Saturday, Feb. 3, 2007 - Doubletop
The hike up Doubletop took place with 4 of us participating on a cold, breezy, sunny day. We started out at 10:40 AM at roughly 2,000 feet. One fellow Ralph, who I am sponsoring as a new member to VFTT, came on the hike as he saw my hike posted here! Welcome him when he posts. My car temp showed 20 degrees. A new fresh snow blanketed the ground. I and Bill one of the hikers in our group wore stabilicers, Andy & Ralph chose to bareboot it. Snowshoes were totally unnecessary, so were crampons. We went up along the trail from Seager. Two prior entries this past Saturday preceded ours in the trail register. They were climbing Big Indian. We were the only entry heading for Doubletop. Kept following the logging road to 2650 on my altimeter. Most go right up the ridge form the start. We then made an abrupt right turn and crossed the creek, pretty much frozen over at this location. Then a steep grade curving around several rock cliff ledges finding routes through them to about 3100 feet. then the grade eased. Continued up and started getting frustrated as I know the height of Doubletop is 3860 and the tree growth was much more dense near the top. Started getting hungry but didn't want to stop to grab a bite to give me more energy as I didn't want to keep my comrades waiting any longer than they had to. Running on empty, no energy, but push on. Mush have been following some sort of herd path as our leading hikers pushed thru and I just kept follwoing their tracks. But I continued going up and we were over 4,000 feet and still going up. Is there a top to this mountain? Because it was getting colder, more snow depth (about 6 inches) and the snow was hanging on all the trees, breeze was picking up, as this bitter cold arctic air mass was coming in. i hear voices, my friends must have stopped, I caught up with them. Ahhh - the cannister!!! 4150 feet! Why do I trust my altimeter??? Sign in, grab a bite, put on a layer, started getting cold. Must have stayed there about 5 to 10 minutes (2:05-2:15 PM). Gotta get moving. My hands are frozen. One other from the group felt his toes going numb. Must be in the low to mid teens, wind chill - probably single digits. What digits, I can't feel them. Got to get my mitts on. Brought my camera, very pretty, didn't take any photos, my hands were too numb. At least I got some energy - lets go down. Returned the same way as our route up. just followed our prints. Great views on the way down that I didn't notice going up. You know the last time I climbed Doubletop, it was 90 degrees and I couldn't wait till I got down to wade in one of those pools in this stream. Now I just hoped the ice bridge would hold so I didn't have to wade in it! Back at the wood road met a couple of Catskill 3500 hikers (don't remember names - just #200+ something). Back at the car, now 16 degrees, 4:20 PM, 2000 feet. Hike done. 19 done - 16 winter peaks to go in six more years. Overall, enjoyable hike, especially sliding down the slopes on my butt. Much easier going down in the darkening shadows.
