What a great day. Picked up family members late at the airport and got to sleep at 2:30a.m. Getting up at 6am was a treat!
Dick and Joanne flew in from 10 days of hiking in Utah and got to sleep at 2am, and they managed to make it to my place by 7am.
By the time we hit the trailhead, it was already getting hot and a little humid. The woods in the lower part of the mountain were open hardwoods, overgrown fields, with some fern glades thrown in. Not a single Catskill cliffband to be found anywhere. Up higher, there was a little bit of damage from the icestorm, but almost untouched in comparison to elsewhere in the Catskills. The last few hundred feet to the summit plateau was like a different mountain. Chest and over-the-head pricker bushes. Acres and acres of them. We didn't need to find a route to the top, we looked for small islands of tall trees, knowing that the prickers would be less in the shade. We managed to string together a few old woods roads and brush-hog paths, and after the usual Easter Egg hunt for the highest spot, settled in for a nice lunch on top.
Our way down was a little easier. We combined some of the open areas and woods roads to get off the top relatively unscathed, picked up our ascent route down in the open woods, and strolled the ferns back to the open meadows and to our car.
Good lesson today. This was the maiden voyage of using a 3L hydration system. Didn't need to dump the pack looking for waterbottles. But drank it dry 1/2 down.
Besides finding the pop-up fern gardens here and there, the other nice thing was the beautiful stone fences that appeared out of nowhere along the route. Big, tall, orderly one, with very large flat rocks.
While the prickers and heat made this last a little longer than expected, the delightful surprises along the way and good companionship made for a really nice outing.
Ms Bookah (46/100) had a bit of a long outing. The hot temps and dark fur coat made for some tongue lolling. She found every little rivlet and mudwallow up and down. She almost got the porky that scampered up a tree, with Boo trying to climb after it.
Dick and Joanne flew in from 10 days of hiking in Utah and got to sleep at 2am, and they managed to make it to my place by 7am.
By the time we hit the trailhead, it was already getting hot and a little humid. The woods in the lower part of the mountain were open hardwoods, overgrown fields, with some fern glades thrown in. Not a single Catskill cliffband to be found anywhere. Up higher, there was a little bit of damage from the icestorm, but almost untouched in comparison to elsewhere in the Catskills. The last few hundred feet to the summit plateau was like a different mountain. Chest and over-the-head pricker bushes. Acres and acres of them. We didn't need to find a route to the top, we looked for small islands of tall trees, knowing that the prickers would be less in the shade. We managed to string together a few old woods roads and brush-hog paths, and after the usual Easter Egg hunt for the highest spot, settled in for a nice lunch on top.
Our way down was a little easier. We combined some of the open areas and woods roads to get off the top relatively unscathed, picked up our ascent route down in the open woods, and strolled the ferns back to the open meadows and to our car.
Good lesson today. This was the maiden voyage of using a 3L hydration system. Didn't need to dump the pack looking for waterbottles. But drank it dry 1/2 down.
Besides finding the pop-up fern gardens here and there, the other nice thing was the beautiful stone fences that appeared out of nowhere along the route. Big, tall, orderly one, with very large flat rocks.
While the prickers and heat made this last a little longer than expected, the delightful surprises along the way and good companionship made for a really nice outing.
Ms Bookah (46/100) had a bit of a long outing. The hot temps and dark fur coat made for some tongue lolling. She found every little rivlet and mudwallow up and down. She almost got the porky that scampered up a tree, with Boo trying to climb after it.
