Catskills Weekend

 

Recently we spent spent a long weekend up in the Catskills Park, a mountainous region of New York.  Specifically, we stayed near the village of Saugerties.  

   

Home base for the next several days

Kaaterskill Falls is near Saugerties.  The 260-foot falls descend two tiers into a creek that runs through a ravine.  In the 1800s there was a 50-room boarding house at the top of the falls, Laurel House.  After the land was acquired in 1967 by the state of New York the derelict building was burned down to make room for a camp ground.  If you go off-trail a little bit you can find the old stone foundations (which we did).  The very steep cut-stone steps to the base of the falls were slightly treacherous but worth the effort of carefully picking our way down.  After having the place to ourselves early in the morning we walked back up to the viewing platform.  The sun was fitfully trying to break through the clouds and we were treated to some rays of warmth.

View from the bottom of the first tier

Bottom of both tiers and the creek

Overhead from the view platform

The Catskills were well past peak fall foliage but there were still some spots with a little bit of color

Next we drove out to the trail for Giant Ledge, a three-mile round trip hike that involved a bit of rock scrambling and some steep inclines for a total gain of 1,000 feet.  Our reward was panoramic scenery from an elevation of 3,200 feet.

For lunch we treated ourselves to the suds of Woodstock Brewery, which is actually just outside of Phoenicia.  They had a seasonal Baltic porter that we wished was being sold in cans but alas, it was not.

   

Is this where Rip Van Winkle fell asleep?

Coming back down some of the rocky bits

For dinner we went out to a cozy place in Saugerties called The Dutch and had an awesome meal.  in the evening the stove made the cabin very toasty.

   

The next morning was spent reading and sipping coffee during an hours-long deluge of rain.  I filled the tub with the hottest water that we could get and lit a fire.  Quickly, we took turns in the tub and tried not to freeze our ***s off before leaping back into the warm cabin to dry off!  Once the skies cleared we went back into town for a lunch of bagel sandwiches followed by a little shopping.  The town of Woodstock is still the home of many artists and artisans so we enjoyed a light afternoon of browsing and a little pick-me-up at a pub.

This place in Woodstock was covered in the best decorations!

Saturday was our last full day in the Catskills so we hiked up Overlook Mountain.  The five-mile round trip trail is relatively easy but after the ankle busing rocks of Giant Ledge I was looking something a little easier.  Even though Overlook is a little shorter (3,150 ft) than Giant Ledge (3,200 ft) we upped our elevation gain and hiked up 1,400 feet.  The ground have the remnants of a never-finished hotel from the 1930s.  Previously the site had a Victorian hotel that was dubbed the "summer White House" while President Ulysses S. Grant famously stayed there.  When the hotel was abandoned it was used by the State of New York and it became a sanatorium, which eventually burned down.  Property developers were in the process of building the Overlook Mountain House when WWII's demand for labor and resources brought the project to a halt.  It was never finished and now the stone skeleton remains.  There is a 80-foot fire tower at the nearby peak of Overlook Mountain.

We had a rather large repeat lunch at Woodstock Brewery and spent the afternoon hanging out back at the cabin and took baths again, this time in 38-degree blowing wind and rain!  In the evening the clouds scattered just enough for a little bit of night-time photography.  The next morning we had excellent bagels for breakfast and walked out to the Saugerties Lighthouse which sits on the Hudson River.  On weekdays you can pay to stay overnight in the well-preserved 1869 building.

That pretty much sums it up!  I've always wanted to see the Catskills region of New York.  It was much more rural and undeveloped than I expected.  Most of the time we were out of the range of any cell service which is perfectly fine these days.  I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for an escape from the East Coast that's a reasonable half-day drive away.

Wild and Wonderful

"There are no straight roads in West Virginia."

The words someone I know once used to describe a road trip through one of Maryland's neighboring states are quite accurate.  This weekend was spent at a small section within expansive Monongahela National Forest.  From our house it's 160 miles as the crow flies, but the twisty turning roads make it a four-and-a-half hour journey.  Our location was a good 90 minutes from the nearest corner grocery and solidly devoid of all cellular service.  If you're looking to escape from city/suburban life, it doesn't get easier than this!  We headed out on Friday.

En-route was a parking area for the very short but satisfying trail around Spruce Knob, West Virginia's highest point (4,863 feet).  We stretched our legs for a little bit before driving the final 20 minutes to Spruce Knob Lake Campground, which is managed by the U.S. Forest Service.  Nearby are miles of recreation trails within deep valleys and wooded ridgelines that don't see as many visitors as (relatively) nearby Shenandoah National Park.

Views to the northwest of Spruce Knob.  

Opposite mountain ridges are at about 4,000 feet.

Making the perfect marshmallow/sausage roasting sticks

After setting up our simple campsite and collecting firewood from the friendly campground host we began preparations for dinner.  Our trusty 20-year-old backcountry stove gave up the ghost!  Hans spent nearly two hours troubleshooting but there was something fatally wrong with the flow of fuel to the burner head.  With a great deal of trepidation I lit a small fire and managed to cook a meal in one of our camping pots over the flame.  It turned out pretty great! 

"One Pot" Pasta Marinara:

Melt 1 tbsp. coconut oil (travels well in the cooler) and sauté 1/2 cup chopped onion.  Add 1/2 lb ground beef and brown.  Add a small can of tomato sauce, 1 cup of water, 1 beef bouillon cube, half of a finely-shredded zucchini (gotta eat those vegetables) and 1 tbsp. pre-mixed spices (I used salt, pepper, Italian seasoning, extra dried basil, garlic powder, red chili pepper flakes, and a little white sugar).  Toss in enough dried small pasta until it looks kind of like soup (1/3-1/2 lbs, I eyeballed this part).  Simmer and stir until the pasta is done (about 10 minutes).  Add a little water if it looks too dry but you should end up with a pretty thick concoction (think Hamburger Helper).  Serve with shredded cheese.  10/10 would recommend.

At night we drove a little way down the park road to Spruce Knob Lake, an old reservoir built in 1952 for trout fishing.  This area is known for being one of the best dark-skies locations within a reasonable distance of the Mid-Atlantic coast, so we were very fortunate to have a night of perfectly clear skies and a waning crescent moon that did not rise until 1:30 am on Saturday.  The stars were incredible.

Jupiter was the brightest celestial body tonight

Early on Saturday we parked a couple of miles away from the campground at the Allegheny Mountain Trail trailhead.  I discovered that I brought the wrong map for our area and we'd be quickly hiking off-map and reliant on a basic PDF map on my phone and our wits (of course we also forgot the compass, which was tucked in a tote back at our campsite).  Our hike began on a fire road but there were several unidentified path crossings that we did not turn onto.  We decided that if there were indeed zero trail markers we'd just follow the 13-mile Allegheny Mountain Trail until we felt like turning around and hiking back to the car.

Thankfully we encountered a "real" intersection of trails, marked by a prominent Forest Service signpost.  Yay!  More confident in our pathfinding skills, we walked about 8-miles along a ridge trail and then into a couple of stream valleys.  Trail marking blazes were few and far in between until we got closer to the parking lot.  These trails are so seldom traveled there are a few very old wooden bridges that are completely covered in moss and understory plants.  It's safer to cross the creek by rock-hopping rather than risk stepping through rotted wood.  We finished our hike along an old logging rail trace and encountered a lone apple tree.

We saw exactly three other people:  One guy at the very beginning of our hike and two mountain bikers near the end.

These forests used to be full of red spruce, but they were decimated by insects over 50 years ago.  

Now the hills are peppered with maple trees.

The trails were often pretty overgrown

Approximate hike route

Back at the campsite we enjoyed a hearty lunch and a sunny afternoon of relaxation-time.  Hans read a book and I attempted to listen to a podcast before falling asleep in the hammock.

In the early evening we walked the lake path.  We encountered a couple of birds but otherwise we just took in the scenery.  Dinner was a slightly different version of the fire-simmered pasta dish that we'd had the night before.

On Sunday it was time to pack up and drive the long way home.  We took a different route out of the park and went through some pretty darn pastoral scenes:

This was our one and only camping trip for the year, and it felt good!  Here are a couple of large-format images for download, courtesy of Mr. National Geographic (Hans):