DSettahr
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On Sunday, I continued my quest of the trail-less Catskill High Peaks with Leavitt.
My friend Anna and I started from the trailhead at the end of Spruceton Road. After a quick walk in to the junction with the Devil's Path at West Kill Falls, we started up the western slopes of Hunter Mountain. The old Diamond Notch Road was in pretty good shape, and there was a number of people at the falls relaxing and enjoying the warm weather.
The trail up to the Devil's Acre Lean-to is in pretty good shape. There was some blowdown here and there but nothing major. Some wet spots as well; plenty of small streams crossing the trail along the way. The biggest issue was the cobbles scattered across the trail, but these are always to be expected in the Catskills.
Just past West Kill Falls, we passed the first hiker coming down... soon we started seeing more and more of them, mostly alone but in some in groups of two. All Asians, all very friendly and polite as we greeted them. We probably passed at least 10 total before we reached the Devil's Acre lean-to. When we got to the lean-to, we were greeted by the site of about 15 or 20 more hikers, all in the process of eating lunch. As we filled our water bottles from the stream near the lean-to, we observed that one by one, they would finish eating, get up and pack up, and then head down the trail alone. Quite an interesting sight!
After filling water bottles, we headed back to the start of the herd path for Leavitt. The junction with the herd path is a little ways west of the Devil's Acre Lean-to, at the height of land, and is marked with a small cairn. You really can't miss it if you're looking for it.
As far as trail-less Catskill High Peaks go, I think Leavitt Takes the cake in terms of ease of navigation. I thought that Fir and Rusk were easier in terms of energy expended, but the herd path on Leavitt can't be beat by any I've seen on the trail-less 35 so far. Someone has obviously been doing maintenance on the herd path, as we saw plenty of cut branches along the way. There was some blowdown that we had to duck under, but nothing that severely impeded our travel. Furthermore, the herd path seems to follow the bed of an older and fairly well designed trail- there were places were extensive rock work had obviously been performed, turning the trail into a nice level grade. Does anyone know the history of this path?
The level grade follows the route shown on both the Venture Outdoors and the new NYNJTC Maps, skirting the summit of Leavitt to the north. I was a bit worried that we'd have to turn off the level grade and bushwhack the final distance to the summit, but my fears were unfounded. A little ways past the point where I determined that we had gone beyond the summit (based on a compass bearing towards Rusk), we encountered a cairn and a pile of brush obviously intended to deter hikers from continuing along the level grade. From here, there was an obvious herd path directly to the summit. By far the easiest trail-less high peak I've climbed so far in terms of navigation, with Rusk a close second (Big Indian is so easy I'm not really counting it as a trail-less peak!).
While we were eating lunch on the summit of Leavitt, we started to hear voices and the sounds of people crashing through the brush to the west. As they got closer, I shouted "you're almost there!" to them, and they came straight out onto the summit. They commented that if I hadn't shouted at them, they probably would've walked right past the summit. They had bushwhacked up from Diamond Notch, and reported that it had been slow and thick going with lots of blowdown the whole way. They paused just long enough to sign the register, eat a quick snack and drink some water, and then continued down the herd path, intending to return to Diamond Notch by way of the Devil's Path.
After lunch, we returned quickly to the Devil's Acre Lean-to, where we again topped off our water bottles. By this time, the crowd had dispersed, and we had the lean-to to ourselves. The Devil's Acre Lean-to doesn't look like it gets a lot of overnight use, but a lot of day hikers climbing Hunter definitely stop there. The inside of the lean-to was kind of dirty, with lots of muddy boot prints and some animal feces (not dog) as well. A lot of the birch trees nearby showed significant damage due to hikers peeling bark from the tree. There were also a couple of apple trees beginning to bloom nearby.
I had previously climbed Hunter 3 winters ago, but Anna had never been up it, so we decided to return to Spruceton by going over the summit and going down the old road. The final climb up to the summit is pretty steadily uphill until it leveled out. The level section was somewhat muddy but not overly so, and we were soon at the lookout just south of the summit, which we stopped to check out before heading to the summit itself.
As it was later in the afternoon, we had the summit to ourselves. The cab of the firetower and the observer's cabin were both locked, but the stairs on the tower were open up to just beneath the cab. There's no view from the summit of Hunter itself, but climbing the fire tower gives you quite the vantage point. We could see the Blackhead Range and Windham High Peak to the north, Kaaterskill High Peak and the rest of the Devil's Path to the east (as well as Huckleberry Point and the Hudson Valley beyond), the Slide Mountain Wilderness and Panther Mountain to the South, the Big Indian Wilderness to the southwest, and West Kill and West Kill Valley as well as Rusk to the west.
We admired the view and filled up on calories for a little bit before continuing on down the old road. It wasn't long before I first saw them... dirt bike tracks.
We'd seen tracks 2 weekends previously near Kaaterskill High Peak, and now we were seeing them again on Hunter. I guess this has been a continuing problem at both of these locations. I assume that they are mostly coming in from Rusk Hollow Road to the north.
About halfway between the summit and the turn off for the trail to Colonel's Chair, I noticed a herd path headed right (north) into the woods. At first I thought it must lead to a lookout, and so I started following it... It was a pretty well defined herd path, and I saw some cut stumps on it so someone has been maintaining it. It started to lose some significant elevation though, so I didn't follow it all the way to wherever it went. Does anyone know where this herd path leads? Does it lead to a lookout? Is it possibly someones illegal access trail to the ski slopes on Hunter Mountain?
Before long, we had reached the new John Robb Lean-to. The Venture Outdoors maps shows 3 designated campsites here, with the old lean-to site being one of them. This is no longer the case, as the old lean-to site is closed to camping (I'm assuming it was the old lean-to site, as there was a lot of coals and bits and pieces of cement in the clearing on the north side of the trail). The new lean-to is really nice (thanks to everyone who helped build it!), and to get to it, you must climb down a side trail that goes through a really neat notch in a rock outcrop. There's also a really nice view from a ledge near the lean-to, although it's obvious that this view was "improved" by cutting trees... I'm not sure how I feel about that. Hopefully it was DEC sanctioned and not someone who decided to do it on their own accord.
The water source for this lean-to is a little ways downhill. Behind the lean-to, there is a sign marking the trail. After hiking maybe a tenth of a mile or so downhill, you get to a cemented casement with a pipe sticking out of it. Plenty of water was flowing from the pipe. It looked like there was another trail leading back to the main trail from the spring, but it was pretty overgrown.
Near the lean-to, just uphill actually but still on the south side of the main trail, are four designated tent sites. One is really nice, with a flat cleared area and a nice fire ring, and one is ok, it's flat but kind of overgrown, and without a fire ring. I'm not sure what drug whoever designated the other two sites was on, but I'd like some of it for myself. Neither had a fire ring, one had a space maybe big enough for a one man tent to squeeze between the trees, and the other was on a hill with at least a 20 degree slope.
Near the lean-to we also found a rock in which someone had carved an arrow and the letter W, indicating direction for whatever reason. Just downhill of the lean-to on the main trail was another spring, this one a pipe emptying into an old wooden pail that was obviously for horses to drink out of.
As the trail levels out and turns into a nicely graded woods road after descending to Rusk Hollow, we quickly traversed the final distance back to the trailhead. We'd previously walked this section last weekend after descending over East Rusk from Rusk (I highly recommend against climbing Rusk this way, it's much easier to ascend directly from the switchback farther down the road!). On our way out, we saw a porcupine in a tree. They are always a pretty cute sight to see; nothing ever seems to bother them (and probably with good reason!).
I now just have North Dome, Sherrill, Bearpen, and Vly in the northern Catskills left to do. Planning on doing at least 2 of these next weekend (leaning towards probably Bearpen and Vly), and 2 the weekend after. Then I just need to concentrate on the Slide Mountain Wilderness (I still need a non-winter ascent of Slide, Cornell, Wittenburg, Rocky, Lone, Balsam Cap, Friday, and Peekamoose... I have a week off in early June, during which I'm planning an assault to get as many of these as I can), and then I can get Graham and go for my finish on Balsam Lake!
On Sunday, I continued my quest of the trail-less Catskill High Peaks with Leavitt.
My friend Anna and I started from the trailhead at the end of Spruceton Road. After a quick walk in to the junction with the Devil's Path at West Kill Falls, we started up the western slopes of Hunter Mountain. The old Diamond Notch Road was in pretty good shape, and there was a number of people at the falls relaxing and enjoying the warm weather.
The trail up to the Devil's Acre Lean-to is in pretty good shape. There was some blowdown here and there but nothing major. Some wet spots as well; plenty of small streams crossing the trail along the way. The biggest issue was the cobbles scattered across the trail, but these are always to be expected in the Catskills.
Just past West Kill Falls, we passed the first hiker coming down... soon we started seeing more and more of them, mostly alone but in some in groups of two. All Asians, all very friendly and polite as we greeted them. We probably passed at least 10 total before we reached the Devil's Acre lean-to. When we got to the lean-to, we were greeted by the site of about 15 or 20 more hikers, all in the process of eating lunch. As we filled our water bottles from the stream near the lean-to, we observed that one by one, they would finish eating, get up and pack up, and then head down the trail alone. Quite an interesting sight!
After filling water bottles, we headed back to the start of the herd path for Leavitt. The junction with the herd path is a little ways west of the Devil's Acre Lean-to, at the height of land, and is marked with a small cairn. You really can't miss it if you're looking for it.
As far as trail-less Catskill High Peaks go, I think Leavitt Takes the cake in terms of ease of navigation. I thought that Fir and Rusk were easier in terms of energy expended, but the herd path on Leavitt can't be beat by any I've seen on the trail-less 35 so far. Someone has obviously been doing maintenance on the herd path, as we saw plenty of cut branches along the way. There was some blowdown that we had to duck under, but nothing that severely impeded our travel. Furthermore, the herd path seems to follow the bed of an older and fairly well designed trail- there were places were extensive rock work had obviously been performed, turning the trail into a nice level grade. Does anyone know the history of this path?
The level grade follows the route shown on both the Venture Outdoors and the new NYNJTC Maps, skirting the summit of Leavitt to the north. I was a bit worried that we'd have to turn off the level grade and bushwhack the final distance to the summit, but my fears were unfounded. A little ways past the point where I determined that we had gone beyond the summit (based on a compass bearing towards Rusk), we encountered a cairn and a pile of brush obviously intended to deter hikers from continuing along the level grade. From here, there was an obvious herd path directly to the summit. By far the easiest trail-less high peak I've climbed so far in terms of navigation, with Rusk a close second (Big Indian is so easy I'm not really counting it as a trail-less peak!).
While we were eating lunch on the summit of Leavitt, we started to hear voices and the sounds of people crashing through the brush to the west. As they got closer, I shouted "you're almost there!" to them, and they came straight out onto the summit. They commented that if I hadn't shouted at them, they probably would've walked right past the summit. They had bushwhacked up from Diamond Notch, and reported that it had been slow and thick going with lots of blowdown the whole way. They paused just long enough to sign the register, eat a quick snack and drink some water, and then continued down the herd path, intending to return to Diamond Notch by way of the Devil's Path.
After lunch, we returned quickly to the Devil's Acre Lean-to, where we again topped off our water bottles. By this time, the crowd had dispersed, and we had the lean-to to ourselves. The Devil's Acre Lean-to doesn't look like it gets a lot of overnight use, but a lot of day hikers climbing Hunter definitely stop there. The inside of the lean-to was kind of dirty, with lots of muddy boot prints and some animal feces (not dog) as well. A lot of the birch trees nearby showed significant damage due to hikers peeling bark from the tree. There were also a couple of apple trees beginning to bloom nearby.
I had previously climbed Hunter 3 winters ago, but Anna had never been up it, so we decided to return to Spruceton by going over the summit and going down the old road. The final climb up to the summit is pretty steadily uphill until it leveled out. The level section was somewhat muddy but not overly so, and we were soon at the lookout just south of the summit, which we stopped to check out before heading to the summit itself.
As it was later in the afternoon, we had the summit to ourselves. The cab of the firetower and the observer's cabin were both locked, but the stairs on the tower were open up to just beneath the cab. There's no view from the summit of Hunter itself, but climbing the fire tower gives you quite the vantage point. We could see the Blackhead Range and Windham High Peak to the north, Kaaterskill High Peak and the rest of the Devil's Path to the east (as well as Huckleberry Point and the Hudson Valley beyond), the Slide Mountain Wilderness and Panther Mountain to the South, the Big Indian Wilderness to the southwest, and West Kill and West Kill Valley as well as Rusk to the west.
We admired the view and filled up on calories for a little bit before continuing on down the old road. It wasn't long before I first saw them... dirt bike tracks.
We'd seen tracks 2 weekends previously near Kaaterskill High Peak, and now we were seeing them again on Hunter. I guess this has been a continuing problem at both of these locations. I assume that they are mostly coming in from Rusk Hollow Road to the north.About halfway between the summit and the turn off for the trail to Colonel's Chair, I noticed a herd path headed right (north) into the woods. At first I thought it must lead to a lookout, and so I started following it... It was a pretty well defined herd path, and I saw some cut stumps on it so someone has been maintaining it. It started to lose some significant elevation though, so I didn't follow it all the way to wherever it went. Does anyone know where this herd path leads? Does it lead to a lookout? Is it possibly someones illegal access trail to the ski slopes on Hunter Mountain?
Before long, we had reached the new John Robb Lean-to. The Venture Outdoors maps shows 3 designated campsites here, with the old lean-to site being one of them. This is no longer the case, as the old lean-to site is closed to camping (I'm assuming it was the old lean-to site, as there was a lot of coals and bits and pieces of cement in the clearing on the north side of the trail). The new lean-to is really nice (thanks to everyone who helped build it!), and to get to it, you must climb down a side trail that goes through a really neat notch in a rock outcrop. There's also a really nice view from a ledge near the lean-to, although it's obvious that this view was "improved" by cutting trees... I'm not sure how I feel about that. Hopefully it was DEC sanctioned and not someone who decided to do it on their own accord.
The water source for this lean-to is a little ways downhill. Behind the lean-to, there is a sign marking the trail. After hiking maybe a tenth of a mile or so downhill, you get to a cemented casement with a pipe sticking out of it. Plenty of water was flowing from the pipe. It looked like there was another trail leading back to the main trail from the spring, but it was pretty overgrown.
Near the lean-to, just uphill actually but still on the south side of the main trail, are four designated tent sites. One is really nice, with a flat cleared area and a nice fire ring, and one is ok, it's flat but kind of overgrown, and without a fire ring. I'm not sure what drug whoever designated the other two sites was on, but I'd like some of it for myself. Neither had a fire ring, one had a space maybe big enough for a one man tent to squeeze between the trees, and the other was on a hill with at least a 20 degree slope.
Near the lean-to we also found a rock in which someone had carved an arrow and the letter W, indicating direction for whatever reason. Just downhill of the lean-to on the main trail was another spring, this one a pipe emptying into an old wooden pail that was obviously for horses to drink out of.
As the trail levels out and turns into a nicely graded woods road after descending to Rusk Hollow, we quickly traversed the final distance back to the trailhead. We'd previously walked this section last weekend after descending over East Rusk from Rusk (I highly recommend against climbing Rusk this way, it's much easier to ascend directly from the switchback farther down the road!). On our way out, we saw a porcupine in a tree. They are always a pretty cute sight to see; nothing ever seems to bother them (and probably with good reason!).
I now just have North Dome, Sherrill, Bearpen, and Vly in the northern Catskills left to do. Planning on doing at least 2 of these next weekend (leaning towards probably Bearpen and Vly), and 2 the weekend after. Then I just need to concentrate on the Slide Mountain Wilderness (I still need a non-winter ascent of Slide, Cornell, Wittenburg, Rocky, Lone, Balsam Cap, Friday, and Peekamoose... I have a week off in early June, during which I'm planning an assault to get as many of these as I can), and then I can get Graham and go for my finish on Balsam Lake!
