The pandemic has proven a strange and difficult time in a lot of ways. One of them for me, plain and simple, being overworked to the point of not really being able to take any time off and leave my computer at home for the weekend. I was determined to do things differently this weekend, it was my birthday after all.
Not particularly in a position to spend a lot of money, we hightailed it up from central NJ to a shoddy motel in the Catskills near Ulster County to check off one of the only two four thousand footers there. We got a late start up the Phoenicia East Branch trail on a muggy, humid, bug-infested sort of day. Branching to the left, we took the clockwise loop up the mountain. Short mileage, only around 2.8 to the top, but stumbling over little ankle-breakers (a term I first heard from an AT thru-hiker at Delaware Water Gap coming out of “Rocksylvania”) made for an interesting ascent. I could only think of the reason it was called Slide Mountain, imagining myself busting my butt sliding down all the loose rock on my descent in an hour or two.
The heat made for a migraine flare-up, so the summit really couldn’t have come any sooner as we were being eaten alive by black flies. Few were the moments of peering through trees at the green rolling ranges of the Catskills, famously known for their wooded summits. At last, we made it to the top and took a long re-hydration and morale-boosting break before heading back down. Parting ways with our original footpath and opting for the more gentle decline of the Curtis Ormsbee trail; we needed the change of scenery (albeit still in the green tunnel) and it was far easier on the ‘ole knees.
We stopped for delicious beer and food trucks at West Kill Brewing a few miles away, but popped a flat on the Thruway going home. You win some and you lose some. I walked away with holes in my shoes and the realization that not every hike could be my favorite, but they were - in one way or another - always worth doing.
NH 0/48
New England 1/5
New England 1/100 Highest
Northeast 2/115
