Tom Rankin
Well-known member
I'm always getting these 2 peaks (Lone and Rocky in the Catskills) confused even when I'm standing on top of one of them!
We started from the Denning Parking Lot, the farthest trail head from anywhere!
The weather called for warming temps and rain, maybe, near the end of the day. Well, it starts snowing even before we left the lot!
We were all thinking it was going to s@ck if it snowed/sleeted/rained ALL DAY!
It turned out it did more or less precipitate all day, but it was such a fine snow/mist we hardly noticed it, especially under the trees, at least until the end of the day.
We met up with Coldfeet, Vickie and Tim, and RockySummit (who showed up to inform us he was not feeling up to this hike ). We wished him well, and headed out around 8:15. The trail was nicely post holed, which seems par for the course this winter. After crossing the mighty bridges, and turning off the real path for the fisherman's path, the treadway seemed to be mostly snowshoes, so I guess 'they' switched at some point. Good call!
There were several confusing paths heading in all directions, so after crossing Donovan Brook, Laurie chose to strike out in the direction, (Mag. 120), that she knew to be the summit. (This is not arrogance, nor a criticism. Laurie knows the way unerringly to just about every peak. We probably could have followed a different sort-of-broken trail, but she wanted to be sure, so we set out making our own line). With 5 people breaking trail, it was not a tremendously challenging task, but it was pretty tough being the leader at times. The snow was somewhat supportive, which meant that from time to time you could walk over it, but usually you would break thru, from 2-24"! That was the problem, never knowing what was coming next. Eventually we came across a good path heading in a direction Laurie liked, so we stuck with it to the top of Lone. I think this is my big confusion, Lone is close to Table, and Rocky is less Rocky than Lone!
Anyway, we found the canister just where we left it last April, and stopped for a short-ish break. There was just a little fog at the top and a mild breeze. No views all day, BTW. We noted where the view points might have been and headed down a trail that appeared to head to Rocky. This was unexpected and a nice bonus. There was no one signed in for Rocky the last several days. The trail wound around a good bit, and Laurie twice thought we should abandon it, but it quickly turned in the correct direction each time. The woods between Rocky and Lone are very thick, probably approaching a '4' on the Swanson scale (5 being the worst), so abandoning the herd path was not a thought I was very keen on.
Eventually we started up again and hit the little ledge just before the summit. Then I knew we were close to the goal. Sure enough, a few minutes later, we came to the canister, and we made a 'pole canopy' for Vicki and Tim. The paparazzi largely stayed away from this event, but I think we have a few pics.
After a brief celebration and some 'bagel-shots', we started following a path 'down' to the Neversink. It turned off towards Balsam Cap so we abandoned it and once again were whacking, this time down hill. Usually this is pretty easy, but the snow was in a state of half soft, half hard, which made the going slow. We were a little too far right, but we side-hilled to stay out of the large gully that comes down between Rocky and Balsam Cap and hit the Neversink pretty well. After an interminable slog on relatively flat ground, and innumerable stream crossings, both of the Neversink and its many tributaries and splits, we finally came back to a slightly broken trail which eventually lead us back to Donovan Brook. From here we made our way back to the trail, then recrossed the mighty bridges, and regained the old road. In spite of fatigue, we all maintained a pretty good pace down the road and were back to the cars around 4:45.
This was a long hard hike. After the rains, the path may stay broken, but it might freeze really hard and be pretty nasty as well. Your mileage may vary!
The drive back was very slippery at times, with temps in the 30's and a light rain falling but we made it to the Catskill Chalet! David, I finally had one of your bagels this morning. Very tasty!
We started from the Denning Parking Lot, the farthest trail head from anywhere!
The weather called for warming temps and rain, maybe, near the end of the day. Well, it starts snowing even before we left the lot!
We were all thinking it was going to s@ck if it snowed/sleeted/rained ALL DAY! It turned out it did more or less precipitate all day, but it was such a fine snow/mist we hardly noticed it, especially under the trees, at least until the end of the day.
We met up with Coldfeet, Vickie and Tim, and RockySummit (who showed up to inform us he was not feeling up to this hike
). We wished him well, and headed out around 8:15. The trail was nicely post holed, which seems par for the course this winter. After crossing the mighty bridges, and turning off the real path for the fisherman's path, the treadway seemed to be mostly snowshoes, so I guess 'they' switched at some point. Good call! There were several confusing paths heading in all directions, so after crossing Donovan Brook, Laurie chose to strike out in the direction, (Mag. 120), that she knew to be the summit. (This is not arrogance, nor a criticism. Laurie knows the way unerringly to just about every peak. We probably could have followed a different sort-of-broken trail, but she wanted to be sure, so we set out making our own line). With 5 people breaking trail, it was not a tremendously challenging task, but it was pretty tough being the leader at times. The snow was somewhat supportive, which meant that from time to time you could walk over it, but usually you would break thru, from 2-24"! That was the problem, never knowing what was coming next. Eventually we came across a good path heading in a direction Laurie liked, so we stuck with it to the top of Lone. I think this is my big confusion, Lone is close to Table, and Rocky is less Rocky than Lone!
Anyway, we found the canister just where we left it last April, and stopped for a short-ish break. There was just a little fog at the top and a mild breeze. No views all day, BTW. We noted where the view points might have been and headed down a trail that appeared to head to Rocky. This was unexpected and a nice bonus. There was no one signed in for Rocky the last several days. The trail wound around a good bit, and Laurie twice thought we should abandon it, but it quickly turned in the correct direction each time. The woods between Rocky and Lone are very thick, probably approaching a '4' on the Swanson scale (5 being the worst), so abandoning the herd path was not a thought I was very keen on.
Eventually we started up again and hit the little ledge just before the summit. Then I knew we were close to the goal. Sure enough, a few minutes later, we came to the canister, and we made a 'pole canopy' for Vicki and Tim. The paparazzi largely stayed away from this event, but I think we have a few pics.
After a brief celebration and some 'bagel-shots', we started following a path 'down' to the Neversink. It turned off towards Balsam Cap so we abandoned it and once again were whacking, this time down hill. Usually this is pretty easy, but the snow was in a state of half soft, half hard, which made the going slow. We were a little too far right, but we side-hilled to stay out of the large gully that comes down between Rocky and Balsam Cap and hit the Neversink pretty well. After an interminable slog on relatively flat ground, and innumerable stream crossings, both of the Neversink and its many tributaries and splits, we finally came back to a slightly broken trail which eventually lead us back to Donovan Brook. From here we made our way back to the trail, then recrossed the mighty bridges, and regained the old road. In spite of fatigue, we all maintained a pretty good pace down the road and were back to the cars around 4:45.
This was a long hard hike. After the rains, the path may stay broken, but it might freeze really hard and be pretty nasty as well. Your mileage may vary!
The drive back was very slippery at times, with temps in the 30's and a light rain falling but we made it to the Catskill Chalet!
David, I finally had one of your bagels this morning. Very tasty! 
