Southern Catskills Bushwhack-7/5

[MattC]

Southern Catskills Bushwhack-5/7

Today Jay H and I did a nice long 'whack over several of the lesser Catskill peaks. Jay did his trail maintainance on the Curtis-Ormsbee Trail on Friday and then spent the night up on the summit of East Wildcat. Saturday AM I parked next to his car in the Slide Mt. lot and hustled up the Phoenicia-East Branch Trail, then 'whacked from the Curtis Momument to meet Jay, who had broken camp and was ready to go. We then spent the next 9 hours using map, compass and GPS (along w/ blood, sweat and tears) to find our way over West Wildcat, Spruce, Hemlock and an unnamed peak which we've taken to calling Winnisook Peak, after the nearby Winnisook Camp and Lake.

Our route took us along the Wildcat ridge over a small nob, then to the west summit where we had lunch. Then it was down about 1000' or so to the West Branch of the Neversink. Although it was pretty low, we couldn't find a great place to ford, so we opted for the boots off-wading method. The cold water was a bit of a shock at first, but actually a nice way to cool the feet off. It was a little past noon at this point and the rain had held off, to our happy surprise. It would all day.

We dried off, re-booted, then roadwalked a bit to the Biscuit Brook trailhead. We noted lots of cars in the lot, which is unusual for this trail. Sure enough, the register indicated that there was a 3500 Club hike to Doubletop and also our VFTT buddy Ralph (Hermit) was doing Fir, Big Indian and Doubletop. Hope that went well Ralph-how's that grid coming along?

Then it was about 2 miles on trail to the lean-to, which was occupied by a couple who had just gone to sleep @ dawn. Apparently they had a tough time finding the place the night before. Jay pumped some H2O from Biscuit Brook, I did some calorie intake, we chatted w/ the couple and moved on. The next phase was about 800' up to the ridge which protrudes between Fir and Spruce. After schleping up this, we then continued on through the typical Catskills boulders and scrubby hardwoods until the ridge turned towards Spruce. Another 200' or so and Jay's GPS got us right to a small cairn. Then we headed down towards the col leading to Hemlock, or so we thought. We overshot a bit and realized we were actually looking towards Winnisook and then had to traverse back across the slope a bit. By Hemlock's summit we were both knackered, as the Brits say. Isn't that a great word?

We briefly considered bailing after Hemlock, but figured we had come that far, so... Another mile and change and we were over on Winnisook. Nice open area on the summit. Lots of tiny wildflowers around and some "teaser" views through the trees. Both of these features actually had been present throughout the day. The flowers were mostly Purple Trillium, yellow Trout Lily, and a zillion of these little tiny white and pinkish things. The views included Doubletop, Slide and lots of lesser peaks. Just below the summit of Winnisook we had a gorgeous open vista of East Wildcat and the valley, while we were descending a very steep, scrubby area w/ lots of loose stone. We headed down this slope until we saw the posted signs marking the Winnisook Club land. These we followed (on the state land side) until we were back on Slide Mt. Road. We stumbled back to the cars, exhausted but satisfied. I still can't believe Jay did this w/ a full pack (including his trail maintainance gear). He headed back to Jersey and I sat by the West Branch a few more minutes before heading home. Quite a day...

 

[TMax]

Excellant trip report mcorsar. Sounds like a wonderfully exhausting day. How come you're still up writing trip reports?

 

[MattC]

Excellant trip report mcorsar. Sounds like a wonderfully exhausting day. How come you're still up writing trip reports?

Hey Terri! My entire lower body is sore, but my fingers are still functioning okay. Saw your name in the Slide trail register. Did you do the Burroughs Range as an in-and-out?

Matt

 

[TMax]

Did you do the Burroughs Range as an in-and-out?
Matt

Yup! Went all the way over to Terrace and then came all the way back. It was a great hike. My first time on Terrace. It's a nice little spot! I've been working on hiking a little faster, it took me just under 9 hours. I guess I still have work to do...

 

[Jay H]

Hey Terri, I arrived mid morning on friday and when I signed in, I saw your name and plans.. I didn't get there til around 9:30 since I knew it wasn't going to be a long day. I saw your name there then I saw your car so I said hello in the register thinking you might see it on the way out.

Trail maintenance on the C-O trail was basically cutting a bunch of blowdown out of the way with my little Gerber saw. Didn't need to use the pruner or the hacksaw that I had! And the only trash I saw was a water bottle cap at the intersection of the CO and PE trail and a rotting piece of small cardboard just below the southern viewpoint looking at Table, Peekamoose and Lone.

Then i simply went back down after lunch at the viewpoint and wacked towards East Wildcat. Got there around 2pm so I had a lazy afternoon reading a book on catskill geography that I borrowed from Ralph (kind of like the roaming gnome, borrow a book and take it on a 10 mile bushwack.

I estimate we probably did about 10 miles bushwacking and about 3.5 miles of trailwalking. AND NOT ONE official peak...

BTW matt, unless your in Europe, I think your date is reversed.. should be 5/7 and not 7/5 unless you're from another world and writting about a trip on July 5th that we've yet to do.

Jay

 

[hermit]

Sounds like a very interesting hike. I signed in at the register 5-7,but it was actually Friday 5-6.Matt,I only have a few more peaks left on the grid for May.I may be up for some mileage this coming weekend 5-14 or 5-15.I know one day next weekend I will be on a railtrail bike ride.I will change my watch setting so I know what day it actually is.

 

[MattC]

Sounds like a very interesting hike. I signed in at the register 5-7,but it was actually Friday 5-6.Matt,I only have a few more peaks left on the grid for May.I may be up for some mileage this coming weekend 5-14 or 5-15.I know one day next weekend I will be on a railtrail bike ride.I will change my watch setting so I know what day it actually is.

That's okay, Ralph-I put the wrong date on the title of this thread!
I'll keep you in the loop as to my weekend plans. Right now I'm leaning more towards a long hike on Saturday if the weather is halfway decent.

Matt

 

[Mark Schaefer]

an unnamed peak which we've taken to calling Winnisook Peak, after the nearby Winnisook Camp and Lake.

You would not be the first to use a variant of that name. The first published list of the 98 Catskill 3K Peaks I saw was in the 1975 Guide to the Catskills by Adams, Coco, Greenman and Greenman, published by Walking News. Peaks with no known names were identified by a nearby geographical feature in parentheses. This 3260' peak was designated (Winnisook Lake). The authors credited the Catskill 3500 Club for their assistance in compiling the list. In 1988 the list was reprinted in the first ADK Guide to Catskill Trails and most of the parenthesized summits were listed as Unnamed. Otherwise the lists are identical.

Based on the names I had taken to calling Fir, Spruce, and Hemlock the conifer ridge. As hemlocks have played such an important part in Catskill history it is unfortunate that the name Hemlock was put on a summit that did not make the 3K list. It would probably be too confusing to transfer the name Hemlock to the unnamed 3260' summit. The only other conifers native to the Catskills are Red Pine and Pitch Pine, and since they do not naturally grow in this area of the Catskills it would be inappropriate to call this 3260' summit Pine Peak. So Winnisook Peak will do.

These old growth summits, including the Wildcats, can be a bit painful, but it sounds like you had fun.

 

[MattC]

Based on the names I had taken to calling Fir, Spruce, and Hemlock the conifer ridge. As hemlocks have played such an important part in Catskill history it is unfortunate that the name Hemlock was put on a summit that did not make the 3K list. It would probably be too confusing to transfer the name Hemlock to the unnamed 3260' summit. The only other conifers native to the Catskills are Red Pine and Pitch Pine, and since they do not naturally grow in this area of the Catskills it would be inappropriate to call this 3260' summit Pine Peak. So Winnisook Peak will do.

These old growth summits, including the Wildcats, can be a bit painful, but it sounds like you had fun.

Conifer Ridge-I like that, even if the names are a bit ironic. It's seems there were only a few dozen Spruce on top of Spruce Mt., scattered amongst hardwoods. Very few conifers on the other peaks also.

There was indeed a bit of pain involved, but what 'whack isn't that true of? I find the scrubby little Beech and other hardwoods are in some ways rougher than Spruce to work through. Something about the smaller branches-they seem to always whack back, scratch, tangle me up, find their way into my face, etc. Always a good time.

I actually thought Winnisook was maybe the nicest summit of them all. Perhaps just because it was last. It's a nice open area, w/ lots of little wildflowers and a couple good sittin' rocks. It would make a good campsite, as Jay noted when we were up there. I was a little disappointed that we couldn't see the lake from up there, although we could see some of the Winnisook Camp buildings. And the brief view we had on the descent was the only really open vista we had all day. It was a classic moment-carefully working down a really steep, crumbly slope while simultaneously fighting through dense brush, and there's this amazing view of the valley below.

Matt