Episode 119 - Earthquake, Solar Eclipse and more

[00:00:30] The tracks were some of the worst days I've ever had in the mountains.

[00:00:34] Or life, really.

[00:00:37] Whereas Pants and Mountains is totally opposite to the mountain on top of a cliff.

[00:00:42] I think the weather challenges on this incident were particularly difficult.

[00:00:48] It is really the development of New York State. Catskill's are responsible.

[00:00:54] Yeah!

[00:00:58] Now you're listening to Inside The Line, The Catskill Mountains Podcast.

[00:01:09] DEC better watch out. They're gonna have to compete with us.

[00:01:14] I don't know if the talk about that, Dad. A DEC is gonna rip us apart, right?

[00:01:19] See, it's once you get a good thing going, the government steps in and ruins it for you.

[00:01:25] Oh my God! That was so good.

[00:01:28] Well, so welcome to Episode 119 of Inside The Line, The Catskill Mountains Podcast.

[00:01:32] Tonight, it's kind of like, Tad and I are just gonna shoot the shit for a little bit and see what we can come up with.

[00:01:39] We had a last second cancellation. It's alright. It's okay.

[00:01:42] We got a bunch of good topics to talk about, not just with the Catskills,

[00:01:47] but everything in general that's been going on in the area in the United States as well.

[00:01:52] A bunch of crazy things happening like a freaking earthquake.

[00:01:57] 4.7 earthquake in New Jersey. I felt it up here in Onianta. That's pretty far away.

[00:02:03] Yeah, that's impressive.

[00:02:05] Did you get anything?

[00:02:07] Sure. So Friday morning, I was sitting at home doing work.

[00:02:09] It was a typical routine to work from home on Friday.

[00:02:12] And initially, I thought it was the weather hitting the western side of the house,

[00:02:17] but it was apparent within a split second or so that it was an earthquake.

[00:02:23] And my immediate concern is my daughter was out rock climbing that day in the gunks.

[00:02:29] And so I was concerned about her up there with all those rocks.

[00:02:33] But she made it home safely.

[00:02:35] Nice.

[00:02:37] How about you? What were you doing when it hit me?

[00:02:39] I was sitting at work just minding my own business at lunch.

[00:02:46] And then all of a sudden, you know, I feel kind of like a little,

[00:02:49] it felt like like a side to side shake for a couple seconds and stuff.

[00:02:54] And then all of a sudden, like I look around and I'm looking at people.

[00:02:58] And, you know, they have a, I have a crazy look on me because I'm like,

[00:03:02] what the hell was that?

[00:03:04] And then all of a sudden, like nobody said anything.

[00:03:07] So I kind of like kept to myself.

[00:03:09] Weirdo that looks like, you know, the like, oh, did you feel it earthquake?

[00:03:13] So you were sitting there not aware that other people were or were not feeling

[00:03:19] the earth move, the building move.

[00:03:22] I was unaware because nobody, nobody had the same reaction as me.

[00:03:27] Like now, were you sitting at work or at the tavern during a one shower?

[00:03:32] The tavern has shock absorbent stuff.

[00:03:35] They're built for advance for everything.

[00:03:37] So Dave, I mean, it was a very, very crazy experience.

[00:03:42] And right after that, that happened, you know, some one of my managers came in

[00:03:47] and just, do you feel that earthquake? Do you see it? You know, stuff.

[00:03:50] And I was like, no way. Absolutely.

[00:03:53] Insane that the like I could feel that.

[00:03:55] So cross that off the bucket list.

[00:03:57] Yeah. I remember we had one a few years ago before the pandemic out here

[00:04:03] and I was at work during that one.

[00:04:06] It was an equally alarming and bizarre experience, but I imagine there are places

[00:04:12] in the country and in the world where it's quite common to sit through a world

[00:04:17] through earthquakes of sorts.

[00:04:19] Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

[00:04:21] And I was, you know, reading a bunch of different people's, you know, comments

[00:04:26] and stuff like that of what they experienced down even down in New Jersey.

[00:04:29] And there wasn't any damage at all.

[00:04:32] Very, you know, things might have fallen off the walls and shelves.

[00:04:35] Nothing, nothing too crazy.

[00:04:37] And I was reading about like the area and it was the largest that was felt in the city since the 2011 5.8 Magnitude earthquake in Virginia.

[00:04:49] That kind of gave an aftershock and stuff trembling all the way to New Jersey.

[00:04:53] But, you know, the last time this area felt that I believe was the 1950s.

[00:05:00] And something I read that with that was something as prominent as that,

[00:05:04] that you were just like you could actually sit there and be like, oh, wow, what?

[00:05:08] What is that something going on?

[00:05:10] Yeah. Imagine you're in an elevator in one of those skyscrapers in Manhattan.

[00:05:16] And the whole elevator starts shaking and you don't initially know what's going on.

[00:05:23] It's kind of a creepy experience.

[00:05:25] Right? Right?

[00:05:27] And the cool thing is, you know, they were talking about other earthquakes in 1989 in San Francisco.

[00:05:35] There was a measure to 6.9 earthquake.

[00:05:38] You know, we had a 4.74.8.

[00:05:40] The 6.9 is a thousand times more powerful than the one in New Jersey.

[00:05:45] Imagine that.

[00:05:47] This is where I'm thinking Stosh writes the payroll checks to the researchers for the podcast because

[00:05:53] he's loaded with data.

[00:05:55] He is 19 this and 18 that and 5.3 and 7.1.

[00:06:02] Way to go, bud.

[00:06:04] Way to come to the show packing some data.

[00:06:06] I got to please the listeners, you know, they don't want to just listen to us say,

[00:06:12] yeah, I experienced an earthquake and we're done.

[00:06:15] Go ahead and say it.

[00:06:17] They don't want to listen to our dumb chatter.

[00:06:18] I know they can't wait for that DEC podcast.

[00:06:22] That's just going to rip this thing up.

[00:06:24] I have to think the DEC is starting that because they were listening rather keenly to that podcast we did a couple of shows ago where I told you the DEC is thinking about limiting access, improving access, shutting down areas, keeping people out of the mountains, telling you to go home when they get there.

[00:06:48] They don't want you to be out there.

[00:06:50] It's just part of the DEC stepping in with mind control.

[00:06:56] That's what it is.

[00:06:58] I will agree.

[00:07:00] I'm still going to ask for interviews with local rangers and stuff.

[00:07:02] I guarantee Slade and Martin are we're awesome interviewees.

[00:07:08] I guess you say that on the podcast and they were very, very fun and they know the podcast and Martin and Slade and I work together with the good sir and stuff like that.

[00:07:16] So I'm still going to pursue that.

[00:07:19] So don't think I'm not going to do that.

[00:07:21] I'm going for it.

[00:07:23] Do it, go for it.

[00:07:25] They're either going to refuse or they're going to get on here and deny it.

[00:07:27] And then we know what the real truth is.

[00:07:29] We know it's coming and we're going to start a mass movement to take back the mountains.

[00:07:36] The mountains are ours to the public.

[00:07:39] I'm going to reclaim them.

[00:07:41] It's going to be like, you know, what is it?

[00:07:43] That game you played when you were a kid, King of the Mountain.

[00:07:44] I didn't play that.

[00:07:46] No, really?

[00:07:48] I was more of listening to the rage against the machine to take back the government and stuff.

[00:07:52] Damn dude, I'm going to have to get ahold of your parents or your therapist.

[00:07:56] I'm not sure which one.

[00:07:58] That's an essential milestone of somebody's development to play King of the Mountain.

[00:08:02] It was the 80s and 90s.

[00:08:04] They told us to go outside and watch solar eclipses is what they told us to do.

[00:08:09] Don't stare at the sun.

[00:08:10] Right.

[00:08:12] That's why you have no light sun in the room at home.

[00:08:15] It's like Starsh is sitting there in the complete dark doing the podcast.

[00:08:18] It's like grabbing around as if he's in some lunar orbit with no light sun.

[00:08:24] I had to Google why my eyes hurt from the other day from yesterday.

[00:08:28] So once again, solar eclipse happened up in upstate New York, more western upstate, excuse me, New York.

[00:08:36] Pretty awesome experience.

[00:08:37] You know, I went out west towards the Finger Lakes and went up in the Finger Lakes region and experienced totality.

[00:08:44] Ted, what did you experience? Where were you at?

[00:08:47] So myself in the Mrs. We just sat around the house.

[00:08:51] We hung out on the back porch and waited for the big event.

[00:08:57] There was some clouds rolled in.

[00:09:00] I think most of New York was affected by the cloud cover, but we just had a peaceful day at home.

[00:09:05] It reminded us of back in 2017 when we were out west and saw the eclipse then and we were in the path of totality.

[00:09:15] But it was a pleasant afternoon at the house, no traffic jams, nothing to aggravate us.

[00:09:26] We just enjoyed ourselves and that's a good segue to find out what it was like getting up to the Finger Lakes,

[00:09:33] hanging out in the Finger Lakes and then getting home.

[00:09:37] Not at all.

[00:09:39] Ted, tell us about your experience in 2017 with totality.

[00:09:43] Well, we were going, we were out in Portland, Oregon to drop our oldest daughter off at college the day before was the lunar eclipse

[00:09:54] and we drove something like two hours south of Portland.

[00:10:00] I picked out a spot was a small community.

[00:10:03] We went to the local town park where there was a baseball field.

[00:10:08] I figured we'd have a lot of unobstructed view in front of us with the baseball field there.

[00:10:14] Shortly after we arrived, a fellow pulls up.

[00:10:18] He's got some high end pro equipment.

[00:10:21] He's made a filter, a high density filter to put over his lens and he got set up.

[00:10:31] It turns out because I Googled the guy afterwards that he was a Pulitzer Prize winning photographer.

[00:10:37] And yeah, any doubt about his credentials were put to rest when you look at his photos because they were top shelf professional quality.

[00:10:45] And I was there with my trusty little Canon point and shoot and tried to fake him out by showing him some photos that I didn't take that were taken by somebody else that I downloaded.

[00:10:58] But he didn't believe me, of course.

[00:11:00] But it was a great experience.

[00:11:03] We didn't have any cloud cover at all.

[00:11:05] And we got all of those unique features and effects with the totality, the funky, wavy lights.

[00:11:16] It seems like the animals just kind of settle down at first.

[00:11:20] It's a kind of an eerie feeling when that takes over.

[00:11:25] But I want to hear about yours because mine was seven years ago and I've forgotten a lot of it for whatever reason.

[00:11:32] I was going to say, how do you forget that?

[00:11:35] It was when I traveled.

[00:11:39] I went up to my friend's house who was in Penyan.

[00:11:41] He's around three hours away from us.

[00:11:43] So we traveled up like Northwest somewhat past Ithaca into the right in the middle of the Finger Lakes.

[00:11:50] And he lives kind of like, I'm pretty sure it was like 2000 feet from totality where he.

[00:11:59] Yeah, where he lived was was right on the edge of totality.

[00:12:04] And we were just like, eh, you know, that's like 25 seconds of totality.

[00:12:09] And we wanted to go more north.

[00:12:11] So we found a place up north up in Canada, that's called Star Cider.

[00:12:16] You pay 20 bucks to park.

[00:12:18] I know I got to admit they every place blew it.

[00:12:23] I don't know if this was just Finger Lakes, but they blew it out of proportion.

[00:12:26] Like everybody was like, buy your tickets early.

[00:12:29] Get this, get that.

[00:12:31] The parking lot for the FLCC, which is Finger Lakes Community Center and the, there was a C-MAC I think it was called.

[00:12:39] There was probably like a good 50 cars in there that could hold like thousands.

[00:12:44] And we were just like, and nobody they said they sold so many tickets at the Star Cider yet the parking lot was nowhere near filled.

[00:12:52] But 20 bucks got you two ciders.

[00:12:56] What else?

[00:12:58] The parking spot and one other thing.

[00:13:01] And they had a bunch of or one food truck there and then they had their own taco foods.

[00:13:08] So we hung out with my friend Darren White, who's a fan of the show.

[00:13:12] He's also supported the show.

[00:13:14] Darren, I had a fantastic time with you.

[00:13:16] Thanks.

[00:13:18] Once again, didn't talk anything about the podcast, which is great.

[00:13:20] Didn't want to talk about that at all.

[00:13:22] And then just experiences, you know, chatting back and forth.

[00:13:25] And then all of a sudden I'm just like, we're watching it as it's first starting.

[00:13:30] And we can somewhat see the sun disappear and appear during the time because the clouds are rolling in, but you can still see it's happening.

[00:13:38] We're like, all right, it's happening. Cool.

[00:13:40] We all put our glasses on and look at it and back and forth.

[00:13:43] And then all of a sudden the big clouds rolling and we can't see anything.

[00:13:48] So how was the cider?

[00:13:50] Let's start off with the cider.

[00:13:52] That might be the best part of the day.

[00:13:54] How was the cider?

[00:13:56] It was really good.

[00:13:58] So we had a, I had the Clipsider, of course.

[00:14:01] I had to try that.

[00:14:03] It was not sweet but semi-sweet.

[00:14:05] I like sweet and stuff.

[00:14:07] And Jessica had a one that's called the whiskey cider.

[00:14:09] Very, very good.

[00:14:11] Very good.

[00:14:13] Was it in New York or Canada?

[00:14:15] Check it out right by the FLCC.

[00:14:17] Cool.

[00:14:18] There wasn't too many people around and stuff, so it wasn't like packed.

[00:14:22] So what did you do in the hours leading up to the big event?

[00:14:28] How'd you pass your time just drinking cider, playing corn throw or corn toss?

[00:14:33] What was going down?

[00:14:35] This is a boomer talk right here.

[00:14:37] Like cornhole.

[00:14:39] Cornhole.

[00:14:41] I've never been to a big gala event before an eclipse like this, so I wouldn't know what to do.

[00:14:47] Did you bring your own lawn chairs?

[00:14:50] They provide chairs.

[00:14:52] We sat around kind of like a fire ring that wasn't lit and we just chatted the whole time.

[00:14:57] Did you get rained on?

[00:14:59] No, it actually rained when we were leaving.

[00:15:02] We were in the goddamn four-hour traffic jam that we were in.

[00:15:05] But before we get to the traffic jam, I did see that a lot of folks upstate got rained on for the eclipse.

[00:15:11] So was there like a huge sigh when the clouds rolled in, the people were bummed out or were they still, you know,

[00:15:19] ecstatic and pumped up to witness the event?

[00:15:23] I would say that they weren't as crazy as they was when you could see the sun.

[00:15:27] But I got to admit the feeling of it going completely dark and then looking beyond like all around you

[00:15:35] in a 360 length that you can see basically what I thought was clear clouds.

[00:15:40] I'm like, oh, it's clear over there.

[00:15:42] But no, that was the roundness of the blockage of the sun and it was the moon.

[00:15:48] And I was just like like, labyrinth gas.

[00:15:51] I'm like, oh, it's clear over there.

[00:15:53] And all of a sudden, you know, within three minutes that passes and it's bright again.

[00:15:57] And, you know, even though we were had total cloud coverage, we couldn't see the sun at all.

[00:16:02] The experience was just mind blowing that it went to total darkness in three minutes.

[00:16:08] Like you said, people has come out birds quiet down and it's just a whole different feeling.

[00:16:15] And then all of a sudden life resumes and, you know, Jessica explained it perfectly.

[00:16:21] It was the fastest sunset to sunrise ever.

[00:16:25] Well, that is a good way of putting it.

[00:16:27] Yeah.

[00:16:28] And with the clouds, though, the cool thing with the clouds and you're on since the finger lakes are kind of like all flat and even.

[00:16:35] You could actually see the shadow coming across.

[00:16:42] And we're just like, we're like, wow, that's, you know, what is that?

[00:16:45] And then all of a sudden you're just like, oh, that's a shadow.

[00:16:48] And then it boom, it's done.

[00:16:50] It's over with years.

[00:16:52] So you were looking out onto the lake itself.

[00:16:55] We were sort of, you could see a little bit of the lake.

[00:16:59] We were up at top a little bit further away, further like, I would say north or southeast of the lake.

[00:17:07] And you saw the shadow from the moon passing along the ground.

[00:17:12] It was one of the clouds is more we where we saw it.

[00:17:16] And like, if you I should have taken a 360 photo because you could seriously see all around you was like a ring, like a ring of fire.

[00:17:25] Basically, it looked like there was a sunrise happening all around you at the time.

[00:17:30] It was that before or after you ate the mushrooms?

[00:17:33] We can we can edit that part out.

[00:17:36] So that was that was before I ate the mushrooms on the way home to that was that part with the dollar fee.

[00:17:43] It was it was cool.

[00:17:46] So tell us about the ride home.

[00:17:49] Jesus, what were the other drivers like where there was a lot of road rage going on where people mellow just what happens after a lunar eclipse?

[00:17:59] It wasn't bad.

[00:18:01] But of course, everybody's GPS leads to the same exact place.

[00:18:05] And going from Canada, what's it?

[00:18:10] I think it's the Ithaca is where we traveled.

[00:18:13] There's only so many roads that you can you can have and they're all like straight stop straight turn stop.

[00:18:21] It's all stop signs.

[00:18:23] So there was it was it would took us from Canada to Ithaca should take around.

[00:18:28] I think an hour and 15 minutes.

[00:18:30] It took us three hours to get from there.

[00:18:32] Wow.

[00:18:34] So it was fun.

[00:18:36] Was a bumper to bumper?

[00:18:37] It was.

[00:18:39] And there was an accident that kind of screwed everything over.

[00:18:41] But you know, right when that accident was getting cleaned up, they opened up the road.

[00:18:47] So from there on from the point we had, which was right in between Seneca Lake and Canada, Agua Lake, there was open traffic and we just flew through there.

[00:18:57] So everybody who took the left hand turn to go over to this one area that's GPS.

[00:19:02] I was like, no, we're going to keep going right.

[00:19:04] They took out the traffic cones and then boom, we went up to flying through there.

[00:19:07] So it was.

[00:19:09] And after that point, did you have to pick up an interstate or we just driving state roads, county roads?

[00:19:16] State roads.

[00:19:18] Luckily, like we went through Whitney Point and then went to the point one over the Bainbridge.

[00:19:23] So we never hit any state roads.

[00:19:25] But when we saw when Whitney Point I81 crosses right through there, I wouldn't say it was bumper bumper traffic, but it was at least like 30 mile per hour traffic.

[00:19:34] Like you could see people slowing down and speeding up, slowing down and speeding up.

[00:19:38] And to have that from Syracuse all the way down to Bigamton.

[00:19:41] I don't know how many miles that is.

[00:19:43] That's got to be at least, you know, 50, 60 miles of that was absolutely insane.

[00:19:49] I'm like, see ya.

[00:19:51] So you went up on Sunday?

[00:19:54] We went up on Saturday afternoon.

[00:19:57] Stay with my friend Chad up in up in Penyand.

[00:20:00] Was it worthwhile going up there for the eclipse?

[00:20:03] 100%

[00:20:05] Once again, cross it off the bucket list.

[00:20:08] Even though that we didn't get to see totality, I think Jessica and I are going to try to do it again sometime to travel and see the actual totality of the sun so we can like look at it and see, you know, the ring of fire or just the ring and you know, I know you had talking about like the ring.

[00:20:27] So you have some little facts about that.

[00:20:28] Oh, yeah.

[00:20:30] So I pulled up a bunch of tidbits on this.

[00:20:33] Tad's tidbits, right?

[00:20:35] Yeah, Tad's tidbits.

[00:20:37] Not that it's a new segment, but I just did a quick cut and paste.

[00:20:42] So they refer to the beads of silver light around the moon's edge as Bailey's beads and apparently it was so named because of the astronomer Francis Bailey who described this effect in 1836.

[00:21:01] Oh.

[00:21:03] It's the result of the sunlight's interaction with the moon's uneven topography.

[00:21:08] So when you see those in folks' photos, you're looking at Bailey's beads.

[00:21:14] Then one of the other tidbits I pulled up that says that when the sun suddenly goes dark in the middle of the day, animals can become very confused.

[00:21:23] Certain creatures like cicadas, crickets might start chirping their evening song.

[00:21:29] Cows and horses may begin bedding down for the night while birds return to their roost.

[00:21:34] Do you see any of that, Stosh?

[00:21:37] How are I?

[00:21:38] Well, I just saw a bunch of young women taking selfies and doing a bunch of weird stuff on their phones.

[00:21:46] Cider shots.

[00:21:47] Correct.

[00:21:49] Got it.

[00:21:51] Then there's also reports of scrambled radio waves.

[00:21:53] Apparently there's a network of ham radio operators in the country.

[00:21:58] You remember when that used to be a big thing, people being ham.

[00:22:01] I don't know why people still do that with the internet, but apparently there's a reason to still be into ham radio operation.

[00:22:08] It's pretty cool stuff.

[00:22:10] Is it?

[00:22:12] Well, yeah.

[00:22:14] If you contact somebody from the Adirondack side peaks and you can contact them over in Colorado, that's pretty neat by radio waves.

[00:22:20] Well, I'm contacting you and you're contacting me and we get to see one another in our goofy looking headsets.

[00:22:27] So at any rate, that's one of the things that's reported and these ham radio operators have got together to study that apparently more scientifically.

[00:22:36] The other tidbit I pulled up is are you wondering what to do with your eclipse glasses now that the April 8th total solar eclipse has come and gone?

[00:22:46] Not that it was a topic on my mind until I saw it online, but apparently there's a nonprofit group, astronomers without borders.

[00:22:55] His partnered with library schools, museums, businesses and other organizations across the USA and Canada to collect recycle.

[00:23:05] Gently used eclipse viewing glasses.

[00:23:09] The glasses will be sent to underserved communities and schools around the world to use during future solar eclipses.

[00:23:19] So Stash, are your solar eclips glasses gently used?

[00:23:25] Yes, definitely.

[00:23:27] You didn't get hit like with one of those corn balls in the side of the head as you were drinking a cider and it just like demolish your eclipse glasses that didn't happen up there in Penyan.

[00:23:38] I didn't even use the solar eclipse.

[00:23:41] I looked straight at the sun and I was like, yeah, I can take this.

[00:23:44] Yeah, playing some metal music.

[00:23:46] One, two, three, four, five seconds.

[00:23:49] Who can beat that?

[00:23:51] And everybody shook their head now.

[00:23:54] Yeah.

[00:23:56] The funny thing is you talk about that.

[00:23:58] My wife at the end of the solar eclipse, she asked everybody to give her their glasses so we can donate them.

[00:24:05] And I'm like, what are you talking about?

[00:24:07] She's like, I'm pretty sure they have like a donation thing online of where you can send it to someone and they'll send it to like Africa because Africa gets like, I'm pretty sure there's certain places right along the equator that get like three or four eclipses per year.

[00:24:21] Wow. That's interesting.

[00:24:23] Sounds like your wife is on top of this.

[00:24:25] She says it was the fastest sunset sunrise for an eclipse.

[00:24:30] She's out there collecting the glasses ready to send them off to Africa.

[00:24:34] We need to get her to be one of our researchers and writers for the show.

[00:24:38] I wish. I wish.

[00:24:40] I don't think she's less than a single episode of this because she does better.

[00:24:45] Just say it because she knows better.

[00:24:47] She doesn't want to judge me.

[00:24:49] Even though we were recording this on Tuesday night, I bet you tomorrow night she'll say to you, Stash, don't you have to go into your podcast room and record some episodes?

[00:24:57] No, I did that last night.

[00:24:59] I think you should go back in and get some voiceovers.

[00:25:03] I'll do that. Definitely.

[00:25:05] That's amazing. Once again, an amazing experience for the eclipse and I cannot, you know, there was a lot of people who didn't understand.

[00:25:13] I don't understand why they did that while I do understand because they're older people and they don't really think of these natural phenomenons as something as important such that it happens all the time somewhat.

[00:25:28] But being an experience even with a cloud cover was just absolutely phenomenal and it's something I will never forget.

[00:25:38] And you know, I will definitely do it again when I can and try to just to see.

[00:25:44] I could only imagine what the people in the Adirondacks and you know some people up towards the Great Lakes experienced when they saw that.

[00:25:51] I had a bunch of friends that experienced it full on and I'm very jealous and you know, to get these to see these things online of the ring of the ring of fire.

[00:26:02] And you know, like you said, the Baileys beads and kind of like the ring of just that one little part.

[00:26:08] I'm jealous as heck, but I still had a phenomenal time and I'll do it again.

[00:26:12] Good. Glad you enjoyed it.

[00:26:15] Yeah, it was fantastic.

[00:26:16] So, well, so let's move on to some more Catskill news.

[00:26:20] So the Catskill Mountain Railroad was awarded $4.4 million for improvements.

[00:26:29] So I found this out a couple of weeks ago and we haven't brought it up.

[00:26:33] I think I forgot about it.

[00:26:35] But the Catskill Mountain Railroad which is located once again between Kingston and Phoenicia and Stony Clove and such was offered $4.4 million.

[00:26:46] For updates and such.

[00:26:50] There's three grants for these three projects.

[00:26:53] So around $667,000 for the Basin Rail's terminal, $1.5 million for an engine house with connecting track and $2.3 million for a clean diesel upgrade on the roads locomotive.

[00:27:05] And this was all brought together by Ulster County Legislature.

[00:27:11] They gave a five year permit to operate.

[00:27:14] Once again, this has been happening.

[00:27:17] The railroad has been happening ever since they built the Ashokan Reservoir back in the early 1900s.

[00:27:22] That's when they brought supplies from New York City all the way up to this area.

[00:27:27] And we'll get in later a little bit out the history of that.

[00:27:32] But they have the Catskill Mountain Railroad kind of individually has been happening since 1982.

[00:27:40] But the railroad was built back in the 1900s to bring supplies up to Ashokan Reservoir and then since expanded by then.

[00:27:49] And then sometimes I'm pretty sure it went all the way up to where I live in Onianda by 1900s.

[00:27:55] The Ulster and Delaware Railroad was an amazing accomplishment by not only American culture really because that's basically what started train travel, transportation and stuff like that.

[00:28:09] On the railroads with the Ulster and Delaware Railroad. So crazy awesome stuff.

[00:28:14] So hopefully that'll improve the experience over in Arkville and Roxbury because I don't know if you've ever been on one of those train rides. They're pretty dreary.

[00:28:24] I have not been on one of these historic railroads such as this one.

[00:28:31] Although I have traveled quite a bit on Amtrak Metro North, the other mass transit railroads in the New York Metro area.

[00:28:41] Obviously Amtrak goes much, much further than that.

[00:28:45] But yeah, train travel can be convenient and fun.

[00:28:51] And so surely getting on the Catskill Mountain Railroad if you're a youngster with your parents, they have a multitude of fun events.

[00:29:00] They have event rides in the Easter summer train Christmas times of year.

[00:29:06] So it sounds like a good tourist attraction for families.

[00:29:11] Definitely.

[00:29:13] But they're not hauling cows and lumber anymore.

[00:29:16] Not anymore.

[00:29:18] Not like they used to do lumber and the pretty sure like the concrete and stuff like that from Kingston.

[00:29:24] Yeah, it was and you know I've been on one of the rides.

[00:29:30] That go from Arkville to Roxbury and such.

[00:29:33] And it's just, it's really odd because there's like they only do it during of course like the popular tourist season, which is summer and fall.

[00:29:41] And fall is the more bigger seasons.

[00:29:44] And we went in the fall and they didn't really trim anything on the trees.

[00:29:49] So the trains was like hitting the trees a little bit and it was kind of like uncomfortable because you don't know when you're going to act in the face on tree.

[00:29:56] You're only going probably around 15, 20 miles an hour.

[00:30:00] But it was just very uncomfortable.

[00:30:03] So hopefully they'll improve that.

[00:30:05] I know they've been doing improvements on the actual rail cars there, but hopefully they'll just take a saw and go through that.

[00:30:13] Man, I do better maintenance on my trail.

[00:30:15] Indeed. It's interesting that there's along really what is the same railroad passage or set of railroad tracks from Kingston all the way to Roxbury, but it's not a continuous line anymore.

[00:30:31] There's segments of it that aren't maintained and aren't owned or under the control of either of the two railroads that operate on either end of it.

[00:30:39] It would be nice if they were to make it a set of through tracks going all the way from Kingston out to Roxbury and vice versa.

[00:30:50] Yeah, it would be really cool.

[00:30:52] Really phenomenal experience.

[00:30:55] Damn, brightness and sun.

[00:30:57] There you go.

[00:30:59] Another eclipse is happening as we speak in Stasher's podcast where eyes got blown out once again.

[00:31:03] Turned on the selfie light and it shined a bright like almost like, ah, the sun.

[00:31:10] But he's resilient. He's back to it, folks.

[00:31:13] I'm back to it. So what was that? You had to talk about this little thought about the trains, right?

[00:31:21] Oh, yeah. So when you showed me that you were going to include this, I pulled up some data.

[00:31:26] And apparently the original railroad that ran from Kingston going west was started by the shipping magnet Thomas Cornell, who apparently Cornell Mountain is named after.

[00:31:43] One of the other little tidbits I pulled up is that in 1913, more than 676,000 passengers rode the Ulster and Delaware railroad in the Catskills.

[00:32:00] So that's reflective of a lot of traffic, predominantly tourist traffic and locals traveling back and forth.

[00:32:09] But compare that number, 676,000 people in 1913 to the ridership reported in 2013, 51,610 people rode the train.

[00:32:26] 23, 2023.

[00:32:28] So that's, you know, a difference of over 650,000 people.

[00:32:34] But the area is more populated, far fewer.

[00:32:38] Nobody really rides it for transportation, just for tourism.

[00:32:42] So folks in the Catskills are no longer dependent on the railroad.

[00:32:47] Yeah. And it's amazing.

[00:32:49] You know, we talk about railroads were huge here in the Catskills.

[00:32:53] I mean, everything was hauled by railroad Stony Globe Notch.

[00:32:57] You have the Fenwick Lumber Company.

[00:32:59] Any Tanners area was hauled by railroad.

[00:33:04] And just to think about that once again, and every day for the Ashokan Reservoir that you ever had residents building their Ashokan Reservoir that stayed in Shokan or Olive Ray or stuff around there.

[00:33:16] Or they were hauled from Kingston up to work on the Ashokan Reservoir.

[00:33:20] So to think about that is just, wow, 620,000, like 1,000 people, 25,000 people difference between that and now.

[00:33:33] But you know, roads, cars kind of make sense.

[00:33:37] Yeah. We got it.

[00:33:38] We should compare that to how many people come up here now.

[00:33:41] I would say a million.

[00:33:44] Do we get a million people here up in the Catskills?

[00:33:46] Do you think for your?

[00:33:47] I have no idea.

[00:33:49] I don't have the researching assistants that you do.

[00:33:52] I see them scurrying around in the back of the room, arming you with more factual data.

[00:33:57] Over here, it's just me and the cat, you know?

[00:34:00] Nothing else.

[00:34:02] You have a cat?

[00:34:04] Yeah. Every now and then you'll hear his paw hitting the microphone.

[00:34:08] Well, I call it a cat.

[00:34:11] It's actually when I was up pushwacking a few weeks ago in the Catskills.

[00:34:14] It's a mountain lion.

[00:34:16] I found it in one of the DEC traps.

[00:34:18] I think I'm permitted to say that now.

[00:34:21] The DEC is trapping for mountain lions and the Catskills.

[00:34:24] So I've got some inside information on where the traps are.

[00:34:27] I'm going out.

[00:34:29] I'm freeing the mountain lions so they're not going to be held captive.

[00:34:33] Yeah, we're breeding as well.

[00:34:36] Yes, that's right.

[00:34:38] We have our the trout people have their hatcheries and we have our breeding ground.

[00:34:44] We have the camp for mountain lions.

[00:34:46] So also with Tad's tidbits, I remember you saying you want to say this, Tad?

[00:34:53] No, you got it, man.

[00:34:55] Yeah, no, you can take it.

[00:34:57] Take it away.

[00:34:59] The last freight train departed from Kingston on September 28, 1976, and did not return until October 2nd.

[00:35:05] So basically that was what, four or five days with every million freight car in the branch collected for its final return trip.

[00:35:12] return trip. So once again, I want to break down. I got to get Dr. Kudish on here to talk about his

[00:35:20] railroad stuff because the railroads are fascinating and a lot of people don't realize how

[00:35:26] important they were for Catskill like history and Catskill culture and stuff like that because

[00:35:33] during those times when we didn't have cars and stuff and stuff like that people could

[00:35:37] for cars, they would be burned up by rail and every human being was brought up from the area

[00:35:44] by a bike, you know, rail car or something like that. And just imagine those day and ages of

[00:35:51] you know, hundreds and hundreds of people being brought up to the Catskills by that

[00:35:55] means of transportation and then departing on, you know, every which way because they had

[00:36:00] a bunch of hotels up here and because it was to get away from the city and stuff.

[00:36:04] Dr. Kudish indeed that was the preferred method for traveling into the Catskills. If you were a

[00:36:10] tourist, you'd take a steamboat up the Hudson River to Kingston or one of the other ports,

[00:36:18] hop a train head west. But apparently the railroads also would market in their literature and

[00:36:25] their advertising materials, magazines, etc., you know, hopping on a train going up to the

[00:36:31] Catskills and getting out of the city. Yeah, get out of that city. That's what everybody wants to do now.

[00:36:39] But now they go down to Hertz, they run a Tesla, they head north to the Catskills.

[00:36:45] Outdoor ages. Don't be hating on Tesla then. It's nice. I have a fun time with it. All right.

[00:36:52] All right. So on onward we are going to chat about a little bit of high-peak stuff.

[00:36:58] So the Canard brothers finished skiing the Catskills and and at a high peak. So 46ers, 35ers

[00:37:05] while skiing. So Julie was just on the show talking about skiing the high peaks. And then

[00:37:12] even though Julie is amazing, the Canards come in and steal our thunder once again. They always

[00:37:16] try to do that. So they are the first people who to do the 46 and the 35 Catskills high peaks

[00:37:24] and they did it. What was it? It looked like back in March, early March or late March.

[00:37:35] So one thing that they said, it was a bunch of amazing experiences that they had in both

[00:37:43] areas of once, you know, at Aranda high peaks, they got stuck in the spruce trap and

[00:37:48] luckily the brother came out and helped them. Another thing with the Catskills high peaks

[00:37:54] they said was a fantastic time of just learning basically how to navigate on the terrain during

[00:38:00] skiing and stuff. But the biggest fact of this all, his wife, one of the Canard brothers,

[00:38:07] his wife who died in 2021, they did this for more rare fall cancer. They donated basically

[00:38:13] this time to her. He spent two years as a caregiver. Her name was Tracy. She wasn't really

[00:38:20] outdoorsy much, but she was a casual skier. So they thought to dedicate their times when they did the

[00:38:27] 46ers and 35ers to her ferocious fight to survive. Unfortunately, the disease that overtook her

[00:38:35] and you know, what an amazing accomplishment. I can't even imagine, you know, a tad, I know

[00:38:41] you're a skier. I'm not really a skier like you are, but to do this stuff is absolutely

[00:38:47] insane. But I could see it as absolutely thrilling at the same time.

[00:38:53] Yeah, I suppose there's an element of thrill, but it's also, you know, very risky. Don't try this

[00:39:01] unless you're experienced in backcountry skiing because a lot of stuff can go wrong. I mean, you

[00:39:06] are traveling downhill relatively fast. You can hit a tree. You can hit something under the snow.

[00:39:13] It's a very dangerous activity. So don't do it alone and make sure you're up to the task.

[00:39:23] Yeah, and especially with these conditions that we have out here nowadays with the lack of snow.

[00:39:29] They said, you know, the Canard brothers said that it just took a lot of time. They could

[00:39:33] have done it a little bit quicker if it were for the amazing horrible amounts of snowpack

[00:39:39] that they had. But as of the time, it did take a lot of energy to plan this out and to be like, oh,

[00:39:48] you know, maybe we got three feet of snow within these last few weeks. What is it going to be like

[00:39:53] when we go up this week? And they said a lot of the conditions were horrible, damp and wet.

[00:40:00] And that, you know, a bunch of times they had always had second guesses of why did they do

[00:40:05] this as we all do when we're hiking up the mountain. We're just like, why the hell did we do this?

[00:40:10] But I could only imagine being a skier and the thrill of going down, you know, one of the high

[00:40:16] peaks either of the Catskills more off trail because you can actually do that without dying in

[00:40:23] the high peaks of the 46er region when you could just lose something and fall

[00:40:29] straight down off cliff. But in the Catskills, just, you know, when no one's talking to

[00:40:33] Julie, just thinking about that, you know, going like us bushwhacking. When we bushwhack,

[00:40:38] we have that thrill of just like what is next? What could be coming? And that's the same thing with

[00:40:44] skiing these high peaks and then going down maybe an unrouted way.

[00:40:50] Yeah, I, you know, when I was out west skiing years ago, I did a lot of back country

[00:40:55] skiing. I did a lot of glade skiing, out of bounds skiing to do all of those things.

[00:41:01] And we had the snow to do it out west. We didn't have the low

[00:41:08] obstacles that you find out here on the east coast, particularly because we don't get

[00:41:13] as much snow. The snow consistency is much different on the east coast. I frankly,

[00:41:18] I have a hard time imagining doing what these brothers did and doing what Julie's doing

[00:41:26] because there is a substantial element of risk doing this and the conditions just aren't ideal for it.

[00:41:36] So kudos to them. I'm going to stick to snowshoeing and drinking hot tea when I'm out winter hiking.

[00:41:45] Right? Yeah. I mean, they also did prepare themselves crazy for this. They had GPS navigated

[00:41:52] in devices and two-way walkie-talkies. So they were within a certain frequency of each other. So

[00:41:58] in case one of them, of course, got into trouble, the other one could help them out and stuff.

[00:42:03] Definitely different situations. Once again, they said that everything was very slow going

[00:42:10] just because of the conditions that we have had here in the Catskills. Northeast

[00:42:16] in the past couple of years have just been absolutely insane. And kudos to them. Hopefully,

[00:42:24] maybe I could get them on here for some maybe reach out to them. Let's get them before the DEC does.

[00:42:31] Just going to say that. Nice. DEC will snag them and be like, all right.

[00:42:38] Yeah. The big difference is we don't really have the perks to give away like the DEC does.

[00:42:43] I mean, the DEC is going to be able to give away free access passes to hike in the Catskills,

[00:42:48] to get into Catterskill Falls, Blue Hole. We don't have any of that, but they can come over to our

[00:42:55] Mountain Lion petting zoo. Right? And then I got stickers. We got stickers as well.

[00:43:00] That's true. We have cool stickers. So maybe we will get them on the show because at the end

[00:43:06] of the day it's all about a cool sticker. Correct. Correct. So I don't know if we

[00:43:12] have a topic of the night now. So let's just go. Yeah, we don't have anything. So let's just wrap it up.

[00:43:17] Thanks for. No, no. So we got to thank the monthly supporters Chris, Darren, Vicki, John,

[00:43:24] Betsy, Denise, Vanessa, Joseph, Jim, Michael and David. Really appreciate you guys donating

[00:43:31] for the show. Also check out Chronicles, outdoor Chronicles photography. Molly from

[00:43:36] outdoor Chronicles photography specializes in adventure, lopin and adventure couple

[00:43:41] photography and the Catskills Adirondacks and the White Mountains. She is an efficient for getting

[00:43:45] married, a licensed guide and she is also a story maker. Molly wants to give you photos.

[00:43:50] She'll give you memories that will last forever. Don't hesitate to get a hold of Molly on all

[00:43:54] platforms. She had amazing photos from the eclipse that I shared on our Instagram page

[00:44:00] phenomenal time and she was just she said just like me it was an unforgettable experience

[00:44:05] that we she will never forget. Also have you ever wanted to learn more about hiking or

[00:44:09] backpacking or even just brush up on some of your old skills in the backcountry?

[00:44:14] Check out Troubant Project, a hiking and backpacking school. Scott and Joe from the New Jersey

[00:44:18] search and rescue team have amazing background to Wilderness First Aid, Wilderness First

[00:44:22] Responder and the Mountain Rescue Association and they are here for you to learn all the new skills

[00:44:28] of hiking and backpacking. They teach anything from first aid, map and compass

[00:44:32] and many other skills that will help you and maybe others out in the backcountry.

[00:44:36] Check them out on their website and all social media platforms. Give you one sec I have so they

[00:44:42] have some stuff coming up Troubant Project two tip Tuesday. So they are doing some

[00:44:50] map and compass navigation on this Saturday for 13. So once again, this is going to be

[00:44:55] really Friday. So they still have some spots left. They have a Catskill Weekend Retreat

[00:45:01] map and compass hiking basics, which takes place on Friday 4 19 to Sunday 4 21. Hiking

[00:45:08] and gear essential, hiking basic and safety and mapping comfort navigation. So check them out on

[00:45:13] their websites. I definitely recommend these guys because Scott and Joe are awesome. They've

[00:45:20] both been on the show before and they're absolutely phenomenal human beings that know

[00:45:25] their freaking stuff about backpacking and hiking. So yeah, so

[00:45:32] Tad, I'm guessing you're having some tea it looks like.

[00:45:35] I'm having another cup of coffee. It's my go to for these four hour long podcasts we do.

[00:45:43] I don't edit that much out. There's no where near four hours everybody just

[00:45:47] lying. You seem to add up. No, you've been editing out all of my really, really funny stuff

[00:45:51] and I'm starting to get upset by that stash because I really have some really good stuff

[00:45:56] that you just been deleting. So my people will be talking to your people about that.

[00:46:01] I don't know if you know movie quotes, but I was going to do some happy Gilmar Fine,

[00:46:05] beat it who needs you leave me. But I'm sorry, Tad.

[00:46:13] So I'm having a water, but I did have some rum and coke earlier. Well, rum and zivia

[00:46:20] says in ginger ale without sugar. Is that your pregame?

[00:46:23] It is. It is. And we had some moes because we have absolutely nothing

[00:46:29] because we didn't go shopping for because we're all way all weekend and we're just like,

[00:46:34] oh crap, we have no food. So you have a moes nearby?

[00:46:39] We do actually with the killer. I like that. It's pretty it's pretty crazy in the great

[00:46:46] city of only a city or two thousand people. You know, if you have a moes in your community,

[00:46:52] that to me is impressive. I'm going back to when my daughter and I were first hiking in the Catskills.

[00:46:58] That was our kind of our go to stop on the way back home would be we'd swing by moes get a

[00:47:03] couple burritos. Builds you up. Yeah, hang out with Joey bag of donuts.

[00:47:09] Yeah. Yes. Yes. Nice. Nice. And then you get a Stewart's coffee and chili.

[00:47:16] Well, that's yeah. No, it's this the Stewart's chili and milkshake combo milkshakes. Those milkshakes

[00:47:24] are fantastic. I've never tried one. I'm going to I'm going to put it on my bucket list if

[00:47:28] you offer to give me an all expense paid trip to the next lunar eclipse or

[00:47:36] a Stewart's milkshake. I'm taking the shake. The lunar eclipse happens all the time. So ha.

[00:47:44] That's it. I got to get back to my tidbit list.

[00:47:49] So once again, pre or let's go to this previous hikes. Ted, I know I really had a small previous

[00:47:55] hike, but let's hear about your previous hike. So Saturday morning, my daughter and I, we set

[00:48:02] out to hike. We hooked up with Danny Davis at the Woodland Valley Parking Area and we took the trail

[00:48:10] up Wittenberg and to Cornell. Interestingly, we got there around nine o'clock, little after nine,

[00:48:17] not a single car in the parking lot. Wow. Yeah, I was really surprised by that.

[00:48:24] So we geared up Danny hooked up with us. We started heading up and we started running

[00:48:31] into the more consistent snow at around 2800 feet or so before then there was a lot of ice on the trees,

[00:48:36] a lot of bent over trees. They were obstructing the trail. You had to really work around them to get

[00:48:43] up the trail. But once we hit that T intersection and started heading up the mountain,

[00:48:50] we really didn't run into that anymore. The snow got deeper. We eventually put on snow shoes.

[00:48:56] You didn't need snow shoes, but it was my daughter's first time snow shoeing. Yeah, so it was really

[00:49:02] cool to do that with her. I did remind her as I remind her often that as her father,

[00:49:08] I taught her how to walk. So to be there when she strapped on a pair of snow shoes for the

[00:49:13] first time, did bring back some memories. She had a good time. Although it was awkward,

[00:49:19] have you ever been with somebody who hasn't snowshoed before and they put them on for the

[00:49:23] first time and they're always stepping on one and then stepping on the other and they're tripping

[00:49:28] and they're struggling? Well, that was her for a while, which is her father. It's fun to see that

[00:49:34] because otherwise she'd be like heading out of the house going rock climbing or something.

[00:49:41] It was good to see her out there with Danny and I. The conditions as you went up further

[00:49:46] just got better and better. It really had that deep winter feel up on Wittenberg and then we

[00:49:54] headed over to Cornell and we explored around Cornell a little bit and turned around, came back.

[00:50:02] To have phenomenal views, I'm guessing because of your pictures.

[00:50:06] Yeah, the views were okay. I mean there was a lot of cloud cover but we weren't trying to

[00:50:10] find an eclipse so the clouds weren't all that bothersome but yeah, the ice on the trees, they

[00:50:17] were just caked in inches of ice and then snow on top of the ice. A lot of the trees were bent over

[00:50:26] even on the summit. So it was from the looks of it, it was a pretty intense storm up there

[00:50:33] but it's always fun to go up into the Catskills in the month of April when the week before you were

[00:50:41] kind of wishing that you had your shorts with you and we're packing light and then this past weekend

[00:50:47] you're throwing your snowshoes on in winter conditions, kind of reliving that winter hiking

[00:50:54] experience. So it was a great time afterwards we went to Rios. Oh wow. Yeah, we didn't get chili

[00:51:02] and milkshakes. We got burgers the whole hike my daughter was just barking out how she was so

[00:51:10] hungry she could eat a burger and that's what we did afterwards. We went over to Rios,

[00:51:14] had a burger and then headed home. Now judging from your pictures it was really

[00:51:21] crazy to see the line of where it was absolutely nothing and then all of a sudden snow and

[00:51:26] rhyme and I say it was really crazy to see that. Yeah, in the parking lot there was no snow, no ice,

[00:51:34] nothing to indicate that it was what it was in the tops. I mean it was fortunate some days you

[00:51:39] drive into the Catskills you can't see the mountain tops when you drive in so you really

[00:51:43] don't know what you're going to get into when you get up there but we were able to see the

[00:51:47] mountain tops we knew we were going to run into some snow I saw some other photos on Instagram

[00:51:52] which indicated to me more or less what we were going to run into and like I said we didn't

[00:51:58] need the snowshoes but it was fun to put them on just so my daughter could get the hang of that.

[00:52:03] Was she opposed to doing that? Like being like oh okay. Yeah, she wanted to get out and

[00:52:09] snowshoe last year but with you know the winter conditions that we didn't have and with her schedule

[00:52:19] of other activities that she was doing last winter we didn't get around to it so the things came

[00:52:27] together for this past weekend between her availability and that I'm going to say maybe

[00:52:34] eight to ten inches of snow that they got at the higher elevation last week it made for a good

[00:52:41] snowshoeing day. And the snow wasn't like what was it it wasn't even like that was it heavy or was it

[00:52:48] like nice and yeah so at the lower elevation it was wetter it was that type of snow that we did

[00:52:54] on the way down for a while we had our trail crampons on and they would snowball underneath

[00:53:00] because of the the wetness of the snow higher up though the snow was dry enough that you didn't get

[00:53:06] any that clumping or caking of the snow on your snowshoe and you know like I said if you if if it

[00:53:15] was a different time of the year maybe you would have thought snowshoes were more of a necessity

[00:53:20] but there wasn't any snow under this recent snowfall and it was right on the border of

[00:53:28] needing or not needing the snowshoes so we opted for them. One of the interesting things was there

[00:53:34] there did seem to be an indication that there had been a lot of wind associated with that snow

[00:53:40] storm particularly the way the the ice had hit these trees how they were all at the upper

[00:53:46] elevation pretty much uniformly bent in the same direction. Nice but I didn't see I didn't see

[00:53:52] any evidence of any drifting up there which I would have expected with wind associated with that

[00:54:01] snowfall. Yeah well did you meet any people on the way down that were ill prepared? Yes of course I

[00:54:07] did that's not even in the script and obviously you knew that happened so we we went all the way

[00:54:12] out to Cornell we hung out at Cornell and then we're on our way back and we run into this

[00:54:19] fellow Doug if you're listening hello Danny ran into him first he was ahead of my daughter and I

[00:54:25] Danny describes Doug as well first of all Doug's a solo out hiker and he did not appear to be

[00:54:33] all that experienced in winter hiking but I'll say that what Doug did come with according to Danny

[00:54:41] was a big blunt yes yes wow all right Doug was apparently hanging out on Wittenberg

[00:54:52] smoking his big blunt he wanted to go on to Cornell but we told him that maybe

[00:54:59] going up the Cornell crack would work for him probably not coming down the Cornell crack

[00:55:04] was going to work for him right and I didn't know what the availability of the DEC and its

[00:55:10] helicopter was on Saturday so I didn't want to encourage him to move on but it's always easier

[00:55:17] to get up the crack in the winter than it is to get down it when it's filled with ice and there

[00:55:21] was underneath that snow you know there was ice and then later on at around 2800 feet on the

[00:55:27] way down we did run into a young couple it was in the afternoon I'm going to say it's around

[00:55:34] three o'clock now the sun's starting to go down it's getting cooler the snow hadn't started to get

[00:55:39] crunchy yet but you knew that it was going to be getting crunchy sooner and we ran into a young

[00:55:46] couple who probably had a lot of cotton on no gloves no spikes but apparently

[00:55:58] some good luck because they were they were still marching along and they were insistent or adamant

[00:56:03] that they would make it to the top before nightfall and get back down and I checked I didn't see

[00:56:09] that there was any incidents or rescues up there we also saw in the the trail register on our way out

[00:56:17] that a couple groups after we started out that a couple groups signed in to go to the summit but

[00:56:24] they never made it to the summit there wasn't any tracks on the way down other than ours and

[00:56:31] dug with the big blunt on the trail and then of course we ran into that young couple

[00:56:38] I don't know if they made it to the summit or not so 20 hundred feet is located kind of like near

[00:56:44] the junction yeah it's just just uphill the the junction I don't know if it's an old logging road

[00:56:50] or uh ox road up there but it was it was easy going there wasn't any ice underneath there as

[00:56:58] you did get up higher I'm not sure if there was ice on the ground or not we had our snow shoes

[00:57:04] on or our spikes so there was enough snow cover on top of it that you weren't hitting the ice nice yeah

[00:57:10] I just you know that young couple going up that late in the afternoon and I didn't see any gloves

[00:57:18] I just found that to be unusual it happens all the time you know I imagined I wonder what it

[00:57:26] was like on panther and stuff like that going up there so that's crazy though awesome experience

[00:57:31] man you gotta love those times of when you get the unexpected and you know you guys were well

[00:57:38] prepared he had the the snowshoes you had to experience in those pictures uh once again

[00:57:43] you want to check out those pictures gs bar one that's his his call name on a good old instagram

[00:57:50] and I got it I was jealous this hack house like wow look at those pictures unbelievable

[00:57:56] that's what I hike for is for the photos I don't do it for anything else just to take a

[00:58:00] couple good photos post them on instagram and get out of there get that fame yeah that's that's

[00:58:06] all I just I hike for the likes on instagram nice so you know you're talking about your big hikes I

[00:58:14] stayed kind of like flat this weekend I went up to the kuka outlet trail and did a couple miles

[00:58:20] with my my friend Chad and my wife Jessica and we hit some nice waterfalls along the way that

[00:58:27] were old mills going from the kuka uh to cana uh Seneca lake uh kind of like business area that

[00:58:34] used to be an old rail bed of course which was awesome to see that and to kind of like them to

[00:58:40] restore that and see you know to be honest that I was one of those guys you know five years ago

[00:58:47] I'd be like I hope nobody ever hikes and then seeing all these people out here hiking and to

[00:58:52] enjoy this was I was just I was smiling and and just so happy that people are out there you know

[00:58:59] looking at these waterfalls and looking at these areas and enjoying these areas and maybe donating

[00:59:04] to these areas to make these these areas better and uh just a phenomenal day on on saturday that we had

[00:59:10] one oh a sunday sunday that we had just sun shining no cloud in the goddamn sky and we're

[00:59:16] like yeah the eclipse is going to be great and then of course new york state has to hit with

[00:59:20] its awesome weather that we have and then the next day it's nice so it's sunday beautiful skies

[00:59:27] monday crappy where we were and then all of a sudden beautiful skies tuesday whatever but on on monday

[00:59:33] the cider was good so it was good completely lost it was good but we got out and about got on those

[00:59:39] those trails it was absolutely basically no elevation gain but seeing those waterfalls the power they

[00:59:46] opened up the gates from kukalake to the senaka lake so the waterfalls were absolutely

[00:59:52] monstrous and just flowing and the power of water you a lot of people don't understand

[00:59:58] how water is the most destructive force in the world that you cannot beat water

[01:00:04] and it's just it's the people don't understand that how powerful it is

[01:00:08] yeah kukalake i used to spend a lot of time up there in the 70s 80s through the 90s

[01:00:16] sailing on the lake and i didn't get into hiking in that area until i'm gonna say sometime in the

[01:00:22] early 90s i did some hiking around there it's very beautiful country up there glad you folks got

[01:00:28] up there to enjoy it yeah loved it loved it so basically that was my good old previous hikes

[01:00:35] hopefully i was i was gonna get out today on tuesday but unfortunately you know i didn't tell

[01:00:41] you i got freaking dentist filling and stuff like that so and recovering from the weekend and stuff

[01:00:47] all right so cat skill news once again volunteer 3500 club cat skill trail crew they got some dates

[01:00:53] coming up uh 421 422 427 428 excuse me 428 on 421 they will be meeting at the scut road

[01:01:02] entrance to the north south lake cramped ground and we will they will be working on the bog bridges

[01:01:07] near the trailhead for the rock shelter trail uh very important uh process uh area up in new york

[01:01:13] state because that is a very well traveled area um and they will be planning on 427 428 again

[01:01:22] to do some trail work so get a hold of uh charlie or uh matt from the cat skill trail crew

[01:01:27] they uh definitely need some help and uh will help out the catskills also check out the catskill

[01:01:33] mountains club the catskill visitor center jolly rover trail crew has their their calendar out now

[01:01:39] brand new mountain fire towers looking for volunteers so if you're up northwest towards me

[01:01:45] check them out check out everybody for some volunteer help once again one to four hours

[01:01:50] per year can make a huge difference in helping also you need stickers go to camp cat skill

[01:01:57] or ask me and i'll send you one free of charge through the mail all right so weather forecast

[01:02:05] today or will this for this weekend tad uh we got some you know friday and saturday look

[01:02:10] like weird kind of crap i don't know if you've you've seen that with the weather forecast but

[01:02:15] it's messed up yeah i i haven't looked at it all that closely yet but what i am wondering is

[01:02:22] will it get warm enough to melt all that snow on the trail or will we have that ice mono rail this

[01:02:32] weekend a question yeah so like uh wednesday thursday and friday it's supposed to be in the fifties

[01:02:39] with with temperatures going down to maybe like 46 to maybe like like 39 nothing too crazy but

[01:02:46] thursday friday and then saturday morning we're supposed to have light to heavy rain so

[01:02:52] that's going to screw everything up and there's kind of like not enough time so friday and this

[01:02:58] saturday there's not enough time for it to freeze over to have that mono rail but it says

[01:03:02] it's supposed to get down to 27 degrees on saturday with light snow in the morning

[01:03:07] with a wind chill of seven degrees so that's that's kind of once again you can't really

[01:03:14] think about what's going to happen because you know this all this rain is going to melt

[01:03:19] either melt the snow or kind of solidified but is there enough snow to make that mono rail

[01:03:24] and then sunday uh a high of 45 uh reaching up to 52 maybe a little bit later in the day

[01:03:32] but wind chill is not going to be that bad maybe high 30s so once again crazy weather

[01:03:38] here that you don't know what the hell you're going to be doing up there

[01:03:41] yeah i once again keep bringing spikes until it's all gone until we maybe have a melting and we're

[01:03:49] going to get another storm are we not gonna what the hell time time will tell but it will

[01:03:55] re-freeze at night then you'll have patches of ice up there and the best thing is just like with

[01:04:01] the mud bring your spikes walk right over the ice don't go to the left or the right because

[01:04:07] you end up making the trail wider causing more erosion yeah and it's it's best to be equipped to

[01:04:13] just go right down the center or close to the edge but not off the edge correct yeah and you know you

[01:04:21] said it it might freeze over you know a lot of these temperatures even with the wind chill won't

[01:04:26] go down below freezing so you might have a freeze over you might not but once again it's

[01:04:32] going to be tough conditions so be prepared and for anything and everything because you know

[01:04:37] fridays heavy rain and light snow at night with you know temperatures going down the low 30s but

[01:04:45] nothing too crazy but the conditions are going to be absolutely horrendous so have fun

[01:04:51] and bring your and bring your rock spikes because you might need them oh yeah the round

[01:04:56] edges rock spikes i got those the knobs that's what we should call it we should make a we

[01:05:01] should make a brand we should create those we should ask people to donate their used and worn out

[01:05:07] micro spikes under the auspices that we're going to give them to needy people but in reality we are

[01:05:14] those needy people and then we're going to sell them at a substantial profit to people who don't

[01:05:20] know better never right that's that's the kind of guy i am stasher obviously you're the

[01:05:25] volunteer of the two of us sure you're the one giving back all the time i'm just looking to

[01:05:29] profit off of this arrangement outrageous all right so let's uh you forgot to do a

[01:05:37] background check on me that's you know i'm that's all i'm saying so i did i did i talked to your

[01:05:42] daughter she's she she did it for me and she said you're a great guy and i knew that was a lie

[01:05:48] all right so let's uh do a little bit of picasco mountain history all right i'm into it

[01:05:54] time is me i'll be back in time okay so we talked about the katsuko mountain railroad

[01:05:59] receiving some money to uh make their time and a little bit better their their operations a little

[01:06:05] bit better so let's chat about them i i found out some old interesting informations about the

[01:06:12] katsuko mountain railroad so they can uh trace their roots back to the round out and as we go

[01:06:17] railroad that began construction in 1868 now later on the ulcer and delaware railroad

[01:06:24] took over that operations in 1867 and pushed to complete the railroad from kinkson all the way

[01:06:30] to where i live in ony on about 1900 uh trains carried vital freight and tourist traffic to and

[01:06:37] from the katskills bluestone for the sidewalks down to new york city was quarried here dairy

[01:06:42] products from area farms uh were brought by the city rail and uh one of the first all-weather

[01:06:48] routes into the katskills uh by the railroad was enjoyed during those times by the thousands

[01:06:55] in those eras now between 1908 and 1912 the railroad carried supplies from construction

[01:07:01] to the ashokan reservoir and that was part of the reservoir systems feeding from new york city

[01:07:05] and when the reservoir was completed nearly 13 miles of the ulcer and delaware railroad

[01:07:10] were relocated to an easement on the property owned by new york city to compensate for the

[01:07:15] old route that is now under water the ulcer and delaware railroad was purchased by the new york

[01:07:21] central road in 1932 and it became their katskill mountain branch uh following the cancellation

[01:07:27] of the last postal service contract passenger service at the line edited 1954 now once again

[01:07:34] new york central and pennsylvania railroads merged in 1968 to form penn central though

[01:07:40] it continued to decline on the branch once again as we go through these times the railroad is declining

[01:07:47] the automobile uh services are doing better and such operation and the route can pass to conrail

[01:07:54] but there was no plans to retain the line after its last freight run once again in october

[01:07:59] second 1976 now many times there was a lot of controversies of whether they should continue

[01:08:05] this on and continue this off through the katskills but once again we have no after the times of

[01:08:12] automobiles and trucks and stuff like that we had no reason to continue this route going up through

[01:08:20] to onyanta and such to bring supplies because we could have that easy route of going up through

[01:08:25] you know to albany to onyanta and such and to have these crazy amounts of of trains travel

[01:08:34] throughout those areas it just went on the huge decline and then unfortunately we don't have any

[01:08:38] really trains going through there now except for you know passenger trains for tourist attractions

[01:08:45] and such um now tad i'm gonna ask you this question i mean it has to do with this you

[01:08:50] probably already don't the answer is is a truer faults can can you just give me an easy truer

[01:08:56] question i need to throw you a curveball there right yeah made you yes okay no no you're gonna get

[01:09:03] out of this question so what was the major cause of forest fires during the time with the four

[01:09:11] cats oh well that the cats go about fire towers by any fire tower in the northeast um i'm gonna go

[01:09:18] with dog smoking his blunt on wittenberg that's where i'm going no no dog probably wasn't born

[01:09:27] so i know that's not the answer what was the leading cause of forest fires and the cat skills

[01:09:34] now i i would be inclined to say that it was the railroads but i know that they had

[01:09:38] spark arresters on their smokestacks so it wasn't the railroads that would cause that

[01:09:45] i think it was elon musk and his first electric car no grand car yeah grandpa elon

[01:09:54] and sparks coming off the battery now why don't you tell us stash i don't have enough in clue

[01:09:59] flames from the batteries that caught on fire every five seconds now you were right it was the

[01:10:06] the railroads had actually caused the most amount of forest fires in the regions mostly in

[01:10:11] the adirondacks and the cat skills uh you can check that out on uh marty pot scotch books of the

[01:10:17] cat skill fire towers in the adirondacks i believe that and i remember reading that some place

[01:10:23] long long ago yeah it's pretty crazy you know uh after reading his book i was just like oh wow

[01:10:29] i never knew that you know but me being not educated in that that area of of uh you know

[01:10:38] expertise of railroad stuff uh that brought over those areas through stony clove notch of course

[01:10:44] where it was like a practical v so once again your your sparks are shooting to either side and

[01:10:50] there's trees all over the place and catch it fire with dead trees from tannin you know and it kind

[01:10:55] of makes sense so the irony is that the railroads in some large part were earning money by hauling

[01:11:08] lumber out of the cat skills but at the same time these railroads were causing forest fires

[01:11:16] that would destroy that lumber before it was cut down and harvested so that that must have been

[01:11:21] quite a problem for them to to deal with back then yeah my god damn it again the rail trails

[01:11:30] there goes dug in his blunt right right so where dug doesn't even listen to this and here i am

[01:11:37] highly doubted out this is we got to find out his his last name we'll we'll reach out to him

[01:11:43] no he's a star of the podcast now yes i'm gonna get him on the show

[01:11:48] yes this is with his blunt yes so that that's that's all the cats go about in history i have

[01:11:55] um uh so i'm gonna go over the sponsors and then we're gonna go over the topic of the light

[01:12:01] which is nothing i don't think so i'm gonna just we're gonna we're just gonna have like

[01:12:05] three minutes 23 seconds of silence like we're reliving the eclipse and all of its totality

[01:12:12] and then we're gonna sign off oh we were cheering we were cheering through that whole time it was great

[01:12:17] i'm under the clouds exactly so is it time for some new gear hiking the cats go say no more camp

[01:12:24] cats go to tannersville house all your hiking needs footwear socks moisture we can search

[01:12:28] free dried meals cats go merchandise and more they have all the essentials for your hiking

[01:12:33] needs located in tannersville and they have an online store check out camp cats go if you want

[01:12:38] free stickers stop here also if you already hit the trails make sure you take the scenic route

[01:12:43] scenic route guidance are here to help you with your goals bigger or small like mars here slide

[01:12:47] or loan of the sewers check out scenic route guiding and gear rentals on instagram and facebook

[01:12:52] for more information also if you mentioned the podcast you can get 10 off use the code

[01:12:58] mountain lion also check out another summit a nonprofit program that leads outdoor adventure

[01:13:03] activities for veterans and first responders for free on other summits epic adventure applications

[01:13:09] are open this year's epic adventures includes nine-day canoe trip in north main woods and a

[01:13:14] through hike of the northville placer trilogy at around x epic adventures are a step up program

[01:13:20] where you only see classroom instruction wilderness first aid trading and a custom three day

[01:13:25] trading trip all leading up to the adventure you'll never forget of course this is all 100

[01:13:30] percent free for veterans and first responders applications are open until may for the alakash

[01:13:35] river canoe trip and may 15th for the northville placer trail apply today at another summit.org

[01:13:42] all right so i mean this is kind of awkward man i mean we're still an hour and 18 minutes in

[01:13:47] it that's pretty impressive let's let's give the listeners the night off we right yeah we don't

[01:13:53] have to do a marathon session right so uh question let's just have a real quick question

[01:14:01] favorite viewpoint in the Catskills tad what is yours

[01:14:06] silence i see it well a lot of thoughts going into this answer so as i'm rambling i'm actually

[01:14:13] winding up to gee what would actually be the best viewpoint in the Catskills given that

[01:14:21] the Catskills are known for their very expansive and numerous viewpoints so without further ado

[01:14:31] my favorite viewpoint in the Catskills or should i just say my favorite view which interestingly

[01:14:39] i see on every hike and that is my car in the parking lot at the end of the hike that always

[01:14:49] after a long hike and it seems the longer the hike the better that view is when you see when you

[01:14:55] when you come around the corner or where you're coming down that hill like when you're coming

[01:14:59] back from friday down to moon hall road and you can you can hear the moon hall and you're

[01:15:04] getting closer to the parking lot and then you see your white jeep sitting there waiting for you

[01:15:12] to take you away that's that's pretty stellar um i'll look i'll give you kudos you turned me

[01:15:18] on to that one viewpoint on slide it was it was a bitch to get to and i had to earn it that day

[01:15:26] i had all that wet snow falling on me so uh there was some level of misery getting there

[01:15:32] that maybe made it worth more worthwhile and then uh there's another spectacular viewpoint the

[01:15:39] location will not be uh made known but it was uh given to me by danie davis and i we took my daughter

[01:15:49] there this weekend and it's um it's pretty cool so i know where it is yeah i can imagine you do so

[01:15:58] well i'll stick i'll stick with the one on slide because that's so hard to find and you don't

[01:16:02] want to go over there until you man nobody does you want some adirondack bushwhacken experience

[01:16:09] then you would go there but it's absolutely treacherous and horrible i i don't regret it but

[01:16:15] god damn that was a bitch yeah well i i hiked up the uh deer shanty brook which was that's even

[01:16:21] that's him crazy yeah it was a it was a fun and interesting hike getting up there so stash

[01:16:27] since you asked the question i know i know you have a favorite viewpoint that you want to share

[01:16:33] with us so take it away you know what this is gonna be people are gonna be uh like disappointed

[01:16:39] but i cannot get away from that viewpoint on balsam it's like right like people like balsam

[01:16:48] it's good it's good it was my first peak it was my first cat skills viewpoint so

[01:16:55] when you hiked up to it that first time were you going clockwise or counterclockwise clockwise

[01:17:02] okay yeah i was i was just blown away even though there was no leaves on the trees it was completely

[01:17:10] kind of dull but i i just can't forget how amazing that was and how like like that's the

[01:17:18] flick the switch flicked and i was just like this is this is the shit this is the best

[01:17:24] so are you one of those fellows that when you get to the viewpoint you kind of hunker down

[01:17:29] spend a few minutes there take it in of course yeah i've just i'm blown away every time there's

[01:17:36] never been a time where i have been at a viewpoint i've been bored yeah i don't know if it was um

[01:17:42] i think it was on uh panther um that my daughter and i our first hike up panther a long time ago

[01:17:50] so we got to the viewpoint on panther and what was sweet about it is actually

[01:17:54] the lower edge of the cloud was below you oh nice yeah it was almost like you know a mild

[01:18:02] inversion that you would if you look straight out you'd be almost looking right into the cloud

[01:18:08] and you have to look down to see under it and you could see you know how it was evolving and

[01:18:15] moving and shaping and reforming it's a very cool experience and i'm glad she my daughter was

[01:18:20] there to see it uh with me kind of blew her away so yeah those times the inversions man i i i've yet

[01:18:28] to experience one in the Catskills uh and i don't think any other place but i the the inversions

[01:18:36] is definitely something i want to see in the Catskills and i wish i'm hoping one day one day

[01:18:41] gotta get out there early for those well yeah i i think if we start listening to the de c podcast

[01:18:46] they're gonna tell you when those inversions are coming that's going to be i think a segment

[01:18:51] that they're gonna have so not that we're not good well i'm just all of this is in fun we

[01:18:58] love the de c they do so much for us and as i said a few podcasts ago given all of the increase

[01:19:05] in traffic and huge usage in the cast skills it's a shame that their budget has an increased

[01:19:12] you know in proportion to that so they do a lot with the little that they have but

[01:19:19] i'll say now yeah now they want their own podcast and the podcast wars are about to start

[01:19:25] hell yeah hell yeah oh we're gonna do it all right so uh we want to do a post-hook

[01:19:31] bruising bites you want to suggest i already threw my nose yeah we hung out at brio's and

[01:19:37] let me say this and i'm this is kind of like a sinful confession if you will that after dinner

[01:19:45] on our way out we stopped at the dessert bar at brio's and we we picked up probably 10 000 calories

[01:19:56] and oh yeah it was just outrageous yeah and so they're everybody talks about their pizza

[01:20:04] which is really really good their burgers i had the impossible burger it was okay my

[01:20:12] daughter said her burger was okay but the dessert yes maybe that's even maybe even that's a better

[01:20:20] view than your car in the parking lot at the end of the hike is that dessert bar at brio's on your

[01:20:26] way home correct yes now now they should they should with all the promo they get on this podcast

[01:20:32] they should be sponsoring us i know right yeah we're just giving us free food when we show up

[01:20:37] one or the other okay uh you know i don't have any i haven't been the cats in a little bit so

[01:20:44] hickory hill i really like going to over in windham that was a fantastic spot for some good

[01:20:50] sub was and stuff like that so check them out over in windham all right so once again there we go

[01:20:57] so thanks for the month right thank you to the monthly supporters and the sponsors really

[01:21:02] appreciate you guys uh thank you to everyone who is still lifting after 119 episodes i know this was

[01:21:08] probably a lame episode but you know tad and i pulled it off last minute kind of thing that was

[01:21:13] just like oh crap we're not gonna be able to do this and we did yes definitely and imagine the dc won't

[01:21:19] be able to do it under these conditions i'm just telling you that now okay yeah they'll they'll

[01:21:25] sue if they're gonna add there somebody cancels on them they're gonna be like screw you we're suing

[01:21:28] you you ruined it yeah but we pulled it off you know once again uh i can't tad thank you for joining

[01:21:36] me uh because i couldn't have done this by myself this would have been absolutely horrendous if i

[01:21:40] tried to do it by myself which what was that stash i didn't hear that i was getting ready to sign

[01:21:44] off it's a compliment complimenting me no stash kudos to you takes a lot of effort recording ended

[01:21:52] yeah i get the message yeah thank you though i really appreciate it that it was a great chat

[01:21:58] all right kudos to you pal all right have a good night dad uh let's get together sometime in the

[01:22:04] next 20 years see you at the next equates yeah

[01:22:09] yeah

[01:22:15] hey everyone i just want to thank you for listening to the show if you enjoyed the show subscribe and

[01:22:22] throw down a smooth review on spotify apple podcast or any podcast platform

[01:22:29] you can also check daily updates of the podcast hikes hiking news and local news on facebook

[01:22:38] instagram twitter and the official website of the show remember this you gotta just keep on living

[01:22:47] the cat skills man

[01:22:49] and i'd be i wake it wake it wake it