Slide Mountain, Cornell, Wittenberg (Catskills)

Looking back at Slide Mt from the Cornell approach

On December 4th I woke up at 9:20am in a bed in my parent's house. My mother yelled through the door to my brother who laid in a bed next to mine. As I used the bathroom and changed my clothes I imitated his voice. She believed she was hearing him until I put my head in her room. She said, "Seriously," and I kissed her. I poured myself some coffee and ate the last of some oat squares. I left town so quickly I can't remember where I filled the car with gas. There were two vans in the parking lot at the trailhead. I let a song from Ready To Die play out of the car as I stretched next to the open door. I signed the register at 12:10pm and   five minutes later said hello to an older asian couple in the woods beside the trail. The woman knocked a tree trunk with a stick and the man fumbled with his walking staff as a he bunched his collection of fungus against his chest. At 12:23pm I caught the red Wittenberg Trail and by 12:50pm I bypassed a blue trail breaking off to the right. The trail to Slide's summit climbs in a wide, stoney, even grade into some fresh pine woods. After a ways it bends over a slope to the left gives way back to a non-pine forest and then skirts slope rising on your right. The path narrows and cuts through a denser pine forest. Walking I cross through some recently sawed blow down and breath in the air coming up the mountain from the left side of the trail. I'm on top at 1:09pm. I take a few pictures of the landscape below and the Burroughs plaque on the wall of the summit rock. Descending the north east side of slide I photo the great view of Cornell and Wittenberg with my phone. Leafless trees highlight the plots of pine forest sitting on the slopes and domes of Wittenberg and Cornell. "Spruce Grove." At the trough of the valley after down climbing some boxy rock formations and peering into some caves created by rock overhangs you enter one of these dark and wet pine forests. There are a few campsites and an enjoyable feeling of remoteness. You know immediately when your climb begins and the first ascending steps are not false ones. At 2:09pm I'm on the wooded summit of Cornell. I urinate and probe some dense understory to snap a south facing view with the phone. Most of the views on the loop face east, north east. The other view was contrived by some human intervention. A little vista from the muddy summit showed just enough of the sky to watch Wittenberg rise up from right to left on a smooth slope and drop off, like the lick of a whitecap, frothing over in billions of green needles instead of tiny salty bubbles. I quickly descended Cornell into the nicest portion of walking of the day. The ridge that takes you to Wittenberg hangs in the air like a sagging clothes line and leaves you plenty of view off to the right through the staggering pine. I wasn't sure about the summit until I reached a broad stage of treeless rock that look out over wooded ridges and hills onto a lake and a low hanging haze to the east. The sun cross the mountains leaving hard shadows and filling in the undefined moisture of the air with peachy glow. A little after 2:32pm when I photographed enough from the summit to feel the need to hurry on I made an error in judgement that would leave me in a prolonged unsettling moments of darkness. At 3:06pm I bypassed the yellow trail leading to the 2,000-foot Terrace Mountain, only halfway around the 14 miles loop. At the Woodland Valley parking lot it's getting dark at 4pm. Climbing a hill in the valley north of Woodland the darkness completed itself and I resisted using my headlamp for as long as possible, stopped for water, dawning my jacket and affixing my headlamp. at 5:18pm I learn how far Panther Mountain is from the trail by pointing my light on a dark sign on the trail. I'm glad for this sign, but not for the 2.75 left between me and my ride home. Twenty minutes later I come out on the road, disappointed. The road rises quite a bit and the passing cars regard me as nocturnal wildlife and react accordingly, paralyzed in the headlights. The stars lit up magnificently. I felt strange and foreign walking by warmly illuminated windows tucked up off the road. The road inspired a climax in mental activity, and a spat of jogging which resulted in cramp in my lower right quadricep. The running paid off though. When I encounter the parking lot it seemed a good portion sooner than I had expected it.