WoodHull->Van Wyck 10/11/08

[Jay H]

Participants: me, Dick, Edelweiss, Hoosier, Snickers.
Place: the southern Catskills
Time: Sat, Oct 11th

What started as a little small shindig in the catskills has turned out to be a really fun event to converge similar like-minded Catskills wackos to get together and relate. The third iteration of the event found us scheming to do two peaks, WoodHull and Van Wyck in a different fashion than some of us have done before. This would be my third Van Wyck summit hike and second Wood Hull summit hike, but in a different fashion, we would start at Woodhull and follow the Catskill Divide over to Van Wyck and then descend the seriously steep south face down towards the campsites at Sundown. Both Van Wyck's summit hikes had us going up the steep slope so I was a little apprehensive of finding a good way down that minimized the steep descent.

Starting at our parking spot, since we had some more beta of the property over there, we headed right up some pretty steep mossy covered slope. Mudhook and I walked the public road, down to state land past some summer houses and a final hunter's cabin at the very end before hitting state land and making a sharp left turn. This time, we took the shortest route possible which in this case was a direct steep line right from the parking lot up the hill!

Surprisingly, I didn't have too many complaints and Snickers was pretty quiet according to my SPL meter I was carrying instead of a GPS. After a short bit of zigzagging, trying to recreate the 100 or so switchbacks of Mt Whitney, we hit the nice ridgeline and start turning up to the summit. At which point we find our first "big rock summit spot" conveniently placed on the duff and ferns. I climb a tree, Joanne shoots some photos and we kind of woohoo and ponder as we continue east along the summit.

At which point we come upon another higher rock but this time with a Cairn on it. More pictures are taken and more woohoos are spouted.

Then, another rock is climbed and another cairn seen and we started to wish we had Mudhook's laser level.

I think we ran into a total of 3 cairn'd rocks at which the 4th rock appeared to be possibly higher than the other three with cairns on them.

Strange days have found us
Strange days have tracked us down
They're going to destroy
Our casual joys
We shall go on playing
Or find a new town
Yeah!
Strange eyes fill strange rooms
Voices will signal their tired end
The hostess is grinning
Her guests sleep from sinning

-"Strange Days" The Doors.

So after Joanne takes her requisite 1000 photos with her fancy camera of hers, I take a bearing towards the 2600'ish col between the two and the merry band of hikers rotely follow Hoosier and I towards what lies below.

No indian ruins were found at the col or on the nice herdpath leading right to Van Wyck and the water spout that is listed on the catskill map. We found a pipe in the rocks with some cold fresh water coming out of it, then realized that I recall seeing a W in the middle of nowhere. Eventually, Joanne would take another fancy device, called a GPS and get a waypoint of it. But we simply looked at it and contemplated the coolness of finding a pipe in a rock in the middle of nowhere.

Onto the viewpoint at which I professionally led us right to it and we all ooohed and ahhhed at the crimson view and pointed out everything from skytop to the towers at Lake "Tony Danza" to high point in NJ. Lunch was had and chocolate was eaten and then we dropped packs and shuffled to the fern covered summit. Joanne took some more photos of people standing in Ferns and I shoved Snickers off the summit. Weeeeeeeeeee!

Now, back onto terra firma and heading back down, we decided to drop 200ish feet back to the water spout and then start downclimbing to the finger of Van Wyck (don't ask which finger! ). It's pretty steep and drops from about 3000ft to about 2550'ish and it's probably one of the steepest ascents in the catskills I've came across, fortunately, not cliffy like Friday but similar to the east face of KHP, perhaps but without the thick fir at the top since it's lower in elevation than KHP. We do manage to downclimb without incident and hit the finger sort of where we wanted. I tried to run over to where the bear holes are but didn't find them, I think we were a bit farther west.

We did run into the plane engine from the upper civilian wreck as it is a Avco/Lycoming Flat-6 (aka a boxer engine) that looks to be in pretty good shape, other than a lot of bent manifolds and the three intact propellars were bent back towards the engine body. No parts were there and we, strangely, didn't find the main body of the wreckage. though we didn't do that thorough of a search. Continuing down the finger, I'm trying to aim for Merritt field to avoid crossing the Rondout but we hit a woods road and we follow that, perhaps mistakenly, down way to westerly than my intent and see camping sites and the river and no way to get over it other than rock hopping or wading. Later, we find it is the Middle field of sundown so we simply walk back up to the upper and our cars. Snickers says the water is really cold, but maybe that is because she is made up of Milk chocolate and blue M&Ms???

So, a really nice hike and some interesting new tidbits of information. A lot of bear scat was analyzed and some interesting mushrooms were found, none of which were labelled so none were tasted.

Jay

 

[Edelweiss]

Thanks for leading this hike Jay. No need for a GPS when Jay is in charge. Map and compass all the way, except for a quick look at the GPS to make sure we were on track.
The photo link also includes a hike up Huckleberry Mt. we completed on 10/12: a different cast of "characters" but the same result - a great fall foliage outing.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slidesh...6&Uy=-rocw3a&Ux=0&UV=50079100476_443639650406

 

[Peakbagr]

Jay,

I looked at the route from your tracklog compared to how Ralph and I went. You guys appeared to dogleg a bit left on the way to Woodhull's summit, coming up a little more to the SW than we did. The cairns you ran into are likely from the locals who go up there to hunt. The guy who gave us permission said the local folks walk the ridge to VW and I'm guessing you followed the breadcrumbs they left along the ridge to the top ow Woodhull.
The same guy told us that his grandfather was the one who'd heard that the rocky formation just below VW's top was an area the Native Americans used.
Thats the 'amphitheater' we referred to in our trip report. He didn't know who drove the water spout in the rock, but would sure be handy on an otherwise dry ridge.

 

[Jay H]

We doglefted left because we'd figure we'd hit the ridgeline sooner and avoid as much steepness as possible. However, it turned kind of fruitless after a bit and I kind of made the executive decision to just pick the easiest path to switchback up..

Jay

 

[rhihn]

We doglefted left because we'd figure we'd hit the ridgeline sooner and avoid as much steepness as possible. However, it turned kind of fruitless after a bit and I kind of made the executive decision to just pick the easiest path to switchback up..

Jay

Though relatively short, it was right up there among the steeper bushwhacks I can recall doing. But going straight up was easier for me than side-hilling.

Dick

 

[Jay H]

I prefer the direct approach when it comes to bushwacking, unless I've been there before and know it is easier doing the round about approach.

Jay