DSettahr
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Pictures Here
Yet another weekend trip with my friend Anna down to the Catskills to bag some more peaks and another lean-to.
We got somewhat of a late start on Friday afternoon, arriving at the trailhead where the Long Path crosses Platte Clove Road right as darkness was falling. We grabbed our packs, donned our headlamps, and headed across the King Post Bridge into the Platte Clove Preserve.
The trail in is in pretty good shape- in the Platte Clove Preserve it has been rerouted off of the old Overlook Mountain Road due to severe erosion, and I don't think it gets much use due to the popularity of the Prediger Road trailhed, despite the added distance when coming from there. It was certainly interesting to be backpacking along what was essentially a nature trail- complete with little informational signs pointing out different tree species as well as historical artifacts, such as the Overlook Road and a bluestone quarry.
As the trails goes up only moderate grades before leveling offer a little ways north of the lean-to, we made it there quite quickly. We arrived to find two girls with a tent set up inside the lean-to. Apparently it was their first backpacking trip into the Catskills, and they were unaware of many of the regulations. No big deal, however, as they welcomed us into the lean-to with them and the tent was small enough for us to have plenty of space for ourselves. They had come in the same way we had, elected the shorter Platte Clove Preserve Approach to the longer Prediger Road one. (One of the girls and I later realized that we had gone to high school together!)
Having already eaten dinner prior to starting our hike, we were soon in bed and nearly asleep when we were awoken by 5 hikers showing up at the lean-to. It turned out that between them, they only had one small tarp for shelter; they had come in from Prediger Road, and I'm guessing that when they arrived at the trailhead to find it empty, they assumed that the lean-to would be empty as well, either not knowing about other potential approaches to the lean-to, or just assuming that no one would use them. Either way, they were obviously concerned given the forecast for rain during the night and into the next day, and with four people already in the lean-to, it was going to be a tight fit to get five more. They awoke the two girls in the tent, and asked them to move the tent outside of the lean-to so that they could stay in it, explaining "that they had no other option, and that it's illegal to have tents erected in a lean-to," which is correct, but that "it was legal for the girls to pitch their tent next to the lean-to," which is incorrect. The girls graciously agreed to this, however, and after much moving of equipment out of and into the lean-to, everyone settled down for the night. (Side note: This was lean-to number 76 for me!)
During the night, a thunderstorm of moderate intensity blew through. The rain was pretty heavy at times, although the lightening and thunder was fairly week. I think that being on the eastern edge of the catskills, and on the leeward side of Indian Head Mountain and the rest of the Devil's Path, the storm had lost a lot of it's strength and intensity by the time it got to us- most of the cloud to ground lightening was probably striking the summit, several miles to the west.
When we awoke, we encountered steady rainfall and cooler temperatures. The group of five without sufficient shelter packed up early and headed out- they were climbing Indian Head, Twin, and Sugarloaf, and intended to stay at the Mink Hollow Lean-to the second night, and hike back over Sugarloaf and Twin to return to the parking area on Sunday. I hope that they got to the Mink Hollow Lean-to and found that there was space available. Hopefully they learned from this to always carry shelter even if you think the lean-to you're headed to is empty.
We packed day packs, and headed back norther along the Long Path. At Platte Clove Road, we noticed a sign we hadn't seen in the darkness the previous night asking hikers to park at the DEC trailhead parking area down the road, so we moved the car before continuing north towards out destination, Kaaterskill High Peak.
Snowmobile Trails generally don't make good hiking trails, and the section of the Long Path between Platte Clove Road and Kaaterskill High Peak is no exception to this rule. South of the height of land, the trail was filled with rocks of all sizes. It wasn't especially difficult to hike along, but it did require coordination and balance at times, and was fairly rough on your knees and ankles. Upon reaching the height of land, it turns into a very nice, flat, beautiful section of trail for a short distance before worsening again. The north side of the height of land is just as wet as the south side was rocky. We encountered flooded section after flooded section of trail. The NYNJTC map labels this area as "Pine Plains," but we noticed no pines anywhere, and there certainly wasn't anything resembling a plain either. At least the rain started to cease, and the sun actually started to come out as we continued along the trail.
Eventually, we reached the junction with the foot trail- the snowmobile trail here makes a left hand turn to head south towards the loop trail around Kaaterskill High Peak, which we took, and the Long Path continues straight as a foot path. This junction was well marked, as was the next junction, where the snowmobile trail intersects the loop snowmobile trail around the mountain. The loop trail unfortunately had several sets of fresh dirt bike tracks on it. We turned right (west) on the loop trail, and before long found the junction with the herd path (the old Twilight Park Trail) up Kaaterskill High Peak, which was also fairly obvious.
The trail was easy to follow, and went pretty much straight up the mountain. It was very similar in character to any of the herd paths on the "trail-less" Adirondack High Peaks. The trail was fairly wet still in a lot of spots, which was to be expected as it faces north and doesn't get as much sunlight. About two thirds of the way up, we encountered a ledge that gave us some views to the north of Kaaterskill Clove and the Blackhead Range, but it was a pretty sketchy ledge that sloped down to a sheer drop. I wouldn't recommend trying to walk out to the edge.
After a fair bit of climbing the trail leveled off, and took us through some really cool fir stands until we popped out on the summit. There is a moderately sized clearing here, and the summit USGS marker is in the woods about 10 or 15 feet to the east, not too hard to find. There was a piece of plane wreckage at the summit as well. Three very distinct paths leave the summit- one going north, which we came from, one going east, and one going south. We took the east one first, intending to try and find the plane wreck near the summit. In this endeavor, we were unsuccessful, but our journey down the herd path was not without merit. It soon became obvious that we were headed downhill. We reached a point where it looked like the path faded out over a rock ledge, and I seriously considered turning back, but I decided to hop down over the ledge and take a look just to see if it went any further. I’m sure glad I did, because another 50 feet further on, the path ended on a rock ledge with spectacular views of the Hudson River Valley, Plattekill Clove, Overlook Mountain, and the eastern extremes of the Devil’s Path. This lookout point is shown on the NYNJTC map, but the herd path to it is not. It looks like the herd path has received some recent “improvements” as there were lots of cut branches along it. Of the plane crash, however, we saw no sign other than the piece of wreckage at the summit.
After returning to the summit, we took the herd path south to check out Hurricane Ledges. The view from here was even more spectacular, and made a perfect lunch spot even though it was a bit windy. By this point, though the sun was out in full force shining through numerous gaps in the clouds, allowing us to dry off some of our wet clothing. I strongly recommend that everyone who climbs Kaaterskill High Peak from the north make the effort to head down the short distance to the south to check out the view from the ledges, even if you don’t intend to descent that way.
After lunch, we decided to descend the ledges. It was steep, and there were some tricky scrambles to negotiate, as well as some narrow sections of trail that traversed sideways along the hill, but nothing too terribly difficult. Before long, we had reached the southern portion of the snowmobile loop trail. This junction was marked with a pretty large cairn. Again here, we saw the same dirt bike tracks as on the northern portion, indicating that the responsible parties had probably done the whole loop around the mountain.
Continued in next post…
Yet another weekend trip with my friend Anna down to the Catskills to bag some more peaks and another lean-to.
We got somewhat of a late start on Friday afternoon, arriving at the trailhead where the Long Path crosses Platte Clove Road right as darkness was falling. We grabbed our packs, donned our headlamps, and headed across the King Post Bridge into the Platte Clove Preserve.
The trail in is in pretty good shape- in the Platte Clove Preserve it has been rerouted off of the old Overlook Mountain Road due to severe erosion, and I don't think it gets much use due to the popularity of the Prediger Road trailhed, despite the added distance when coming from there. It was certainly interesting to be backpacking along what was essentially a nature trail- complete with little informational signs pointing out different tree species as well as historical artifacts, such as the Overlook Road and a bluestone quarry.
As the trails goes up only moderate grades before leveling offer a little ways north of the lean-to, we made it there quite quickly. We arrived to find two girls with a tent set up inside the lean-to. Apparently it was their first backpacking trip into the Catskills, and they were unaware of many of the regulations. No big deal, however, as they welcomed us into the lean-to with them and the tent was small enough for us to have plenty of space for ourselves. They had come in the same way we had, elected the shorter Platte Clove Preserve Approach to the longer Prediger Road one. (One of the girls and I later realized that we had gone to high school together!)
Having already eaten dinner prior to starting our hike, we were soon in bed and nearly asleep when we were awoken by 5 hikers showing up at the lean-to. It turned out that between them, they only had one small tarp for shelter; they had come in from Prediger Road, and I'm guessing that when they arrived at the trailhead to find it empty, they assumed that the lean-to would be empty as well, either not knowing about other potential approaches to the lean-to, or just assuming that no one would use them. Either way, they were obviously concerned given the forecast for rain during the night and into the next day, and with four people already in the lean-to, it was going to be a tight fit to get five more. They awoke the two girls in the tent, and asked them to move the tent outside of the lean-to so that they could stay in it, explaining "that they had no other option, and that it's illegal to have tents erected in a lean-to," which is correct, but that "it was legal for the girls to pitch their tent next to the lean-to," which is incorrect. The girls graciously agreed to this, however, and after much moving of equipment out of and into the lean-to, everyone settled down for the night. (Side note: This was lean-to number 76 for me!)
During the night, a thunderstorm of moderate intensity blew through. The rain was pretty heavy at times, although the lightening and thunder was fairly week. I think that being on the eastern edge of the catskills, and on the leeward side of Indian Head Mountain and the rest of the Devil's Path, the storm had lost a lot of it's strength and intensity by the time it got to us- most of the cloud to ground lightening was probably striking the summit, several miles to the west.
When we awoke, we encountered steady rainfall and cooler temperatures. The group of five without sufficient shelter packed up early and headed out- they were climbing Indian Head, Twin, and Sugarloaf, and intended to stay at the Mink Hollow Lean-to the second night, and hike back over Sugarloaf and Twin to return to the parking area on Sunday. I hope that they got to the Mink Hollow Lean-to and found that there was space available. Hopefully they learned from this to always carry shelter even if you think the lean-to you're headed to is empty.
We packed day packs, and headed back norther along the Long Path. At Platte Clove Road, we noticed a sign we hadn't seen in the darkness the previous night asking hikers to park at the DEC trailhead parking area down the road, so we moved the car before continuing north towards out destination, Kaaterskill High Peak.
Snowmobile Trails generally don't make good hiking trails, and the section of the Long Path between Platte Clove Road and Kaaterskill High Peak is no exception to this rule. South of the height of land, the trail was filled with rocks of all sizes. It wasn't especially difficult to hike along, but it did require coordination and balance at times, and was fairly rough on your knees and ankles. Upon reaching the height of land, it turns into a very nice, flat, beautiful section of trail for a short distance before worsening again. The north side of the height of land is just as wet as the south side was rocky. We encountered flooded section after flooded section of trail. The NYNJTC map labels this area as "Pine Plains," but we noticed no pines anywhere, and there certainly wasn't anything resembling a plain either. At least the rain started to cease, and the sun actually started to come out as we continued along the trail.
Eventually, we reached the junction with the foot trail- the snowmobile trail here makes a left hand turn to head south towards the loop trail around Kaaterskill High Peak, which we took, and the Long Path continues straight as a foot path. This junction was well marked, as was the next junction, where the snowmobile trail intersects the loop snowmobile trail around the mountain. The loop trail unfortunately had several sets of fresh dirt bike tracks on it. We turned right (west) on the loop trail, and before long found the junction with the herd path (the old Twilight Park Trail) up Kaaterskill High Peak, which was also fairly obvious.
The trail was easy to follow, and went pretty much straight up the mountain. It was very similar in character to any of the herd paths on the "trail-less" Adirondack High Peaks. The trail was fairly wet still in a lot of spots, which was to be expected as it faces north and doesn't get as much sunlight. About two thirds of the way up, we encountered a ledge that gave us some views to the north of Kaaterskill Clove and the Blackhead Range, but it was a pretty sketchy ledge that sloped down to a sheer drop. I wouldn't recommend trying to walk out to the edge.
After a fair bit of climbing the trail leveled off, and took us through some really cool fir stands until we popped out on the summit. There is a moderately sized clearing here, and the summit USGS marker is in the woods about 10 or 15 feet to the east, not too hard to find. There was a piece of plane wreckage at the summit as well. Three very distinct paths leave the summit- one going north, which we came from, one going east, and one going south. We took the east one first, intending to try and find the plane wreck near the summit. In this endeavor, we were unsuccessful, but our journey down the herd path was not without merit. It soon became obvious that we were headed downhill. We reached a point where it looked like the path faded out over a rock ledge, and I seriously considered turning back, but I decided to hop down over the ledge and take a look just to see if it went any further. I’m sure glad I did, because another 50 feet further on, the path ended on a rock ledge with spectacular views of the Hudson River Valley, Plattekill Clove, Overlook Mountain, and the eastern extremes of the Devil’s Path. This lookout point is shown on the NYNJTC map, but the herd path to it is not. It looks like the herd path has received some recent “improvements” as there were lots of cut branches along it. Of the plane crash, however, we saw no sign other than the piece of wreckage at the summit.
After returning to the summit, we took the herd path south to check out Hurricane Ledges. The view from here was even more spectacular, and made a perfect lunch spot even though it was a bit windy. By this point, though the sun was out in full force shining through numerous gaps in the clouds, allowing us to dry off some of our wet clothing. I strongly recommend that everyone who climbs Kaaterskill High Peak from the north make the effort to head down the short distance to the south to check out the view from the ledges, even if you don’t intend to descent that way.
After lunch, we decided to descend the ledges. It was steep, and there were some tricky scrambles to negotiate, as well as some narrow sections of trail that traversed sideways along the hill, but nothing too terribly difficult. Before long, we had reached the southern portion of the snowmobile loop trail. This junction was marked with a pretty large cairn. Again here, we saw the same dirt bike tracks as on the northern portion, indicating that the responsible parties had probably done the whole loop around the mountain.
Continued in next post…
