DSettahr
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- Apr 23, 2005
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Last spring, while I was living and working outside of Albany, I spent much of my weekends climbing high peaks in the Catskills. In fact, I think I was out every weekend in the month of May adding a new peak to my completed list as I worked towards climbing all 35. That all ended, however, with the advent of summer. I spent the months of July and August working in the Adirondacks and New England, and in the fall got another job in the Adirondacks. I hadn’t been back to the Catskills since spring until this past weekend, when I had the opportunity to climb North Dome with my friend Anna.
We arrived at the western terminus about midday on Sunday to find that it was packed with parked cars. A quick examination of the register revealed that there was an organized NYNJTC outing headed up Westkill Mountain, which explained the majority of the cars.
After some last minute packing, we headed up the Devil’s Path. This trail was fairly well marked, and mostly free of blowdown. It more or less parallels the stream coming out of the col between Saint Anne’s Peak and North Dome. At one point, we passed some nice flat ground, and I thought to myself, “this would be a perfect camping spot if it wasn’t so close to both the trail and the stream.” Sure enough, I spotted a no camping disc ahead of me on the trail, so I imagine I’m not the first person to have thought along these lines.
It didn’t take us long to reach the col, where we left he trail behind and began the bushwhack. One can’t miss where you should turn off the trail to begin the bushwhack, as the Devil’s Path makes a sharp turn to the east. This turn is also marked with trail signs, remnants of the original plan to continue the Devil’s Path to the west over North Dome. This trail was never constructed, however, and it remains to be seen if the Devil’s Path will ever be extended to its originally intended length.
I’ve heard the open clearing near the small pond in the col referred to as the “field of screams” before, but fortunately for us, it was late enough in the season that the nettles gave us no trouble. We were quickly able to pass around the pond and being the ascent. At first, the climb was gradual and easy, but as we got higher, it became steeper. We also started to encounter ledges. At first, we were able to easily navigate around these ledges, but before long we found ourselves faced with a ledge that was at least 15 feet tall, and extended as far as we could see in either direction. We followed this ledge a little ways, and soon found a spot that we could easily scramble up. We encountered several more ledges like this, all requiring us to do some exploration before we could find a way up.
Eventually, the terrains started to level out, and we left the ledges behind and entered a coniferous forest. We knew we were close to the summit, but the task of actually finding the summit and the canister remained before us. We soon found a herd path, which we were able to more or less follow. We’d lose it occaisionally, but soon picked it up again. The path led us a decent distance all the way to the true summit, where we found the canister and a USGS survey marker. In flipping through the register, I noticed that Tom Ranking had been up with a group only the day before!
After signing the regsiter, and eating a quick meal, we began the descent. We had originally planned to climb Sherril as well, but the lateness of the hour at which we summited North Dome convinced us to be satisfied with just one peak for the day. Rather than descend back to the Devil’s Path, we elected to take a bearing north and descend directly back to the road. The north slopes turned out to be quite steep, but were lacking the larger ledges that we had encountered on the west slopes. Descending the steep slopes proved to be slow going, but eventually the terrain leveled out to a more gradual drop, and we found ourselves at first in, and then following a small stream.
The woods in this hollow were quite pretty, and one could certainly spend a fair amount of time exploring the area. There is plenty of flat ground, and it wouldn’t be too difficult I think to find a good spot for camping in the area. We soon struck a herd path, marked with orange spary paint marks on the trees, heading north, and so we began to follow it. We also observed several other herd paths in the area, heading in various directions… again, it would be neat to spend a day (or even a weekend) exploring this spot.
We soon arrived back at the road right as the darkness forced us to don our headlamps (we came out of the woods only a few hundred feet away from the parking area) and turned right to head back to our car. The mile or so walk down the road was easy and went by quickly (except for the pile of horse poop I managed to step in!). We arrived back at the trailhead just as a large group of hikers was coming back down the Devil’s Path. I learnt that they had started hiking at Prediger Road Friday morning, and congratulated them on their accomplishment. As we put our stuff back in the car, more and more of them came out… I think I stopped counting around 15. So much for the 9 person group limit for overnight groups!
On our way back to Albany for the evening, we took advantage of the opportunity to stop at the Cave Mountain Brewery for dinner. I think I will be stopping here from now on after every hike. The beer was amazing, the food was excellent, and I really liked the atmosphere. I also really liked how the food was prepared right in view, next to the bar. I’d like to go back on a Sunday evening again ($2.50 mugs of beer on Sundays) and have a mug of every single beer they have on tap I think. Definitely a nice ending to a good day of hiking.
Last spring, while I was living and working outside of Albany, I spent much of my weekends climbing high peaks in the Catskills. In fact, I think I was out every weekend in the month of May adding a new peak to my completed list as I worked towards climbing all 35. That all ended, however, with the advent of summer. I spent the months of July and August working in the Adirondacks and New England, and in the fall got another job in the Adirondacks. I hadn’t been back to the Catskills since spring until this past weekend, when I had the opportunity to climb North Dome with my friend Anna.
We arrived at the western terminus about midday on Sunday to find that it was packed with parked cars. A quick examination of the register revealed that there was an organized NYNJTC outing headed up Westkill Mountain, which explained the majority of the cars.
After some last minute packing, we headed up the Devil’s Path. This trail was fairly well marked, and mostly free of blowdown. It more or less parallels the stream coming out of the col between Saint Anne’s Peak and North Dome. At one point, we passed some nice flat ground, and I thought to myself, “this would be a perfect camping spot if it wasn’t so close to both the trail and the stream.” Sure enough, I spotted a no camping disc ahead of me on the trail, so I imagine I’m not the first person to have thought along these lines.
It didn’t take us long to reach the col, where we left he trail behind and began the bushwhack. One can’t miss where you should turn off the trail to begin the bushwhack, as the Devil’s Path makes a sharp turn to the east. This turn is also marked with trail signs, remnants of the original plan to continue the Devil’s Path to the west over North Dome. This trail was never constructed, however, and it remains to be seen if the Devil’s Path will ever be extended to its originally intended length.
I’ve heard the open clearing near the small pond in the col referred to as the “field of screams” before, but fortunately for us, it was late enough in the season that the nettles gave us no trouble. We were quickly able to pass around the pond and being the ascent. At first, the climb was gradual and easy, but as we got higher, it became steeper. We also started to encounter ledges. At first, we were able to easily navigate around these ledges, but before long we found ourselves faced with a ledge that was at least 15 feet tall, and extended as far as we could see in either direction. We followed this ledge a little ways, and soon found a spot that we could easily scramble up. We encountered several more ledges like this, all requiring us to do some exploration before we could find a way up.
Eventually, the terrains started to level out, and we left the ledges behind and entered a coniferous forest. We knew we were close to the summit, but the task of actually finding the summit and the canister remained before us. We soon found a herd path, which we were able to more or less follow. We’d lose it occaisionally, but soon picked it up again. The path led us a decent distance all the way to the true summit, where we found the canister and a USGS survey marker. In flipping through the register, I noticed that Tom Ranking had been up with a group only the day before!
After signing the regsiter, and eating a quick meal, we began the descent. We had originally planned to climb Sherril as well, but the lateness of the hour at which we summited North Dome convinced us to be satisfied with just one peak for the day. Rather than descend back to the Devil’s Path, we elected to take a bearing north and descend directly back to the road. The north slopes turned out to be quite steep, but were lacking the larger ledges that we had encountered on the west slopes. Descending the steep slopes proved to be slow going, but eventually the terrain leveled out to a more gradual drop, and we found ourselves at first in, and then following a small stream.
The woods in this hollow were quite pretty, and one could certainly spend a fair amount of time exploring the area. There is plenty of flat ground, and it wouldn’t be too difficult I think to find a good spot for camping in the area. We soon struck a herd path, marked with orange spary paint marks on the trees, heading north, and so we began to follow it. We also observed several other herd paths in the area, heading in various directions… again, it would be neat to spend a day (or even a weekend) exploring this spot.
We soon arrived back at the road right as the darkness forced us to don our headlamps (we came out of the woods only a few hundred feet away from the parking area) and turned right to head back to our car. The mile or so walk down the road was easy and went by quickly (except for the pile of horse poop I managed to step in!). We arrived back at the trailhead just as a large group of hikers was coming back down the Devil’s Path. I learnt that they had started hiking at Prediger Road Friday morning, and congratulated them on their accomplishment. As we put our stuff back in the car, more and more of them came out… I think I stopped counting around 15. So much for the 9 person group limit for overnight groups!
On our way back to Albany for the evening, we took advantage of the opportunity to stop at the Cave Mountain Brewery for dinner. I think I will be stopping here from now on after every hike. The beer was amazing, the food was excellent, and I really liked the atmosphere. I also really liked how the food was prepared right in view, next to the bar. I’d like to go back on a Sunday evening again ($2.50 mugs of beer on Sundays) and have a mug of every single beer they have on tap I think. Definitely a nice ending to a good day of hiking.
