NorthShore
Member
We hiked Rocky via the slightly less traditional route of an out and back from Moon Haw Rd. Passing over Balsam Cap in both directions was a nice addition, but Rocky was the prime objective for this hike because it was Grace’s 35th for her [first 
] winter round.
The day was chilly and very windy with occasional light snow showers. On the way up the wind became very gusty at times and we were quite nervous about the possibility of falling limbs. You could hear the roar before it reached you and I was looking for smaller trees to stand under whenever I heard the gusts approaching. Up high, the trees are smaller and more densely packed and the wind wasn’t much of an issue although there was a little blowing snow at times.
We started out on the woods road across from the parking at the end of Moon Haw. When we got to the junction where we could go right and do a little more side hilling or stay left and head on a more direct bearing towards Friday, we went left because the snow shoe track looked more well developed.
We wore snow shoes right from the parking area and kept them on all day. The beaten track was fairly firm in the morning, but if you stepped just slightly off of it, down you went into deep snow. After a while the track was heading south of west, too far left for our liking and in our judgement towards private property. Remembering a cryptic request from Mudhook last week implying there had been some recent trespassing, we assumed that this might be the attractive nuisance causing even more trespassing. Instead of staying on the snow shoe track to find out, we headed off to the right and broke our own trail for a while slightly side-hilling rather than heading straight up to the ridge. It was more work in the deep snow but we had all anticipated that this would be a tough day, although we expected the tough part was going to be past Balsam Cap.
Ultimately, we joined back with the herd path just past the cabin and it was a super-highway from there to Balsam Cap. At one point, someone had sawed a blowdown off of the herd path…so much for a trail-less peak. When we reached the Balsam Cap viewpoint it was snowing and there wasn’t anything to see.
After a brief snack at the BC can, we started for Rocky and were blessed with a solidly packed track all the way to Rocky. So much for our “tough day”. However, there were a couple of tricky ledges and some thick firs to contend with and I did manage to draw a little blood. In the col between BC and Rocky, we met a couple of hikers (on larger shoes than our typical small MSR/Tubbs) who had come from the opposite direction (Denning).
After a little chat, we resumed and started up Rocky. We hiked past a beautiful gap under a big ledge that we first encountered last fall and near a wall reminiscent of the one on Friday. In spots we could see where the hikers we had just met had branched out and broken their own trail, but we stayed with the old track that had served us so well. The track was mostly but not always visually obvious and was fairly easy to stay on. If you went off of it, the feedback was instantaneous.
The hike from Balsam Cap down to the col is longer and tougher than the hike back up Rocky and despite some tricky negotiation up a couple of ledges it seemed we were on the summit of Rocky very quickly. We celebrated with some apple pie courtesy of MountainSister3 (not the bakery kind) and presented Grace with her winter rocker and headed off to the viewpoint. The viewpoint was considerably less windy than at the canister and was a great place for lunch…and there was even pretty good visibility.
The hike back to Balsam Cap seemed to go much faster, although each direction took us about an hour and 15 minutes. Back on the BC summit we met another group of 3 working on squeezing in a few last winter peaks. We had another snack, finished the apple pie, and modeled the latest in summit headgear.
We stopped again at the BC viewpoint and this time the visibility was quite good except for around the summits of Cornell and Wittenberg which were in and out of swiftly moving clouds. From the viewpoint the rest of the hike home went quickly. Parts of the trail had slightly blown in since the morning which made for some of the quietest snow shoeing of the day. Below the jump off to Friday by the pregnant tree, the snow became softer and softer to the point where we were postholing (in snow shoes) in sections that had supported our weight earlier in the day. This isn’t as much of a problem downhill and we made it from Balsam Cap back to Moon Haw Road in about an hour and 45 minutes.
After that we celebrated at Brios. Grace has gone from being a novice to a well prepared and experienced Catskill hiker in about two years, is halfway through the NH 4000 footers, has finished hikes short of the day’s goal, suffered scratches, rain, sub-zero days, 20 mile days, near total submersion off of a flooded ADK trail, and an endless stream of wisecracks, bad jokes and just about everything else her snarky hiking companions could throw at her without ever losing her smile. Amazing!
More pics:
https://plus.google.com/photos/109142731850640716661/albums/6126862256805452465
] winter round. 
The day was chilly and very windy with occasional light snow showers. On the way up the wind became very gusty at times and we were quite nervous about the possibility of falling limbs. You could hear the roar before it reached you and I was looking for smaller trees to stand under whenever I heard the gusts approaching. Up high, the trees are smaller and more densely packed and the wind wasn’t much of an issue although there was a little blowing snow at times.
We started out on the woods road across from the parking at the end of Moon Haw. When we got to the junction where we could go right and do a little more side hilling or stay left and head on a more direct bearing towards Friday, we went left because the snow shoe track looked more well developed.
We wore snow shoes right from the parking area and kept them on all day. The beaten track was fairly firm in the morning, but if you stepped just slightly off of it, down you went into deep snow. After a while the track was heading south of west, too far left for our liking and in our judgement towards private property. Remembering a cryptic request from Mudhook last week implying there had been some recent trespassing, we assumed that this might be the attractive nuisance causing even more trespassing. Instead of staying on the snow shoe track to find out, we headed off to the right and broke our own trail for a while slightly side-hilling rather than heading straight up to the ridge. It was more work in the deep snow but we had all anticipated that this would be a tough day, although we expected the tough part was going to be past Balsam Cap.
Ultimately, we joined back with the herd path just past the cabin and it was a super-highway from there to Balsam Cap. At one point, someone had sawed a blowdown off of the herd path…so much for a trail-less peak. When we reached the Balsam Cap viewpoint it was snowing and there wasn’t anything to see.
After a brief snack at the BC can, we started for Rocky and were blessed with a solidly packed track all the way to Rocky. So much for our “tough day”. However, there were a couple of tricky ledges and some thick firs to contend with and I did manage to draw a little blood. In the col between BC and Rocky, we met a couple of hikers (on larger shoes than our typical small MSR/Tubbs) who had come from the opposite direction (Denning).
After a little chat, we resumed and started up Rocky. We hiked past a beautiful gap under a big ledge that we first encountered last fall and near a wall reminiscent of the one on Friday. In spots we could see where the hikers we had just met had branched out and broken their own trail, but we stayed with the old track that had served us so well. The track was mostly but not always visually obvious and was fairly easy to stay on. If you went off of it, the feedback was instantaneous.
The hike from Balsam Cap down to the col is longer and tougher than the hike back up Rocky and despite some tricky negotiation up a couple of ledges it seemed we were on the summit of Rocky very quickly. We celebrated with some apple pie courtesy of MountainSister3 (not the bakery kind) and presented Grace with her winter rocker and headed off to the viewpoint. The viewpoint was considerably less windy than at the canister and was a great place for lunch…and there was even pretty good visibility.
The hike back to Balsam Cap seemed to go much faster, although each direction took us about an hour and 15 minutes. Back on the BC summit we met another group of 3 working on squeezing in a few last winter peaks. We had another snack, finished the apple pie, and modeled the latest in summit headgear.
We stopped again at the BC viewpoint and this time the visibility was quite good except for around the summits of Cornell and Wittenberg which were in and out of swiftly moving clouds. From the viewpoint the rest of the hike home went quickly. Parts of the trail had slightly blown in since the morning which made for some of the quietest snow shoeing of the day. Below the jump off to Friday by the pregnant tree, the snow became softer and softer to the point where we were postholing (in snow shoes) in sections that had supported our weight earlier in the day. This isn’t as much of a problem downhill and we made it from Balsam Cap back to Moon Haw Road in about an hour and 45 minutes.
After that we celebrated at Brios. Grace has gone from being a novice to a well prepared and experienced Catskill hiker in about two years, is halfway through the NH 4000 footers, has finished hikes short of the day’s goal, suffered scratches, rain, sub-zero days, 20 mile days, near total submersion off of a flooded ADK trail, and an endless stream of wisecracks, bad jokes and just about everything else her snarky hiking companions could throw at her without ever losing her smile. Amazing!
More pics:
https://plus.google.com/photos/109142731850640716661/albums/6126862256805452465
