2/4/13 - Big Indian and Fir Mountain

Began at Biscuit Brook Trailhead around 7:20am, passed the shelter at 8:08am and ate a slice of Carmine's Pizza from Brooklyn at the top of Big Indian by 9:40am. All under a few inches of fresh snow so the faint tracks wandering east on the Catskill Divide quickly vanished. That didn't matter because the slight navigational challenge only complemented the beauty of this stretch between B.I.M and Fir. I was towing along Zachary on his first hike in the Skills and following my IPhone compass which I didn't really need yet. We spent about 5 minutes searching for the Fir canister and had another slice here, at 11:16am, before I made a terrible navigational error. Ate the pizza, ate a cookie, pulled out my iphone, did the figure-8 thing, pointed the phone south and walked in the direction I thought was south. About ten minutes later I was admiring Slide mountains bold profile and correctly doubting my choice of direction. I'm not mad at myself for forgetting a real compass or for even using an iphone compass incorrectly and going in the wrong direction for a bit, I'm mad because I stupidly didn't listen to myself when the doubt set in. I knew if I was looking at Slide mountain I was heading east and if the sun was hovering over my right shoulder I was heading east, eh didn't matter. I already slid down a couple hundred feet off snow, ice and rock ledge, so I was just going to walk until I hit that little road in the distance. When I started seeing houses and a river I thought 'oh this might be Frost Valley's facility' and continued building false hope until we read a mailbox on the main road and saw 'Oliverea'. We were on Oliverea road around 1pm and informed by a man in a van we were ten miles from the Biscuit Brook Trailhead. Ouch. It's okay, someone will give us a ride. Nope. 3 hours, fifteen minutes and 9 miles later back at the car, debilitated by the pavement. D'oh! Back in Brooklyn by 7:20pm and at work by 9pm. My supervisor says, "You look disheveled."