Plateau Mt 7-26-07

[Peakbagr]

I had the chance to take a day off from work and grabbed it. With the forecast for temps in the high 80's and humid, jumped in the car early and parked way up on the northern Mink Hollow trailhead. Long drive up to the parking area, and a nice place to begin the hike.
It was humid and getting hotter as Bookah and I left the car just before 8:30am. The trail to the S'loaf - Plateau col isn't marked, but its completely unnecessary. Just a worn foot path that turns into a rough woods road and then a trail right to the Hollow.
There were many spots and streams for Bookah to drink and lay down in on the way to the col, but I was carrying 5 liters of H20 just in case. The weather slowed us down, but we were on the summit of Plateau in about 90 minutes, a bit of a tough go with a fur coat.
The thing I love about Plateau is the abrupt change in the woods. Its all deciduous down low, more spruce up high, and then BANG, all balsam and hemlock right as you tip over onto the summit ridge.
Open, sunny woods....then a cool, shady tunnel along the top.
There was the occasional refreshing breeze to be felt, but the hit of the day for me was the perfumed summit. Started to get whiff's of balsam around 3,600' or so, but hitting the summit 'tunnel' it was like being dropped into a factory that makes the little balsam pillows. Maybe the breeze did it, or maybe all the trail cutting and clearing of the Spring blowdown, but the entire summit was a walk thru a balsam perfume factory. After tagging the top, I just kept walking, sniffing and smiling. What a treat for the sense of smell.
Then back down to the col and a quick zip down to the parking area where I met the summer Ranger. We had a good conversation and I discovered his family lives in Roxbury. Conversation got onto the Catskill 100 list and wanted me to send him Mark's list.

I headed home back down Platte Clove Rd, the same way I came in earlier. For those who haven't driven it, PCR may be the most interesting and steep road anywhere in the northeast. Dick and I drove it last month, and I'm again reminded how steep and spectacular it is. Can't wait to return this Fall when the leaves are changing, and then again after they've gone and you can see just how far down it is to the bottom of the Clove.

 

[albee]

Nice report, Alan. I was thinking the same thing and skipped out on work yesterday, myself.

I had a question, though... Do the Catskills have the same type of rules as the ADKs for which peaks count? I know the rule up north is that there should be 300' col depth and 0.75 miles in separation. Is it the same for the Catskills or have they adopted the much simpler 200' col depth rule? Are you working on the CAT100 as well as the ADK100?

I checked on the Catskill 3500 website and it doesn't mention anything about how they determined what peaks make it onto the list. At least they are all actually 3,500' high!

 

[marchowes]

Speaking of the col rule in the Adks

for clarification sake -- this has driven me nuts. I have seen from -several- generally reliable sources both of these conflicting statements:

"300 feet AND 3/4 miles"
as well as "300 feet OR 3/4 miles"

So far as practice goes I believe the later to be true. I first observed this on the stretch between Emmons and Donaldson. There is no way that col is 300 feet (IIRC on the maps its not even 200) but emmons is about 1 mile from donaldson

Anyone? Which Logical operator is correct? /|| || /&&

 

[Peakbagr]

Spencer, Brian and I completed the ADK100 a year ago. I started getting serious about the Cat100's about a month later.

There is nothing in the Catskill100s that compares in bushwhacking difficulty with the ADK toughies. On the other hand there are 65 additional peaks beyond the 3500 list. Of the 65, 51 are bushwhacks. While the going is usually not 'Adirondack difficult', the absence of herd paths, established routes, route information, and tons of private property permissions make completing the list a challenge. In addition, from Spring on, there are nettlefields and pricker bushes in abundance and lots of cliffs and ledges to deal with. There is one completer of the modern list we know of, Jay H, and then 6 others who've climbed the Catskill 98, with a very small group of others actively working on the modern list.
The Cat100's are a lot of fun and I especially enjoy the route research, interacting with the landowners, and dozens of hikes where you are completely on your own as you explore a route to the summit.
We are enormously indebted to Mark Schaefer for coming up with the 'modern list' of the Cat100's, providing the topo names, and Topozone locations. He did this by updating the old Walking News list of Catskill 3k peaks, numbering 98. After Mark's exhaustive research, he noted 4 more peaks(included ties), that bring the Catskill 100 to be 102 peaks.

The Catskill 3500 Club for years had the requirement of completing all 34 peaks that were thought to be over 3,500 feet, pls climbing Blackhead, Panther, Slide and Balsam in the winter, a total of 38. A few years back, it was noted that SW Hunter qualified, and thats now on the list. There is a suggestion pending that SW Hunter be renamed Leavitt Peak to honor the founders of the Catskill 3500 Club, Bill and Elinore Leavitt.

If you have any interest in the Cat100's, you're welcome to join us sometime.
You can also link to the list and locations at: adirondack100highest.com, the site Brian, Spencer and I maintain.

 

[Mark Schaefer]

Good questions here.

I had a question, though... Do the Catskills have the same type of rules as the ADKs for which peaks count? I know the rule up north is that there should be 300' col depth and 0.75 miles in separation. Is it the same for the Catskills or have they adopted the much simpler 200' col depth rule?

In the Catskill 3500 Club bylaws the rule is 250' drop or 0.5 mile. It's kind of 46er lite. The criteria is also stated in Appendix II of the ADK Club's guidebook Catskill Trails, 3rd edition, page 258. However, the 3500 list does not match that criteria. As with the 46er list there are many qualifying ridge bumps that were not included on the list. In practice if you apply the standard 200' col drop criteria to the Catskills you will arrive at the precise list of 35 3500' peaks. Ideally the 3500 Club could change its bylaws to the standard 200' col drop to match the reality of the current list. I doubt that many hikers would be interested in the dozen or so ridge bumps that qualify under the "or 0.5 mile" clause.

I checked on the Catskill 3500 website and it doesn't mention anything about how they determined what peaks make it onto the list. At least they are all actually 3,500' high!

It is well hidden. The author of the website perhaps was aware of the problematic criteria, and in the description of SW Hunter he states:

Southwest Hunter is an arm of Hunter Mountain. However, the drop between the two peaks meets the Catskill 3500 Club's requirement that there be a 200 foot drop and a half mile distance between summits to be considered a separate peak, so it was recently voted to be a required peak. It was not part of the original requirements for 3500 Club membership as it was overlooked by the club's founders because it is not named on the USGS topo maps.​

He changed both the drop amount and the logical connector. BTW, I have pored over the maps enough to know that no peaks are excluded by the clause: and a half mile distance so that could be safely omitted without changing the list.

Statistics of the Catskill peaks can be seen on Peakbagger.com. With the understanding that clean (a.k.a. pessimistic) prominence = col drop - 1 contour interval. Unmeasured summits are assumed to be merely the highest contour. Unmeasured cols are assumed to be just below the next higher contour. So in the Catskills (20' contours) 200' col drop = 180' clean prominence. Peakbagger.com uses 160' clean prominence on most northeast USA lists to cover the 40' contours on some White Mountain maps and the 10 meter (32.8') intervals in the Adirondacks.

The Catskill 98 (3000'), 100, and 200 lists were created with the 200' drop criteria, and no distance clause.

Speaking of the col rule in the Adks

for clarification sake -- this has driven me nuts. I have seen from -several- generally reliable sources both of these conflicting statements:

"300 feet AND 3/4 miles"
as well as "300 feet OR 3/4 miles"

So far as practice goes I believe the later to be true. I first observed this on the stretch between Emmons and Donaldson. There is no way that col is 300 feet (IIRC on the maps its not even 200) but emmons is about 1 mile from donaldson

Anyone? Which Logical operator is correct? /|| || /&&

Both are correct for different lists. This is explained in Appendix III of the ADK Club's guidebook Adirondack Trails, High Peaks Region, 13th edition, page 268:

• "300 feet OR 3/4 miles" applies to the Adirondack 46 (on the 1895-1904 USGS maps used by the Marshall Brothers)
• "300 feet AND 3/4 miles" applies to the next 54 on the Adirondack 100 list (on the 1953 USGS maps in use when the list was created)

Unlike other northeast USA lists which have been modified based on later maps and observations, the Adirondack lists have remained static.

As can be seen on Peakbagger.com, many of the 46er peaks do not have a 300' or even a 200' drop. They only qualified based on distance. Gray Peak fails both criteria, but the Marshall brothers were politicked into including it on the list even though they correctly believed it was too close to Marcy. There are two other 4K peaks which do have a 200' rise. Table Top (Middle/East Peak) would qualify for the 46er list on the current maps based on a col drop of 92m (301.8'), or 300' on the 1953 map. Yard would qualify based on being over 0.75 miles from Big Slide. Several of the other unnumbered peaks on the Peakbagger.com are also more than 0.75 mile from the next higher summit, but the Marshall brothers missed them.

In my opinion distance criteria (with any logical connector) are part of the axis of evil and should never be used on peak lists. They open a Pandora's box of arguments over which ridge bump to include, and why would anybody want to exclude a peak with a sufficient col drop merely because it is too close to another peak.

 

[albee]

That is pretty much the most comprehensive explanation I could have ever asked for on which peaks should be included in both regions of New York. Many thanks, Mark, as well as Alan, for clearing that up for us all.

 

[Tom Rankin]

That is pretty much the most comprehensive explanation I could have ever asked for on which peaks should be included in both regions of New York. Many thanks, Mark, as well as Alan, for clearing that up for us all.

You'll find Mark is an amazing source of information the more you explore NY!