Giant Ledge n over to Panther Mountain from rt 47 PA, catskills, a required 3500 winter peak.
Temps were in the upper 30s, cool n sunny most of the day with clouds closing in later that evening. Views n vistas were amzing all day. At the top of Giant Ledge we stopped for lunch at one of our favorite views then headed up Panther mountain.
On the way up Panther lots of people passed us as by but we weren't in any hurry on such a perfect day. Once up top we did the summit hero shots n broke out the stove to make fresh coffee n enjoy snacks as we talked to all the tourists.
The 2 feet of snow was getting soft as the day progressed but was still very packable despite the warm temps. The trail was in perfect condition till the traffic of bare booters picked up in the afternoon.
It seems after talking to barebooters the consensus is no one really cares about maintaining a nice packed trail in the Catskills. This struk me as unusuall since I've been hiking these mountains for 40 years n never seen so much dissregard as I do now. It just seems so selfish for anyone to say that. I can understand newbies not knowing but the older guys telling me no one cares? In the ADKs it's law, do we need a law so people can be more considerate to eachother?
Some newbies that barebooted n carried their snowshoes up the mountain learned on their way down is when you notice trail damage most. Barebooting on the way down was very slippery in the steeps without either crampons or snowshoes n even with that, it was a chalange on the very loose trashed snow full of leg breaker post holes. We rode our snowshoes like skis, scarry at times, but we had a blast anyway.
Temps were in the upper 30s, cool n sunny most of the day with clouds closing in later that evening. Views n vistas were amzing all day. At the top of Giant Ledge we stopped for lunch at one of our favorite views then headed up Panther mountain.
On the way up Panther lots of people passed us as by but we weren't in any hurry on such a perfect day. Once up top we did the summit hero shots n broke out the stove to make fresh coffee n enjoy snacks as we talked to all the tourists.
The 2 feet of snow was getting soft as the day progressed but was still very packable despite the warm temps. The trail was in perfect condition till the traffic of bare booters picked up in the afternoon.
It seems after talking to barebooters the consensus is no one really cares about maintaining a nice packed trail in the Catskills. This struk me as unusuall since I've been hiking these mountains for 40 years n never seen so much dissregard as I do now. It just seems so selfish for anyone to say that. I can understand newbies not knowing but the older guys telling me no one cares? In the ADKs it's law, do we need a law so people can be more considerate to eachother?
Some newbies that barebooted n carried their snowshoes up the mountain learned on their way down is when you notice trail damage most. Barebooting on the way down was very slippery in the steeps without either crampons or snowshoes n even with that, it was a chalange on the very loose trashed snow full of leg breaker post holes. We rode our snowshoes like skis, scarry at times, but we had a blast anyway.
