos Laurie! It looks like the rebirth of the ancient Catskill delta.

Nice trip report Tom. Woody Woodpecker Ridge is one of the typically flat Catskill HH summits. It has been a good year for blackberries. They seem to tolerate light frost fairly well, and with the warmer weather in recent years early October is becoming prime berry season as well.

(Laurie lurks here, so I will post for her here, something I do all too often by mistake on ADKHP! )

Laurie has a Sony 8 Mega-Pixel camera. It's really tiny, so it's a great camera to take hiking, unlike my Canon Digital SLR, which is much heavier and larger.

Since it was so cold Saturday morning, she kept it in a plastic bag in her pocket. A hawk perched in a tree right above us, but of course, by the time she was ready to snap the picture, it had flown away! Honest!

The pics I posted are much smaller versions of the originals, which show every individual fog droplet!

She took a lot of really nice pics, including sunrise, frost, and some indoor shots of the cabin. She keeps saying that she knows nothing about photography, but I think she's doing pretty well!