Saturday I got back on the trail for the first time in a month.  I was off because of various reasons, but I haven't hiked in almost a month.  I was supposed to go on a hike up Fir, Big Indian, Eagle, and Balsam, with a 630 start time....

Saturday, I did the 2 "high peaks" of the Catskills.  First up was Kaaterskill High Peak.  I started off at Platte Clove road and started up the Long Path.  The trail started as a road, and it was essentially that the whole way up until the crossovers to the snowmobile trails.  It wasn't that steep, and overall rather easy to go up.  At 2 miles I crossed over using a herd path to get to the snowmobile trail.  This path took me past a lovely little camp site and ended next to an airplane wreckage.  At that point, I turned left and went around to go up the s

This weekend, I plan to do Kaaterskill High Peak.  This is another of the "trailless" peaks, but in reality, the majority of it is either the Long Path or snowmobile trails.  Looking at the elevation for this, there's really not much steep until the very end.  I may try to cut a little bit of distance off of the mapped 7.6 miles by bushwhacking when I get to the plateau.

Sherrill and North Dome Saturday..... It was a beautiful day for hiking, and overall the herd path was rather good, with 2 exceptions. Due to the work they are doing on the power lines, the point where the herd path leaves the woods road is rather hard to find since they beat back a lot of the vegetation that was at the start. I ended up going left of the herd path, started up a different woods road and realized I was on the wrong side of the stream.... back tracked a bit until I saw the path on the other side, and crossed.

This coming Saturday, I plan to get back to hiking after a couple weeks off.  The plan for the day are North Dome and Sherrill in the Catskills.  These are both trailless peaks, but they do have established herd paths.  The problem is that there are multiple ways to go up/down these mountains.  The guidebook mentions one going up Sherrill from Shaft road.  There's a route up North Dome from Spurceton road, and there's another that is a mile or so in on the Devils Path from Spruceton.  The guide also says there's a path between the 2 peaks, but the col is narrow

Today I did Bearpen and Vly from the north side.  Most people, in fact all the people I ran into today, will start this hike from the south side where county 3 turns into a dirt road.  Myself, I went in from the north side where county 3 turns to a dirt road mostly because it was closer to home.  The theme of today's hike was woods road.  The hike from the car to the "hunters cabin" where the herd path off to Vly and the snowmobile trail split off of county 3. 

Halcott.... I could swear i read on Catskill Trail Conditions someone complaining that the southern branch of the loop i did was overgrown and difficult to follow. I must be wrong because i did the northern side of the loop up and found that to be the case. So it you want a good bushwhacking challenge, go up the spine like i did. The herd path is good for about 1/3 of a mile, then is disappears until your reach the ridge.  It has been ages since I've done a bushwhack, so it was a good change of pace.

The next peaks I am going to do will start the bushwacks.  First up, I'll be doing Bear Pen and Vly.  These 2 are described as relatively easy as it starts off with woods road and then it's snowmobile tracks to Bear Pen and following the park border the opposite side to vly.   I can come in to that ridge "trail" from the north or the south, and I believe I' will do it from the north as it allows me to get to Halcott easier.  The only issue I'm having with map planning is that these are not trails so I'm relying on someone's All Trails GPS tracks for how to do these,

So, this weekend, Michael and I spent the weekend at ADK Loj and did some hikes.... Well, the weekend weather turned back to winter, or so it seemed.  Saturday it rained all day as a drizzle and was in the 40's with wind chills on the highest of the peaks being well below freezing.  So, with that in mind we did a couple of the Lake Placid 9.

So, the weekend didn't go completely as planned.... The weather flipped on us (as far as forecast) so we did the joint hike on Saturday.  We got to the trailhead just as it got filled up.  The hike in to the col between Blackhead and Black Dome was a rather nice hike.  We stopped on the way up at the spring to make sure our bladders were full as we weren't expecting water until on the way down.  We then made it up to the col, turned right, and headed up Black Dome and Thomas Cole.  Overall, not a bad climb....