For my last winter hike of the year, I went back up north and decided to do a "simple" 12 mile hike, TableTop and Phelps.  The weather forecast was good, but suggested weather would be moving in later in the day.

Did a solo winter hike here.  Plateau has a couple ways up, and my concern was finding one that was broken out from the storm Friday into Saturday.  First stop was off of 214, and that was broken out.   This trail is a beast though.  1600 feet up in the first mile.  I was soooo thankful for my heel lifts, but it still took me nearly 2 hours to get up to Orchard Point.  Let me tell you though, the views though were well worth it.  I then started across the ridge to the true peak of Plateau.  This was a lovely forested, mostly evergreen, trail.

We started late for me, at 930, with the hopes that someone had been through and broken trail from the storm the friday/saturday before.  We were lucky.  It was broken.  Overall, it was a beautiful day. Clear sky, and warm.  I was sweating my ass off within a mile, and stripped down to just my long underwear top.  Unfortunately, I was wearing long underwear bottoms under my insulated pants, and my bottom half was sweating all day.  We made it to the col between the 2 mountains and went up Indian Head first.

I have heard many good things about doing Allen mountain in the winter.  Biggest being that the hike up Allen Brook is not a slippery mess of moss and slime.  I was looking forward to doing this hike in the winter to see how much better it can be.  I also have never come in from the south on the East River trail, so those couple miles would be new to me.

Original plan was to do just these three peaks.  We had options of adding in Hough and Dix if we felt it.  We didn't feel it.

This was the last of my required winter peaks for the 3500.  This time I went up from McKinley Hollow, like I did a month or two earlier for Eagle.  The trail was a mix, but mostly soft, slushy snow.  By the time I got to the ridge trail, I was slipping more than not even with microspikes, and my feet were wet from the mashed potato snow/slush I was hiking in.  I put on the shoes and hiked off to the peak, and the viewpoint after the peak.  This, as agreed to by the only other pair of hikers using shoes, felt like breaking trail.  It was just bad conditions for hiking in general.  The weath

I took a day off because my legs were unhappy with the postholes on Panther/Giant's Ledge.  I arrived bright and early for Blackhead and originally was going to go up between Blackhead and Black Dome and do it as an in and out.  I decided when I got to the first trail junction though that I would do it as a loop.  Heading up, there was a mix of bare trail and snow/ice until on the escarpment trail, just past the lean-to.

So, this is the first repeat I've done.  I did Panther originally on June 5.  This is one of the required winter peaks though, so once again I did it.  We started off of 47 like I did the previous time.  The trail up to the ledges was better than when I did it in the spring only because it was not rocks and you can see where it is on the more vertical rocky places.  The problem was that it was postholed like crazy, which made hiking it difficult.  The trip across the ridge to the ledges was uneventful and the climb up to the ledges was tough, but doable with microspikes.  The views though..

This was the first of 4 planned end of year "Winter" hikes.  Slide is the highest point in the Catskills, and the hike up was a challenge.  Started off on 47 and first thing you face is a big stream.  Thankfully it was frozen over for us.  The trail was then a mix of ice, snow, and bare spots pretty much up until the first trail junction.  After that it was just hard packed snow and ice to the top.  Absolutely beautiful scenery, the trees holding the snow looked almost alien.  When we got to the top, the views were just amazing.  Overall, the trail was in pretty good shape, and not as steep

The original plan was to do the whole range as a through hike, but nobody wanted to hike with me.  So, instead I did just Sugarloaf, and I am glad I did only that.  The hike in from Roaring Kill is a quite lovely trail.  It was chilly out, but I was sweating, so I stripped down to just my thermal layer on top.  Small mistake, my belly was a little frostbitten at the end of the day.  The trail was in good shape going up the Devils Path from the trail junction.  There was ice around, and the ice flowing down the cliff and rock faces was beautiful.  Finally, right before the 3500 mark, I had t