Jay H
New member
ColdRiverRun and I met at some ungodly late hour to do a hike to BLM and Graham earlier in the day, not used to seeing so much traffic on the thruway going north til I realized, oh.. it's 10am already.. Anyway, We had an uneventful and unrhyming hike to BLM and graham, other than running into the three others on graham. We did see a small group coming back when we were going to BLM.
Anyway, a vm from Thom saying they couldn't make it meant that we could leave on our own schedule and a call to MCorsaro confirmed that he had chicken pox and couldn't make it out of bed, let alone to the catskills... so it was ColdRiverRun aka"flatfinger" and I. I thought I'd spare the poor guy (who is hopefully having successful surgery today) having to type a trip report on 8 fingers by writing this.
We left Brios after a big dinner and headed towards Woodstock on 212, seeing large throngs of frolickers at the Town Square where we headed towards Meads mtn road... Once we started gaining elevation, it completely fogged in, visibility on the drive was barely 8ft, we had one close call with some schmoe driving down in the middle of the road but my excellent fog sense led us right to the trailhead, at least thank god the trail sign is right on the road, lest we would of driven right by, it was that dense...
So, since ColdRiverRun had his already freaky finger costume and I didn't think I'd see anybody, and I also forgot my cycling rain jacket, I left my BLM hiking attire on for the hike up, donned my headlight and off we went. Completely pea soup, a bit sprinkly in the rain department but it was soo warm, it was kind of wet if you wear a raincoat, wet if you don't. And it was soo misty that our headlights would simply be diffused by the mist so eventually we just turned them off and found we could see fine without. Good thing it was a road walk and we could follow the power line up cause no way we could see more than 5-8ft in front of us. By the old ruins of the Overlook Hotel, ColdRiverRun mentioned that he was expecting a small cottage, not the eerie loom of a huge concrete structure that magically appeared out of the fog and gloom. Very very appropriate weather for the hike, although that red blinking light on the comm. tower was kind of ruining. just past the hotel, we saw one couple coming down, using headlamps, while we were fiddling with gear. We chat that we could really scare the living bejesus out of them if we wanted to, but then thought they could be armed and dangerous. What other freaks would be out on Overlook in the rain and fog at this time of night?????
So we get to the summit shortly after and we wander over to the tower... At which we kind of lolligag to decide whether we should climb the tower or not... heck, we decide to go for it and dropped our packs and headed up... it was windy as heck, my hood kept blowing off and we climbed up to the cab.. Fortunately, it was still warm and all of a sudden, it kind of cleared out, the low lying fog blew off and the skies sort of cleared. We even went out to the viewpoint and we could see saugerties, Woodstock... and then the full moonish came out and made a cameo. On our way back, it all cleared up, no more fog, the lights from town came out and it was awesome... Perfect Halloween hike. Had a blast! and hope to do it again next year...
Strange though that we saw more people saturday night than last year, when it was clear and perfect...
Nice hiking with ColdRiverRun, finally!
Jay
Anyway, a vm from Thom saying they couldn't make it meant that we could leave on our own schedule and a call to MCorsaro confirmed that he had chicken pox and couldn't make it out of bed, let alone to the catskills... so it was ColdRiverRun aka"flatfinger" and I. I thought I'd spare the poor guy (who is hopefully having successful surgery today) having to type a trip report on 8 fingers by writing this.
We left Brios after a big dinner and headed towards Woodstock on 212, seeing large throngs of frolickers at the Town Square where we headed towards Meads mtn road... Once we started gaining elevation, it completely fogged in, visibility on the drive was barely 8ft, we had one close call with some schmoe driving down in the middle of the road but my excellent fog sense led us right to the trailhead, at least thank god the trail sign is right on the road, lest we would of driven right by, it was that dense...
So, since ColdRiverRun had his already freaky finger costume and I didn't think I'd see anybody, and I also forgot my cycling rain jacket, I left my BLM hiking attire on for the hike up, donned my headlight and off we went. Completely pea soup, a bit sprinkly in the rain department but it was soo warm, it was kind of wet if you wear a raincoat, wet if you don't. And it was soo misty that our headlights would simply be diffused by the mist so eventually we just turned them off and found we could see fine without. Good thing it was a road walk and we could follow the power line up cause no way we could see more than 5-8ft in front of us. By the old ruins of the Overlook Hotel, ColdRiverRun mentioned that he was expecting a small cottage, not the eerie loom of a huge concrete structure that magically appeared out of the fog and gloom. Very very appropriate weather for the hike, although that red blinking light on the comm. tower was kind of ruining. just past the hotel, we saw one couple coming down, using headlamps, while we were fiddling with gear. We chat that we could really scare the living bejesus out of them if we wanted to, but then thought they could be armed and dangerous. What other freaks would be out on Overlook in the rain and fog at this time of night?????
So we get to the summit shortly after and we wander over to the tower... At which we kind of lolligag to decide whether we should climb the tower or not... heck, we decide to go for it and dropped our packs and headed up... it was windy as heck, my hood kept blowing off and we climbed up to the cab.. Fortunately, it was still warm and all of a sudden, it kind of cleared out, the low lying fog blew off and the skies sort of cleared. We even went out to the viewpoint and we could see saugerties, Woodstock... and then the full moonish came out and made a cameo. On our way back, it all cleared up, no more fog, the lights from town came out and it was awesome... Perfect Halloween hike. Had a blast! and hope to do it again next year...
Strange though that we saw more people saturday night than last year, when it was clear and perfect...
Nice hiking with ColdRiverRun, finally!
Jay
