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."

Kaaterskill High Peak (attempt), Catskills, NY

January 13th 2013

(via northern, Long Path, approach or from rt 28)

Victoria and myself. Trouble finding the Long Path blazes, parking. Turned around 3 or 4 times on the road. Lost the map somewhere early on the ascent after shedding layers. Feet got wet and cold. Started around 10:30am, reached Ella's Ledge at 11:25am. Used Yak Tracks and Microspikes. Feet got wet and cold. Snow was slushy. Air was warm at times, stripped down to T-shirt. Watched fog moving from above fog. Saw blue skies. Hiked down inside of fog. Maybe we made it to Buttermilk Falls, where we ate lunch, changed Victoria's socks. We headed back around 1:45pm and got back to the car around 4pm. We drove up to the first set of falls and took pictures before driving back to the city.  No distance or elevation numbers.. lost map. We didn't see the snowmobile trails or the summit, obviously. 

Anthony's Nose, Hudson Highlands, NY

Sunday, December 23rd, 2012

I did this in a few hours, maybe three. I don't remember the details. I started at the Toll House. I think it's like 6 miles, round trip. A lot of up and down. I saw a few people on the trail. It was kind of chilly. Got some good pictures on the summit, over the river. I was done by 1pm and headed straight to Ossining to watch football with my friends.

Windham High Peak, Catskills, NY

December 24th, 2012

On Christmas Eve a good sleep (finally) and the sound of my mother leaving for work helped initiate my early start. I think the earliest start I've had in the Catskills. I heard her leave. My dad opened my door soon after and asked me if I was going. I said I was deciding, but I was really just sleeping. I woke up though and left by 7:(something)am and after stopping for coffee, egg and cheese, and bottled water by Bryant Pond Rd, Taconic exit, I was in East Windham before 10am. My official start time will be 9:45am. I was at junction with the yellow blazed trail, which I bypassed, by 10:13am and on the summit less than an hour later, 11:05am, along with another lady wearing MicroSpikes and swinging some hiking poles. Back in the car at 12:20pm. It was funny because I called my Dad, Peter Ross, to let him know a better sense of my return right when I started around 9:45am. He returned the call a little after 12pm, I was almost in exactly the same spot on the trail. I saw a few people. One lady on top and an Asian couple walking up as I was coming down. There were some bicycle tracks in the snow. I decided the two healthy pine groves draping the ridge were my favorite sections of the trail and guessed them to be at least 80 years old. Their exposed root systems liven foot placement. More than a few times I kicked through the ice shelves frozen between the roots.

1,900' gained, 2 hours and 45 minutes, over 3.3 miles (~6.6 round trip)

Peekamoose and Table Mountain, Catskills, NY

December, 17th, 2012

At 4:47am I saw the wait for the next Manhattan bound L train to be 16 minutes. After that I decided to get a taxi just to be safe. It was a black car. $22.

9:23am start at Peekamoose parking lot, only car in lot

turn around time should be 12:25pm

10:20am am I on Peekamoose? there is ice up here on this rock. I climb it, think I might fall. Eat some nuts / granola, drink some water. [Reconnoiter Rock]

10:55am am I at the first lookout or is this really Peekamoose summit? (I totally underestimated the ice). There's no view. The trees disappear into the fog twenty feet away.

11:(something) Peekamoose or Table. I climb on a rock. I'm digital messaging Mike to see if he can confirm where I'm at.

Big ice chunks fall out of the trees. The forest is loud because of all the ice, making constant noise.

11:50am I'm definitely on Table. A grouse scared me. Sounded like a helicopter. The pines are growing out of a bed of their own dead needles. There's a dusting of snow. Turning around soon.

12:05pm At the Table Mountain Shelter. 4.6 miles from the car. I eat a sandwich.

12:22pm I'm back at Table Mountain's summit on my return.

12:43pm I'm back on Peekamoose on the return.

Gloves are on, bad ice right after Peekamoose. I have to use roots to pull myself up the trail.

1:26pm Early mistaken summit on my return. Start listening to Iphone music library. A lot of Jelly Roll Morton. My hat bill pointed down, I just can see a lot of orange / brown leaves on the ground.

2:20pm Return to car. Found a striped shirt piled in the leaves, frozen.

elevation gained: from parking lot to Peeka 2,800', lose and gain 100' between Peeka and Table, plus 400' getting to the Shelter (total 3,400')

Blackhead Range, Catkills, NY

Sunday, December 9, 2012: I didn't get much sleep on Saturday night. We decided on the Blackhead Range as the car rolled away from the Croton Harmon train station. The train I got off arrived at 7:28am from Grand Central. We consulted the giant New York state map book to find a string of towns in the Catskills: Tannersville, East Jewett and Maplecrest. We exited the thruway onto route 32 and made the left toward Hunter infront of a three story house mounted with a black weathervane. This was our first time ascending into the Kaaterskill Valley. Having gone to school in Oneonta, I've driven route 23 across the northeast bluff of the plateau tens of times. The Irene washout in the Kaaterskill Valley remains noticeable from the road. Giant boulders and what could be some of the forest's oldest trees laid dislodged and scattered in the sandy rock beds, a steep drop below the guardrail. We drove through Tannersville and made a right, northward, towards Onteora Park.  Antiquated and decaying wooden lookout towers stood along the side of the road. One in the trails, one up on a hill and one across an open field. At an intersection a stone church had been pushed too far into the soft earth. I thought about using the trailhead on the southern end of the range. We were the second car in the parking lot which appeared closest to the first summit on the map. Green Vermont plates hung on the back of the other car. No sign of Vermonters all day on the ridge. The road ended in a lawn just beyond the gravel lot. Wood burned in the house on the lot. An SUV pulled up to the house as we geared up and a girl got out, hitched up her sagging pants and walked inside. My dad, Peter Ross, changed his clothes and we refined the contents of our packs before we lifted them onto our backs at 9:58am. At 11:13am we had ascended the 1,250' to Caudel, descended the 100' after it, and ascended the remaining 350' to Camel's Hump (3520'). By 11:44am I discovered the summit of Thomas Cole Mountain (3940') and Pete was right behind me arriving at 11:50am. After Thomas Cole we lost and regained 250' plus a few more before snaking through Black Dome's pine capped summit. Unlike on Cole the trees cut below a south-facing rock ledge awards us with an expansive view of the valley holding Hunter and Tannersville in the Hunter - West Kill Mountain Wilderness and Indian Head Wilderness. The scene rises in the slopes and the prominent, blackened ridge-line af the Devil's Path's meanderings above the earth. We descend 550' into the Lockwood gap and intimately study the sedimentary form of the Catskills. The relief in one particular position over Lockwood grows quite drastically into a formidable shelf upon the valley. A seat for a giant. Along the trail in tinier demonstration the thin layers chop up and interlock like the mid-shuffle failure of a card dealer. From Lockwood we observes a few signs and hike up to Blackhead's summit. It waits 500' above us. On top I jog a gentle 50 yards of meandering trail through our third cap of misty pines of the day. The dampness and chill sit upon me at 1:17pm when I arrive and continually haunt me through the five minutes until Pete's arrival. I set my clock to a ten minute timer. Pete and I discuss the landscape and eat our lunches hastily. The alarm rings and Pete takes off first. I take a minute to dawn all my layers, gloves and hat. I swallow a few orange slices. The trip back times out like this: 46 minutes back to Black Dome (2:26pm), 34 minutes to Thomas Cole (2:53pm), and 23 minutes to Camel's Hump (at 3:16pm). We arrive back at the car by 4:24pm. I urinate into the leaves beside the parking lot and beside my own flow of precipitation keenly realize the first drops of an atmospheric contribution to the puny insistence of the bare forest's dead coat. I'm a little disappointed I didn't plan this one better. A loop model could quite efficiently capture Windham High Peak to the north.

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. 

Lambs Hill, Bald, South Beacon, Breakneck, Bull Hill (Hudson Highlands, NY)

january 21st, 2012. i took the train to beacon early in the morning. i hiked the fishkill brook trail and the   fishkill ridge to the north of north beacon. lambs hill is the first summit. I hiked all of the peaks between Fishkill, Beacon and Cold Spring. The only thing left out would be the front ridge of Breakneck and Sugar Loaf. It was an awesome day. I saw one other person on Bull Hill who seemed happy in the thickly falling snow. It was dark as I walked out on the Nelsonville side. I called my mom in the streets above Whistling Willies. It was her birthday.

Balsam, Haynes, Eagle Mountains (Catskills, NY)

November 24th, 2012:
   I was home for Thanksgiving and knew I wanted to walk something. Alex who I haven't seen in years drove up from Brooklyn to my parent's house. By 10am we were sitting in his car unsure about the drive up to the Catskills. It'd be a two-hour drive. I said I'd like to go up there and 'get something.' So we picked Balsam because it only looked like it'd be a short and steep hike. With the late start we only had 4 or 5 hours of daylight to work with. At the McKinley Hollow trailhead we put on our packs around 12:30pm. There's a large wood bridge at just before the register. We walked on the trail on an embankment above the stream, then descended crossed the stream and again and recrossed it. At this point we've walked maybe a quarter of a mile to where the steep ascent begins in the valley.
  This red blazed trail is named Oliverea Mapledale. The land to right of the trail falls off into a sharp gully. Clear icy sounding water fell in the bed. The surrounding land looked dry. A few huge pines cling above the eroding earth. The trail is covered in stones and dead leaves. The sparseness of the vegetation seems to be the catskill trademark. A thin forest of slender, strong looking trees covers the mountain sides. The hollow expansiveness of the woods substitutes for the eerie, dense remoteness you might find in the Adirondack preserves. Add the steady howl of the wind and the experience becomes sufficiently haunting and lonely, an inspiring atmosphere to cut through at a steady pace. There are snow showers in the forecast. A few trees are rolled over and smashed on the trail. Eventually the grade eases and strays from the river valley. The snow begins trickling through the naked trees. I saw a Blue Jay and felt terribly comforted by the brief glimpse of bright color in the drab forest. 1300' above our car Alex peered up at three wooden signs marking the junction of the Mapledale and Pine Hill - West Branch. I'm not sure at what time this was. We hooked a right for Balsam, walked over the summit to a lookout facing the Hunter and Slide mountain wildernesses. We ate here and returned to the junction by 2:20pm. Confirming that at least one of us had a headlamp, we immediately committed to Haynes and Eagle mountains via the opposite section of the Pine Hill trail. The summit of Eagle was a clearing in the woods with a cairn and a fire ring on it. The summit of Haynes was unidentifiable to us as we never once rested on the way to Eagle. We saw only two people our whole time in the woods and they were a well outfitted couple in the falling snow on the Pine Hill stretch somewhere near Haynes' summit. Our peak-bagging side journey to Haynes/Eagle took about an hour and twenty minutes, but now I'm not sure, so maybe longer.
   The difference from before was that it had snowed steadily in that hour. Having not seen Alex in years, I had already exhausted all my questions on his early hiking career, accomplishment of the AT and PCT, summits in the Whites, Smokies, Adirondacks and Europe, South America and let him steadily ease ahead of me back into the valley. The walking was now on a half inch of snow, a full blanket of dead leaves, and hand sized stones. My North Face Shoes didn't have much grip to them. I fell several times, jamming and cutting my hand once. Then I fell one final time just before the trail completely flattened out. We were in the car at 5pm. I was in my apartment in Brooklyn showering by 830pm and very appreciative of Alex for making the quick adventure happen. My first Catskill peaks!

Crestone Peak, Humbolt, Colorado

august 2012: flew into Denver on a Monday morning. left Eerie the next day for Breckenridge. Arrived at Breckenridge and played disc golf, drove south to westcliffe, co. took 4WD road to trailhead camped at south colony lakes, a 3 or 4 miles hike from trailhead. left early the next morning for brokenhand pass. summited crestone peak by 10am. back at camp by 3pm. hiked humbolt the next day. drove back to breckenridge. first 14ers for andrew and i. 4th and 5th for radcliffe who without his toyota truck the trip would not have been possible.