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.  What that meant was it was dark and cold where I almost considered putting my fleece back on.  Nearly 2 miles later I hit the peak, and found that the trail to the overlook just past the peak had not been broken.  I broke to the view, but it was quite obvious that nobody had been up from Mink Hollow since the storm.  The views on this side were ok, and worth breaking the 0.1 miles or so, but not as good as the ones on the other end.

Hiking back I took a closer look at the Warner Creek trail, and saw that too wasn't broken out since the storm.  When I got back to Orchard Point, I met 2 women that had just hiked up, and that was their destination.  I told them about a different ledge only around the corner where they could get views to the north, and explained heel lifts on snowshoes to them since their shoes didn't have any.  I then carefully descended the steep trail and got back to my car in one piece.

#28/37 for the 3500.... all that is left is the "Catskill 9"

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