nietzschescat
New member
We started from Platte Clove Road. The trail follows an old road to a designated snow mobile trail that circles around the mountain and Roundtop at about 3000 feet. The trail is a gradual climb and after about the first 15 minutes a squirrel jumped out a tree right behind us on the trail.
I've been looking forward to climbing this mountain again because it's easy to spot across the Hudson River near where I live. The first time I climbed it from Palenville which is something like 12-14 miles and 3000 feet vertical gain. It's beautiful from that direction though because you pass all those waterfalls and the terrain was so varied. That time we didn't stop to look for the view.
The route we took yesterday is always described as wet and yesterday was no exception. At one point the trail seemed to be in the stream bed. We did see a lot of frogs and one red eft. Just as the worst of the wetness began we paused because there was a big evergreen blocking the trail. We heard something in the woods and thought we were going to see our first Catskill bear, but it was a couple from the Bruderhoff hiking around the obstacle.
Eventually we came to the official snow mobile trail and turned right and started to look for the cairn marking the old Twilight Park trail to the summit. The trail was easy to follow up, over and through all the rocks. It's marked with a few old blue paint blazes and a few cairns and obvious crampon marks on the rocks. The summit is a little clearing with a flat rock and 2 USGS survey markers. We walked a little further on to a little rock ledge with a view and then to the wonderful little meadow with great views across the Hudson River and towards Overlook Mountain and the Devil's Path. We could see the bridge and Tivoli Bays and the islands.
We decided to follow the trail down the other side of the mountain. It was sporadically marked with blue discs, but easy to follow and steep! There were pinkster bushes growing on the rock ledge and I paused thinking to take a picture and realized that I was on this tiny ledge with a deep drop and I probably should pay attention to getting down the mountain.
It involved some less than graceful acrobatics, but we got down.
The junction with the snowmobile trail is marked with a wonderful 5 foot rock cairn. We began following the snowmobile trail and contemplated bushwhacking to the main trail saving a few miles, but the nettles kept us on the trail. We walked past an old plane crash which Peter loved, so now I think we are going to have to find some of the other ones.
There was a lot of blow down on the snowmobile trail and it seems like the snowmobiles just end up going around it, but it's open woods and not difficult to walk except for the constant attempt to avoid getting sucked into the mud.
There seems to be a cairn on the main trail marking an obvious herd path which is probably a route to avoid the snowmobile trail.
Just before we made it back to the parking lot, another hiker passed us coming from Huckleberry Point which seemed to be everyone's destination yesterday. We had the whole mountain to ourselves all day.
I've been looking forward to climbing this mountain again because it's easy to spot across the Hudson River near where I live. The first time I climbed it from Palenville which is something like 12-14 miles and 3000 feet vertical gain. It's beautiful from that direction though because you pass all those waterfalls and the terrain was so varied. That time we didn't stop to look for the view.
The route we took yesterday is always described as wet and yesterday was no exception. At one point the trail seemed to be in the stream bed. We did see a lot of frogs and one red eft. Just as the worst of the wetness began we paused because there was a big evergreen blocking the trail. We heard something in the woods and thought we were going to see our first Catskill bear, but it was a couple from the Bruderhoff hiking around the obstacle.
Eventually we came to the official snow mobile trail and turned right and started to look for the cairn marking the old Twilight Park trail to the summit. The trail was easy to follow up, over and through all the rocks. It's marked with a few old blue paint blazes and a few cairns and obvious crampon marks on the rocks. The summit is a little clearing with a flat rock and 2 USGS survey markers. We walked a little further on to a little rock ledge with a view and then to the wonderful little meadow with great views across the Hudson River and towards Overlook Mountain and the Devil's Path. We could see the bridge and Tivoli Bays and the islands.
We decided to follow the trail down the other side of the mountain. It was sporadically marked with blue discs, but easy to follow and steep! There were pinkster bushes growing on the rock ledge and I paused thinking to take a picture and realized that I was on this tiny ledge with a deep drop and I probably should pay attention to getting down the mountain.
It involved some less than graceful acrobatics, but we got down. The junction with the snowmobile trail is marked with a wonderful 5 foot rock cairn. We began following the snowmobile trail and contemplated bushwhacking to the main trail saving a few miles, but the nettles kept us on the trail. We walked past an old plane crash which Peter loved, so now I think we are going to have to find some of the other ones.
There was a lot of blow down on the snowmobile trail and it seems like the snowmobiles just end up going around it, but it's open woods and not difficult to walk except for the constant attempt to avoid getting sucked into the mud.
There seems to be a cairn on the main trail marking an obvious herd path which is probably a route to avoid the snowmobile trail.
Just before we made it back to the parking lot, another hiker passed us coming from Huckleberry Point which seemed to be everyone's destination yesterday. We had the whole mountain to ourselves all day.
