[at-l] Catskills Trip report

[hudsom at us.ibm.com (Mark Hudson)]

Drove up beyond Mayfield (north of Hunter) and arrived at the trailhead at
9 am. I like an earlier start, but the drive took a little longer than I
expected. A few cars in the parking lot, and one other couple getting ready
to leave. They helped me resolve some trailhead confusion. The map shows
the road continuing beyond the parking area, and it probably did years ago,
but no longer. Due to that, and what I would consider some mis-mapping, it
shows two trail leaving the parking area when the trail junction is
actually quite a bit (1/3 mile?) farther along.
Beautiful, cool, sunny morning, not a cloud in the sky. The woods must have
been holding some humidity over from the last rain, as when the climb
started I was sweating way more than the temp should have made for... found
the trail junction and turned for the col between Blackhead and Black Dome.
Pretty nice going, bit steeper farther up, but then hit the section that a
pro-crew must have put in, switchbacks over the old trail, which was a
good, old-fashioned Catskill vertical section... it was really nice being
on the built trail <g>. Made it to the col and turned for Black Dome and
Thomas Cole peaks, some steep climbing  to get up Black Dome, some nice
ledges to scramble up, watch out for the slick rocks! Not much of a "peak",
but a really nice ledge to look out off of. Didn't stop long since I was
going to be doubling back past the same spot. Headed over to Thomas Cole,
on the same ridge, after the "grunt" up Black Dome I couldn't believe how
easy Cole was, I kept checking the map and walked until things started
downhill again... nope, this is it! Just one little barely there view.
Turned for the short hop back to Black Dome, and along the ridge I managed
to follow a porcupine down the trail for a ways. Those things move a little
faster than they look, he was probably making close to 2 mph and didn't
seem to be hurrying. He finally got tired of me following and wandered off
into the woods... I hope he had a good day too!
Stopped back at the overlook for a snack break, and a trail club from NJ
passed through. Headed back down to the col and met up with a gentleman
from New Paltz, a fellow 46R... Chatted down to the trail junction where he
turned for the parking area and I headed for Blackhead.
Another steep climb, met a couple coming down with their dog, passed
another beautiful overlook, and went on for another snack in the sun at the
summit. Started down the north route, toyed with the idea of heading for
Windham High Peak until I looked at the miles on the map, didn't want to
turn my hike from a happy little dayhike into a trudge. The trail starts
down steeply from the summit, and then gets steeper. Met two guys on the
way up and called out to them that they were almost there, and then
realized that they were the rangers <g>. Chatted just a little, they warned
me I still had "The Wall" in front of me to go down. Well, it was steep,
and I was glad not to be doing it in the rain, but I didn't think it was
that bad...
Met two more guys at the next trail junction, and then headed for the car,
rock hopping down some very wet trail. Given what a beautiful day it was I
was surprised not to see more people. I'm hoping we get some more weekends
like that this fall. One for the Gathering would be perfect!

skeeter