Episode 128 - Catskills Fire Tower Challenge

[00:00:30] The Bushwacks were some of the worst days I've ever had in the mountains. Or life, really. Whereas Pantsfield Mountain is totally opposite. It's a mountain on top of a face. I think the weather challenges on this incident were particularly difficult.

[00:00:48] It is really the development of New York State. Catskills will respond to you. Yeah! Now you're listening to Inside The Line, The Catskill Mountains Podcast. So, episode 128, Ted. It's getting up there, getting up there, so... I'm closing in on you. I'm not far behind.

[00:01:16] I think I've done 50 of these already. 50? My God! Yeah, yeah. Have you even listened to 50 of these? I'm not gonna answer that question, obviously. Exactly. It would be embarrassing if I did. Yeah, so, 128. We're gonna talk about the Fire Tower Challenge tonight.

[00:01:32] Basically what it is, the history of the Fire Tower Challenge. How you can do it. What the trails are like and different approaches and such. And just how awesome it is. How it could get you an entryway into the Catskills, into hiking.

[00:01:47] Let alone just anything else that will branch you off into everything and everything Catskills-hiking related. So, 128. So, yeah. One thing I wanted to mention, Ted, for the listeners. This almost sounds like I'm in trouble, folks. I can't wait to hear it. Not at all. Not at all.

[00:02:07] Best thing you could do for the podcast is rate the podcast on the platform you use. Definitely. Yeah, so that'll kind of give us... I guess it's like a ratings boost. It's kind of like a listener boost and it'll kind of promote it a little bit better.

[00:02:24] So, if you get the chance, rate us on any platform you can use. Is whatever, Apple Podcasts, Spotify. I forgot the others. But rate the podcast and that'll do well. I remember a lot of people at the expo asked what they could do for the podcast.

[00:02:44] And I just told them to rate it. Speaking of that, the Catskill Outdoor Expo was pretty freaking cool. It was cool and a big learning experience. Yeah, I'll say I had a better time than I expected. So, I'm glad I showed up.

[00:03:02] I'm glad I stayed for the duration. But I'm not happy that our fabulous survey didn't work out so well. Yeah, that'll happen. Well, it's our first time. I looked at all the other vendors and they had like 200,000 free things.

[00:03:19] And we had stickers and then maybe a survey that didn't work. We had the box that goes with the big drawing if the survey works. But we'll get into that when you're ready.

[00:03:30] Yeah, so once again, if you took the survey at the expo, get a hold of us. Because it didn't work. For some reason, it didn't work. We didn't get the results that we needed. So, if you took the survey, please reach out to us through the website,

[00:03:46] through Instagram, Facebook, email, whatever. Sorry that it didn't work. There was something going on. It looked like it went well. People were having fun doing it, Danny and stuff. So, we met a lot of people. And, you know, to be honest, what sucks is I didn't write down

[00:04:02] everybody's names. So, sorry once again. But we met Joe. Joe was awesome. I think he had like a New Jersey accent. It was New Jersey, right? Well, we met a lot of Joe's. So, I'm not sure which one you're referring to. Joe with the New Jersey accent.

[00:04:18] It was actually... Okay, yeah. Well, are you making... Is that like the guy with the more British accent? I think he was Irish. Irish? Okay, well, I just offended him. I mean, I probably am wrong too. But he was cool dude. Larry Paul. I love talking to him.

[00:04:39] Mike and Katie. I think Mike and Katie were from Connecticut. They were really cool. Yeah, they were kind of like... I was surprised that they listened to the podcast and knew who we were. They kind of struck me as very Connecticut conservative. They were actually...

[00:04:58] They originated from the Midwest and moved out here a few years ago. And somehow, I don't know, maybe they punched the wrong stuff into Spotify. But they found the podcast and they're fans. I agree, I agree. It's just odd hearing fans, people listening to this.

[00:05:14] Of course, Danny was there. Danny, our previous episode, talks about the Hudson Valley and stuff like that. He was here. They went up to Double Top right after that too. South Double Top. Sorry, South Double Top. Don't want to say Double Top. I'm sorry about that.

[00:05:27] You almost got them arrested. God, God. He didn't go up to Double Top. South Double Top. Not even close. Yeah, they were here checking out and talking with us. Chris from Catskill Adventures was here. I was wearing his shirt from The Devil's Path.

[00:05:43] He's a cool dude who participated with me on the Longest Day Hike last year that we did for the Alzheimer's Association. What sucks is I won't be doing it this year. I'm going to be down in the Shenandoahs. Sorry about that. Excuse me.

[00:05:58] And a bunch of other people. Mark was talking with us about some stuff. I think there was a bunch of other people. Once again, I couldn't remember their name. There's too much going on. There was so much going on. More folks than we can remember.

[00:06:15] One of the things that surprised me is the reaction that we got from a lot of people to the variety of content that we provide more than just hiking. I thought that was unexpected, but we're listened to by more than just hikers.

[00:06:34] Yeah, and that's what's cool is we are a variety. I would love to stick to just hiking, but the Catskills are way more than that. Definitely way more than that. We also met Brett from Catskask. Greatest podcast of the Catskills.

[00:06:51] Brett, I accused Brett of offering me a job. Yeah. Did you take it? Well, we're in negotiation. My people are speaking to his people. Numbers are being thrown around. Apparently there's in podcasting, there's a salary cap like there is in professional sports,

[00:07:07] but we're going to work around it. I might get an ownership interest moving up to the big league. What professional sports has a salary cap besides hockey? Baseball. Baseball does not have a salary cap. What is their salary cap? 200 billion? Yeah.

[00:07:23] Their salary cap is it's enough to fund several small nations. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Hockey is the best. But not enough to supplement my hiking budget, right? Exactly. I hike in nothing but the best tattered and ripped shorts and shirts. Exactly. Exactly. And that's the best part of it.

[00:07:45] You know, you don't want to, I have always said you don't want to spend too much money on something that's just going to get destroyed in a matter of like weeks. Yeah, that's sure true for summer hiking gear.

[00:07:56] As you get into the colder months, it definitely pays off. I think we spoke about that last episode to up your game and get some high-tech fabrics and gear going. But in the summer, you know, wear your cutoff denims and your tank tops.

[00:08:14] And when you fall down in the nettle fields, just roll around to your heart's content. Yeah. Yeah. So once again, Catskill Expo was absolutely fantastic. We met a lot of cool people. A lot of people checked out the site that we had, the booth.

[00:08:33] And hopefully they take a listen at it because we're just a bunch of dudes having fun and we give out a lot of information, a lot of fun. And that's what it's all about. So also the survey, we're going to try to get that going.

[00:08:47] We're going to get that up. We're going to have a QR code. So we're going to post it on any social media page that we can. You have to enter your email just so you can be a winner.

[00:08:57] It's not like we're going to spam you with everything like that. We're not going to do that. Your email needs to be entered so we can find out from you where you live and where we can send the box to.

[00:09:07] Now, Ted, can you tell me the contents that you had in this? Oh boy. Well, there was no contraband in the box. So let's say I'm going to go by memory here. I had a nice Nelgene water bottle. I had some bug spray.

[00:09:25] I had a bug head net to where I had a nice assortment of what I'm going to call power food like Cliff bars, protein bars, goo shots, other assorted things like that. I had a book on Catskill hiking trails. The folks at the Catskill Center donated a book.

[00:09:49] They brought a book over to put in the box. And let's see what else I had some. What was the biggest one? Come on, what was the biggest? Oh, I had a set of Catskill maps.

[00:09:59] No, not even like your big cell part that you had at the show. Oh, oh, the big thing that I had. You mean the big blunt that was full of what was that? Panama Reg, you called it or Acapela. I forget. No, I had a $25 Stewart's gift card.

[00:10:15] So you complete the survey, provide your email address and everything. If it goes according to plan, what Stash and I are planning to do is on our next episode, number 129 provided Stash and his wife get back from their Appalachian trail adventures.

[00:10:36] We're going to have the drawing live on air and announce the winner. That was great. So it's an awesome time. So we'll get that out as soon as possible. So I mean, this is we're recording on Tuesday, so it'll be released Friday.

[00:10:52] I'll get that out as soon as possible, probably before then. So you'll probably hear about it before then. So what else? So Man of Two's Revenge is coming up. You ever heard of this, Ted? Yeah, I've heard of it and I can't fathom.

[00:11:07] I can't fathom what it takes to do it. Nope. Same here. Same here. Absolutely insane. So if you were hiking the Catskills, you know about Man of Two. Man of Two is basically the edge, the whole edge of the Catskills.

[00:11:20] And it was named by the Native Americans as a kind of like a barrier between the dark and the good and darkness of the Hudson Valley was good. The Catskills were dark just because they were mountains. They wanted to go in between there.

[00:11:35] So they made a run, ultra marathon, 53 miles that goes from Windham all the way to Phoenicia. 1500 feet of climbing, rocky terrain. We all know that terrain going on the long path up from, you know, Windham all the way down, going up, down to Phoenicia is, you know,

[00:11:55] can be crazy with rocks and roots and everything like that. So, you know, if you're doing a ultra marathon, people complete this. And it is a course that take you a little bit further than your normal 50 miles and such. They are allowing 23 hours to complete this trail.

[00:12:16] Nine runners. It said a limited number of aid stations, only nine aid stations between that 53 miles. So if you divide that 53, it's kind of like what? Every eight miles. You said, yeah, I'm guessing they said it nine, nine stations. Oh, yeah. Yes. You're you're right around that. Wow.

[00:12:37] So it says this is once again, this reading this stuff is just absolutely insane. Nine stations and runners should be prepared to spend up to three or four hours between aid stations. You will have to be reasonably self-sufficient, of course, to make the matters worse.

[00:12:53] The course gets progressively more difficult as you go along. And to top it off, the average runner will have to tackle the hardest terrain in the dark because once again, it's 53 fricking miles. And so I'm looking up the how to enter this manatee's revenge.

[00:13:09] And I see I was thinking of actually doing it and I see you have to have run in another 50 mile or longer with significant elevation gain 8000 feet within the past, within the time limits, et cetera, in the last two years.

[00:13:25] So I guess this year I can't do it. Maybe I'll gear up for it next year. Yeah, I'm trying. I'm trying to look for the results of kind of like who is what the average time is.

[00:13:37] Of course, Stephen Lang, I've had him on here before, did it in 11 hours. And so yeah, and that was 2022. So I don't know if that's the record ever, but 53 miles, 11 hours. Yeah. Yeah, I first heard about this. I can't tell you easily more than 10 years ago.

[00:14:03] And when it was described to me, I thought they were pulling my leg. Right? I didn't think somebody would do something like this. My good old pal, Philip Vondra did that that year. It was ninth with 13 hours. Yeah.

[00:14:17] So I'm trying to see if I know anybody other people, but a bunch of like Ryan Thorpe, I know some of these people that have done it. 17 hours goes from 11 hours to 23 hours. 68 people completed it in 2022. So that's pretty, I got to admit, that's pretty freaking fantastic.

[00:14:36] That's unbelievable to think about. Yeah. So the bummer is that you're planning on doing the whole thing, but you you can only do half of it. And so at 3 AM, you decide to drop out. Right? What happens to you? You just run it. You completely bonk.

[00:14:53] You have no more energy, no more will to continue on. You're at the top of, you know, pick a mountain, right? Yeah. You're completely spent. What do you do? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You know, and then looking up another race the next year, 2023, a guy finished

[00:15:14] it in 10 hours, 46 minutes. And of course my man, Philip Vondra, stayed at the time of 13 hours, 13 hours, 55 minutes. But, you know, and that time, 2023, 99 people completed it. So it increased by 21 was absolutely phenomenal. Amazing. Just, you know, I got to get my, you know, I watched,

[00:15:37] the tail I watched at the end of the escarpment run and I was blown away because, you know, Joshua Reed, I had him on the show. He did it. I had him talk on that too. He is absolute. I follow him on Instagram. That guy's a goddamn beast.

[00:15:53] So is Stephen Lang. They are both absolute beasts. They go back and forth on each other and it's, it's crazy. But to think about this is a big no for me, dog. I'm going to, I'm going to say that.

[00:16:07] And you look at some of the spacing between the finishers and there's a lot of time in between them. And so you're, you're really out there running alone for quite a while. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And then you think about that, you know, like people don't think about

[00:16:26] like a minute, like a minute is pretty long time between each other in the mountains, you know, to say even in, in just running with marathons that they could be so far behind you. And like, like you said, you're not, and what, what do you do?

[00:16:41] What do you do when you're running with a person on the trail? Like, Hey, like, do you talk or do you just basically focus that you're not going to die? I guess it's the pace at which you run.

[00:16:52] If you're running so high that you're, you don't have the aerobic capacity to engage in a conversation other than like these primitive grunting sounds, you know, like a caveman. But what I think is cool is you go to the results page and then you click

[00:17:09] on somebody's name and it pulls up their results and other events. Like I see this one fellow, Ben nephew did the sun up, he scramble. I raised a bike one time around the lake, sun up in New Hampshire. It was unbearable. Yeah.

[00:17:31] It goes, it does, it does list a lot of stuff, but you know, I can't find any, any records on that. But once again, Manitou's revenge is going to be on, did I list the dates? Did I? I didn't June 22nd and 23rd. Wow.

[00:17:46] I didn't say that as far as June 22nd, 23rd. So kind of, I mean, if you want to see some fricking crazy people go on the escarpment trail in the long path, going from a, a, atterskill high peak all the way down to Phoenicia, watch them.

[00:17:59] People go absolutely insane on the long path. Check them out. And if you want to participate, absolute fricking luck, cause that'll be something I will never participate in in my life. Maybe I'll participate in just to say I did it and you know, like 68

[00:18:15] hours or maybe like, like 68 my way. It'd be like four times that. So I did it. Yeah. It'll be a way better than that. So Ted, one thing that you introduced me to a long time ago, it was pretty

[00:18:28] cool that you introduced me to this Catskill crew newsletter. Now. Yeah. It's pretty neat stuff. I gotta admit. Yeah. We met him over the weekend, didn't we? Yeah, correct. Very interesting fellow. He's actually up to something really cool with his newsletter, but you

[00:18:48] can, you can roll on this. I know you and he had a, a nice conversation. I'm not quite sure. I'm not quite sure what you guys were into, but it sounds like you were, you were networking and deal making and all those things. Yeah.

[00:19:04] His name is Mike and he does the Catskill crew newsletter, which is basically events within the community and also like deals in the Catskills that they got going on. And it'll basically be an email shot to you. And he also has an Instagram page. We'll check about it.

[00:19:19] It'll be in the show notes. I'll, I'll put this, it's just regular email or his regular internet page on the show notes, but it's just an email blast basically telling you within the week what is going on in the Catskills where they have certain

[00:19:36] deals, where they have certain fun, where parties are going on, stuff like that. And I gotta admit, it's pretty cool. Mike was a really cool dude. He had one of those bad-ass mustaches that I remember that was

[00:19:46] basically looked like he was in super troopers, which was pretty cool. I got, I meant it was really, but I get a lot of- I didn't know there was a bro romance going on over there. There was. There was. Yeah. Oh boy. He's a cool dude. Yeah.

[00:20:01] But I'm looking at their Instagram page and it highlights what is in their weekly newsletter. And it's apparently just a bunch of interesting stuff going on in the Catskills that you'd be hard pressed to find by doing your own web surfing.

[00:20:17] I do see a photo of the Catskill crew card, which gets you discounts at various establishments in the Catskills. He gave Stash and I each one of those cards. I haven't used mine yet, but- Yeah, I gotta get down there. Yeah.

[00:20:34] I guess it's one of the benefits of being a member of the Catskill crew. Yeah. It's pretty cool dude. So check out Catskill crew's newsletter from Mike. Good job. Amazing job from keeping everybody kind of up to date with what's going on in the Catskills, which we need.

[00:20:49] So let's turn this over to a little bit of a rescue that happened in New York State. Not just the Catskills, but New York State. Of course this had to happen on Mount Marsy.

[00:21:03] Once again, I'm so glad I did this in the summer when there was nobody around, but so we're at June 11th. This happened on June 1st, 1049 AM. Marsy Summit Steward contacted Ray Book Dispratch by a 12-year-old and a 15-year-old who became separated from their parents on Mount Marsy.

[00:21:24] From Marsy Dam, the children from Canada took the Avalanche Lake Trail instead of the trail of Marshy. So Avalanche Lake goes over to the right, Marsy goes to the left. Forest rangers and assistant forest rangers and a late cold and caretaker spread the word

[00:21:39] about a search of missing children. A group of hikers found the children and redirected them to their parents, and the family was reunited at 1234 PM. So a couple hours later, not too bad. Once again, the Adirondacks are a little bit crazy. Still there, Ted? Yeah, I'm here. Sure.

[00:22:01] It's, you know, it just from what you presented, it sounds like a brief separation. Just imagine the craziness though that would happen. Oh yeah. I'm sure the parents were highly concerned. I just wonder how it was that the family was hiking together at one point

[00:22:17] and then the next point they're somehow separated from one another. I will say though when I was 12 years old, I was off hiking alone. Always made it back to the pickup point or to the house for dinner. Right before the bell rang, right?

[00:22:38] Yeah, literally my mother did have the bell by the back door that she would come out and ring at dinnertime. Exactly. No, mine didn't have that. I'm not that old. Thank you. Thank you. So the Stosh is one up on the scorecard tonight. Okay.

[00:22:58] Stump Stosh is later on. We got some real doozeys, buddy. That's true. That's going to be crazy. I gotta admit. You'll need a week off to recover. Recover from my embarrassment? So we're talking about rescues and such.

[00:23:14] So there was a, you know, I'm a big person on plane crashes that happened in the past. And it very rarely happens now. It hasn't really happened since the 1980s. We've had a couple here and there. Technology has gone crazy. But on June 2nd, approximately 4.50 p.m.

[00:23:33] a New Hampshire fishing game wildlife department was notified of a glider crash that occurred in the White National Mountain Forest in Benton. So the pilot was uninjured, but was inside the cockpit stuck hanging from a tree approximately 20 feet up from the ground.

[00:23:48] Luckily he had self-service and was able to text 911. So the conservation officers, US Forest Service Law Enforcement rescued the personnel from Haverhill Hanover and the pilot was identified as Henry Swayze, 84, of Tundra's Vermont. He had taken off from Post Mills Vermont around 2 p.m.

[00:24:08] and made it to Cannon Mountain in Franconia before trying to return to Post Mills. On his return to Whip Swayze had trouble lift and tried to circle the ridge near Hogsback. During his last attempt at getting lift, he hit a downdraft

[00:24:23] and crashed near the saddle of Hogsback Mountain around 4.20 p.m. Tough luck, 4.20, bro. Rescuers were able to access the US Forest Service Road within half a mile of Swayze and the first rescuers retured him approximately 6.55 p.m. and began to plan his extraction.

[00:24:40] Now Fire Department personnel was set up at Pulley and Harness System, the lower Swayze from the tree, and Swayze was rescued from personnel and were back by the road at 9.50 p.m. The FAA was given Swayze information and it was under further investigation.

[00:24:54] So seeing the pictures, I am actually going to put this in the show notes because I got to admit that is absolutely incredible because there's a glider crash in the Catskills and I'm not going to give that away.

[00:25:10] I got to admit, that's cool. I've sent you pictures of that, correct? Yes. If it is the one I'm thinking of, you did send me photos of it. I got to admit, that's freaking crazy. To lead off from Vermont, so I'm going to try to pinpoint how many...

[00:25:29] So Tunbridge, Vermont to Hogsback Mountain. Let's see how far that is. So glider crash. So no engines involved, correct? Like there's nothing but wind. Yeah, which does that explain why he survived because he wasn't going as fast as a plane with a motor has?

[00:25:55] Because he doesn't have a motor, he's a glider pilot. Is he presumably more proficient in maneuvering his plane on like somebody who has a motor with the throttle to get themselves out of trouble with the throttle?

[00:26:13] I don't know, but I found it interesting that he is a survivor and I want to attribute it to the fact that he has more control and finesse over the glider than somebody who's operating a plane with a motor or multiple motors on it.

[00:26:31] And the glider is maybe more responsive than an airplane. Yeah, so... Just me speculating. No, no. So to go there, looks like the distance is... Driving is 50 miles, so I'm guessing minus about 15 miles. So, you know, 35 miles of flight if he was just going over.

[00:26:55] And the Hogsback is basically around like a couple miles from Mount Moosilake. So one of the kind of biggest mountains, or not biggest mountains, most popular mountains in New Hampshire. So, you know, he flew 30 miles on just wind alone

[00:27:14] and then was going to turn around and fly 30 miles back. So that's just 60 miles of... That's a lot of faith. Can you imagine that? You get some tow off the ground by a prop plane, you're brought up to a certain elevation and then they release you

[00:27:33] and then you're on your own. You're relying on the winds, thermals, whatever it is to keep the plane up in the air. And you're going to fly all that way out and then try to get all the way back.

[00:27:44] It takes a lot of confidence and presumably know-how to do that. Exactly. Yeah, I'm glad I just stick to keeping my feet on the ground, taking one step at a time. Exactly. And you know, looking by the pictures of this glider crash, you know, it doesn't look...

[00:28:06] Like this glider looks huge. It's got to be the wingspan, it's got to be at least 30, 40 feet. And like, I don't understand where they can take off from. Like it just, you know, I'm going to send you this link real quick, Ted. Yeah.

[00:28:23] Don't be stingy with the intel. You're over there looking at all these photos, making all these assessments. I'm just here looking at your ugly face, talking to you. That's true. Trying to pretend that this is interesting. I don't even know how to send a message in this.

[00:28:37] I thought I saw this before. Just share the screen. That's actually very true. I'm surprised you made it so far without me. Right? Look at this. If you ever have to jumpstart your Tesla, give me a call. Right. Like that's pretty big plane. Yeah.

[00:28:57] So it shows the plane pointed. Who's this dude coming up on your screen? Henry Swayze? What's going on there? That's him. That's him. Oh, this is the glider guy? Yeah. I don't have it on. Jesus. It looks like he was on a suicide mission. Okay.

[00:29:13] So yeah, it's pretty interesting. This thing is almost vertical, nose down. The plastic or whatever Luzon cab over where the pilot sits is open. This guy's sitting there with his legs dangling down and apparently just chilling out, waiting for a rescue. Yeah. It's like, I don't know.

[00:29:38] I don't understand how that could go that far just based upon wind and stuff. You got to know your shit when you do that. Yeah. Well, you need to Google this guy and you're going to find out that he was probably like

[00:29:50] a YouTube pilot for the CIA in the sixties and did those high flyovers Russia. And this for him was just like a little walk in the park. I'm going to do a simple 60 mile round trip jaunt in my glider today. Wow.

[00:30:07] I mean, do you see what I said about him hanging out off the glider like that? You know, just like he's leaning up against a tree. I like how they took a picture of him and it was like, Hey, buddy, what's going on? Yeah.

[00:30:20] Before we take you down, we need to get a couple of good photos of you. It almost seems like he's done this before. Yeah. And once again, this happened in the Catskills before, so I don't remember the date, but it happened and I've, I've, I've saw it.

[00:30:36] So I saw the accident. So yeah. So, you know, we're very, I'm very late on this because I had nothing to talk about, no one to talk to about this, but the whole man versus bear debate. Now, Ted, do you know about this? You had heard about this.

[00:30:52] Again, you're like, this is like stumps, Tata. You're pulling the glider thing out of left field, not sharing the photos. Now it's the Tad versus, oh man versus bear. Okay. Yeah. I'm a little late on this. Do you remember seeing stuff about this? No.

[00:31:08] So women would, would propose the idea online or who they'd rather face out in the wild with, is it a man versus bear? Who would they rather face? And of course the women chose the bear because the man of course has instincts, stuff like that.

[00:31:28] They have thoughts and such. So a lot of it. You completely lost me on that. I'm going to make you back up. What is it that a man has thoughts? Can you please explain that for the listening audience? No, no, no.

[00:31:43] I'm not going to let you gloss over that. What did you mean that a man has thoughts? Well they have different thoughts than a bear. I don't know. I'm not sure. The women, of course the man is seen as kind of like a predator somewhat from

[00:32:00] the women's standpoint and the bear could just run off in the woods and such like that. But it was a big subject. This was a couple of weeks ago. I'm not going to get on this.

[00:32:12] I don't know if I didn't want to talk about this because of what shefeely it was. Yeah. Because a man has thoughts. Well, I don't know. I get it. It's an issue. It is.

[00:32:27] So I guess the question is what are you more like out in the woods, a bear or a man? What do you hike like? I just want to see the fricking views. That's all I want to see. I mean, I'm a nice guy.

[00:32:41] I just say hi or something like that and I'll walk past you or ask you how you doing and stuff like that. But I won't be any threat. Yeah. So as I make light of this then I'm getting down to the heart of the

[00:32:51] article where it says a bear is the safer choice. No doubt about it many say. So I'm revealing my insensitivities as a man, not picking up on this is a common or typical concern of a woman out hiking, particularly somebody out hiking solo.

[00:33:08] And as we speak I have a daughter who's I believe out in Colorado today rock climbing. Picking up solo. She's solo, right? Yeah. Well, she's doing a lot of overnighting solo and not rock climbing solo, but would be hiking solo on days.

[00:33:26] But yeah, so it's a legitimate thing. And this is where guys need to step up their game and be more cognizant of the appearance of a threat if not the reality of them posing a threat to fellow hikers, particularly women. Yeah.

[00:33:46] But yeah, I mean there hasn't, to be honest, the threat of a man out in the wilderness, they're usually out there to enjoy the wilderness. They're not out there to destroy. Let's say get on that kind of path of to harm.

[00:34:04] I mean unless they're like I've only heard of instances on the Appalachian Trail at the popular areas and stuff like that. But just recently I've heard of two grizzly bear attacks up in Canada and down in Glacier National Park. Grizzly bear attacks and luckily the people survived.

[00:34:26] But unfortunately that bear has to be put down. So it's just, and as the memes have come from it, it's just been crazy. Yeah. So going back to the man versus bear topic, maybe on a future episode we can have

[00:34:46] some of our female listeners and have them educate and enlighten us on how male hikers can be more sensitive on the trail to the concerns of a female hiker. You know, that is a fantastic question.

[00:35:07] And soon someone will be on here that is female hiker that could maybe answer that question or give her thoughts about that sort of topic. And that's, you know, Ted, I'm going to throw that in there right there. Excellent.

[00:35:23] Until then I'm going to dress up as a bear when I go hiking. So I'm not a threat to anyone except myself. I mean, you know what? I don't know which side to choose because, you know, it is a touchy subject. No, I get it.

[00:35:40] And there's what there's creepy guys out there. Definitely. When somebody walks up to anyone else, whatever their appearances out on the trail. I mean, it's something that folks need to be concerned of, especially when those days when you hit the trail after you've bushwhacked up to the ridge,

[00:35:59] you know, four or five miles and you do look like a savage because you have like twigs, you know, in your hair and, you know, you're all scratched up and it looks like you just got done chasing somebody or being chased. So right.

[00:36:15] And then you've got the trail runners who don't give a shit about you because they just want time. They want you out of their way. And then you got the people who hike their own hike and psych as slow as heck and they're just out of breath.

[00:36:26] They don't really care. They're going to pass out. So, so I'm sorry, ladies, if we're a threat, you know what? To the guys who are a threat, fuck off, you know, get the hell out of the hiking thing. You're not deserved. Yeah.

[00:36:41] So you, you, you want to try to, you put out some flyers and we can put together or have your female listeners put together a sensitivity training episode for the male hiking population. Definitely. Definitely. Definitely. All right. So shooting the shit is over. So good job, Ted.

[00:37:00] That was fun. Made it through it. Hopefully we won't get like canceled. Who knows? Well, we'll always get canceled. So thank you to the monthly supporters, Darren, Vicki, John, Betsy, Denise, Vanessa, Joseph, Jim C, Michael, David and Chris. Thank you guys so much for supporting the show.

[00:37:18] Really appreciate it. It means a lot. And just to let you know, we'll talk about where your money goes in a little bit. And once again, sponsors capture love story against breathtaking backdrops with Outdoor Chronicles Photography.

[00:37:31] Molly specializes in adventure couple photography and she'll immortalize your moments in this stunning landscape in the Catskills, Adirondack and White Mountains. She'll craft timeless images that reflect your unique bond and nature's grand door and embark an unforgettable photographic journey with Outdoor Chronicles Photography.

[00:37:50] Don't hesitate to get hold of Molly and all platforms. Also discover the wilderness with Trailbound Project. Our expert led hiking and backpacking education programs offered unpedaled outdoor experiences. Whether you're a beginner or a seasoned adventurer, join us to learn essential skills exploring stunning trails and connect with nature.

[00:38:09] Start your journey today with Trailbound Project and unlock the wonders of the great outdoors. So, Pink Pony Tracy Rankin mentioned us in one of her posts. Now once again, that's the second time, right?

[00:38:23] Yeah, I think if we ever open this up to some type of challenge and awards point, she's got a running start on every one. I'm actually looking at the photos that she tagged the show in

[00:38:37] and even though it wasn't the Catskills, it looks like a pretty interesting area. I do notice that there's some pretty neat rock formations that I'm intrigued by and a lot of green stuff. She was on the Appalachian Trail, right? Yeah, that's what it looks like.

[00:38:57] Yeah, 7.3 miles of the Appalachian Trail. Started from Great Falls up to Mount Prospect down to Rance View up to Raccoon Hill to the Giant's Thumb to Ville's View and out and across 44 over to Lion's Head Park and Jesus Christ.

[00:39:10] Yeah, and then she says here, she goes on to add that they saw five bear, which is kind of relevant to our last topic. Five bears? Yes, she saw five bear. I don't know if she's referring to men or the animal, but it's quite a few to see.

[00:39:30] You're fabbing. Stop lying. No, it's right in her post. She is half an hour ahead of us. Oh, she says one thru-hiker there had come the same way. Oh wow, yeah. Half an hour ahead of us and saw five bear. Oh wow, you're right. No shit.

[00:39:47] So she saw a thru-hiker already up in New York. Wow. Well obviously that thru-hiker did not know that this coming week you're going to be down giving out some trail magic.

[00:39:58] I don't know, are you bringing like a flat top, a hibachi, a food truck? You might put on a good show. Dude, we have so much. It's going to be so much fun. I'll talk about that. All right.

[00:40:11] And definitely, I'm so excited. But once again, Tracy, thank you for tagging us. Once again, if you go on the Appalachian Trail, bring some trail magic for the Undertrail people. Yep. And in the meantime, everybody follow PinkPony818.

[00:40:26] Yes, please. She's freaking awesome. She's killing it out there with all these hikes that she does. I'm very jealous she gets to do all these hikes. So, Tad, what are you having to drink buddy?

[00:40:37] I posted it on my pregame. I've got a Yeti cup here that's full of hot coffee that I'm sipping away at. Like the British drink their tea. I'm drinking my afternoon or early evening coffee to get through the night with you. Why? Is that punishment?

[00:40:59] Well, I don't know. It's what keeps me going these late hours is a cup of home brew. What time do you have to wake up in the morning?

[00:41:08] I don't have to wake up early. I do get up early. I like to wake up with sunrise, hang out, go cycling, come home, do some more work, then head off to the office. Nice. So tonight, I got some good old bourbon from the Catskill Expo.

[00:41:26] Oh, is that stuff that was in the booth down the row from us? Yes. Cooper's Daughter Spirits. Uh huh. So the story behind this folks, and I can post the photo because I do have the proof that Stasch had taken off from the table for a few minutes.

[00:41:42] He came back and I pointed out that a few booths down from ours or tables down from us was this local distillery that was giving out. I didn't get the words fully out of my mouth, but I said, and they're giving out these samples.

[00:41:57] And he was up like a lightning bolt and was down there. And I have the photo of him sucking down his free sample. Then he came back and grabbed his cash or whatever and trotted back and bought a big bottle.

[00:42:14] It wasn't a big bottle. I gotta admit it wasn't as big as I wanted, but she was very nice. The bottle was absolutely fantastic. And I had it tonight with a, it sounded, sounds weird, but with a Mountain Dew, but it blended so freaking well.

[00:42:32] That sounds weird. A Mountain Dew. If it's good tasting alcohol, why would you want to pollute it with the Mountain Dew? I'm not a straight up kind of guy. Really? Huh. I see you as that kind of guy, but not me.

[00:42:45] You know, I used to be years ago and then not that I had a drinking problem, but I gave up drinking when my wife got pregnant and didn't start until last year.

[00:42:54] This time when we went to Ireland, I took 25 years off and now I just drink a beer at a time, maybe one or two a week. That's plenty for me. I thought you were going to say so late. So you started this podcast.

[00:43:08] Yeah, well that's true. You know, I was, you know, it was either go back to drinking or do this podcast thing. So here I am. Here you are. So awesome. You know, Cooper's Daughter of Spirits. Check it out. I will post them in the show notes. Awesome stuff.

[00:43:26] I gotta admit it mixes so well and it's probably really good straight up. I gotta admit. So, yeah, that's about it. So previous hikes, I really didn't do anything this week. I did. I did. Well, I did a hike with Jessica.

[00:43:42] Actually, we did a hike locally up at the Hartwick's trails. They did much of Hartwick College right near us. We have Hartwick and Succo College, which is the state university of Oneonta.

[00:43:55] Hartwick did a fantastic job of some old trails that have been just neglected for the past, I don't know, 30, 40 years. And now we have a beautiful view looking the west of Oneonta. And they've just created a bunch of five or six different trails.

[00:44:13] Jessica and I did 2.5 miles with not too much elevation gain, only around like 400 feet of elevation gain, but overlooked the Oneonta area.

[00:44:22] And just getting out, we saw like I guess in about 20, 30 newts, heard a bunch of red-winged blackbirds, heard a bunch of wood thrushes, which is I was very surprised because I've never heard a wood thrush in my area because we don't have much pines or spruces and stuff like that.

[00:44:38] And just to get out and to get in the woods was just absolutely phenomenal. So whatever it is, just get out there and get out there. Lucky you, man. Sounds like it was a good time. You did that on Sunday?

[00:44:52] I don't know, Friday? Friday, I think we did. Oh, okay. Gotcha. The day before, yeah, it was fantastic. So I'm sorry I dragged you into the expo. That's okay. It'll make this weekend's like even that much more special. What are you thinking? What are you thinking?

[00:45:09] Oh, boy. So it's kind of a thing for me on this time of June to go hike the Burroughs Range because it's where I finished my first round of the 35s was on Wittenberg. And I finished that first round on Wittenberg.

[00:45:36] It was just kind of memorable because when I started hiking in the Catskills, I literally listened closely. I had only been walking for about not even six months. I was just coming off of breaking my leg and it was a long recovery.

[00:45:54] And so that first hike upslide out to Cornell was exceptionally painful. And here I was finishing up my first round on Wittenberg on Father's Day weekend, not the following year, but the year after that.

[00:46:09] And it was just kind of like a special moment to be able to complete that first round and go from somebody who really had a hard time hiking to just crushing it.

[00:46:21] I mean, I have a fond memory of sitting there on Wittenberg after finishing the first round of 35 and looking at my boots and how trashed they were from just hiking up a storm the past two years.

[00:46:32] So I kind of felt good about it. And I haven't stopped since. That's my story. I'm sticking to it. Yeah, wow. What an awesome recovery that you had. Wittenberg, your first time? That's a freaking challenge in itself.

[00:46:49] Well, no, the first time we went upslide and we thought that going upslide was so easy. We went up to Curtis Wormsby, my daughter and I, that we pushed it out to Cornell and that's where it was all downhill for me. And then it just tanked really quick.

[00:47:04] But and then she went off to college, you know, and came back. We hiked a little more, yada, yada, yada. And then I really just when she went off to college the next year, I just put the throttle down and hiked a ton.

[00:47:18] And it was great for me because you can go as hard or as easy as you want when you do these hikes.

[00:47:24] And so I was able to manage it. But then you come to learn that there's a lot of people out there that have similar stories to you. They were in similar situations to you.

[00:47:33] And going out and being able to hike like that is very therapeutic for them, both physically and mentally. I mean, Joe tells a story that's similar to that. I'm familiar with other people that do.

[00:47:46] And I have a certain debt I owe the Catskills for, you know, getting me back on my feet again. Wow. Awesome. I'm glad the Catskills could help, man. That's amazing. That's why I'm going back to the Burroughs Range this weekend and trying to revisit that memory.

[00:48:06] Well, it's sentimental value, man. Yeah. I could only imagine. But those trashed hiking boots are long gone. Oh, come on. Bring them back. Yeah, they were. I actually they were so beat up. I did like them.

[00:48:20] There were a pair of Salomon's. So I bought a second pair and those started to fall apart right away. So Salomon gave me a third pair, which also fell apart right away. And I decided that I'm not buying Salomon boots anymore.

[00:48:35] So you won't find me recommending their boots at least. Not anymore. So, yeah. Well, good. And I'll be out, of course, on the trails down in Shenandoah this coming week. So I don't think we'll have a podcast for that week.

[00:48:52] So we're going to go a week off. So we'll see. I thought you and Jessica were going to go live on location. We're going to do somewhat live. I'm going to do some live stuff with the Appalachian Trail Hikers. It's going to be absolutely phenomenal. Good.

[00:49:05] Yeah, it's going to be fun. You guys camping out? No, we have. So what we did last time, we kind of. So if you've ever been to Shenandoah, they have the Skyline Drive. Easy hikes up to beautiful viewpoints vary like two, three miles, not even.

[00:49:21] And it all runs along the Appalachian Trail and such. So we have a starting point in the front royal. And the next day we're going to go to Lora, which is right in between the sections. There's three different sections of the Shenandoah.

[00:49:36] So, and then we're going to go to Elkton the next part. So every, every day we're going to hike a different section of the Shenandoah. And then we're going to spread trail magic through each different sections. So.

[00:49:47] And do you know, do you know where that hiking bubble is relative to where you're going to be supposed to be right now? It is hot in the Shenandoah. So you're going to hit the thick of it.

[00:49:56] Yeah, I got a, you know what I should, I should send you. It's actually pretty cool. It's like an AT heat map of where it's there's supposed to be during these times. Yeah, it's pretty neat.

[00:50:05] Okay. So what if you get down there and there's like all these other people that are doing the same thing there. You show up at a certain location and there's five other people set up to do trail magic. I'll fight the beat the crap out of them.

[00:50:19] Tell them to get the hell out of here, get out of here, Cracky. Yeah. Right. That's when you're going to fun. That's, that's when having a mountain lion comes in handy. Exactly. There you go. Exactly. So we'll be down there. So hopefully do some live stuff from there.

[00:50:32] So excellent. Excellent. I'm excited. I am excited. So weather forecast for this weekend looks pretty good Friday. So this will be released Friday. So rain showers, a little bit of risk, not too much rain point zero one inches high of 63, low of 59. Fantastic.

[00:50:50] Saturday is going to be absolutely phenomenal so far. A high of maybe 55, low 48 winds, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, 48 winds in the twenties, clear skies. Absolutely phenomenal. So what mountain are you pulling this off of? Wittenberg. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Good point.

[00:51:09] Wittenberg for you, for you. This is for you. Yep. You saw that coming. Yeah. Sunday wind is going to be absolute like nothing. It's compared like 55 miles per hour high of 61, low of 59. So get out there and have some fricking fun in the Catskills.

[00:51:24] You know, leave no trace, rip it up. That's all I got to say. Have some fun. All right. So Ted, how about we go into a little Catskill mountain history? That's it. Let's jump in the time machine and do it. Excellent. So Ted brought this to my attention.

[00:51:43] Who did? I didn't hear that. Ted did. Oh yeah, me. That's right. I finally did something for the podcast. You did. After all these weeks of just being the annoying guest in residence. The voice, the partial voice of the podcast. So you saw this for more.

[00:52:02] Where did you find this article? Oh, so I was Googling stuff on fire towers and the Catskills. And sometimes with a Google search, the best stuff is on like page three. Right?

[00:52:17] Just the first page, just chalk it up to being ads and websites that know how to get prominent placement on a Google search. So jump down to page three or four to get more into the grassroots stuff.

[00:52:31] And I don't know if you had the same experience I did, but this content loaded really, really slow. Did it for you load slow? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, because it's not on a popular site. So it's kind of off the beaten path.

[00:52:46] And I read it last night and I found it. I found the content interesting, very interesting. But I think the photos. If you just want to scan through it without reading it and just look at the photos, it's more than well worth it. Oh, yeah, absolutely.

[00:53:01] And this will be in the show notes because it's it's absolutely phenomenal just to see these these pictures and then the short little two sentence descriptions really just blow your mind of what they had to work with back in the days and what we have now easily.

[00:53:19] Yeah, and it goes into the whole history of not only how the fire towers came about, but what the typical activities of a fire observer did. So I thought it was fabulous. Yeah. And I'm going to try to kind of skim over everything.

[00:53:39] Then this is a 42 page Microsoft document. So I'm going to try to go over as quickly but as good in detail as possible to get you kind of like into the fire tower history that they have here.

[00:53:53] And I know I've gone this all over this a little bit with a little bit with Laurie Rankin who's with the Fire Force, the FFL ally, which by the way, at the end of the show will be making a big announcement about that.

[00:54:05] So I'm going to try to go over this as quick as I can and as good as I can. So fire towers in New York State 1909 was the beginning of the wooden fire towers.

[00:54:16] Now they would have a person man up on a wooden open fire tower not enclosed on the top of certain mountains in the Catskills. Now, the first job of a fire tower was in 1953.

[00:54:29] Now that also was listed as a salary of two hundred and four dollars per month. So two hundred seventeen dollars per month in towers where the observers were required to qualify and operate a radio telephone. Now, to go on from there, two hundred four dollars per month.

[00:54:48] Now, they were all somewhat all over the place. This was beginning of the late 19th, early 20th centuries where logging practices would strip a wooden area and leave definitely all the debris. Once again, wood chips, like dead grass, stuff like that.

[00:55:04] And it would be a fuel to the fire. And of course, almost 99 percent of the fires in the back in days of the 1900s to 1960s were created by people. People just created this with the recklessness and such.

[00:55:20] And then also we have also by machines and stuff like that. Now, there were devastating fires of 1903 and 1908 that the Forest Fitching Game Commission of New York State investigated and said that this was definitely a problem, that they would have to battle this.

[00:55:35] In 1905, the state of Maine began the state of Maine began began using fire towers to combat these frequency of forest fires detection.

[00:55:47] Now, in 1909, New York State took their thoughts and stuff like that and put it to their own creating mountaintops equipped with telephones and crude lookout towers that basically detected the fires that once they saw them, they would kind of like relay the information that, hey, something's going on.

[00:56:08] We need to battle this. Now, nine of these facilities were placed in the operation 1909. Three were in the Catskill Mountains and six in the Adirondack Mountains. Their positive contribution reduced fire loss was immediately apparent.

[00:56:21] Now, the effect of this in these lookouts was so great that new stations were being installed as quickly as state crews could establish them.

[00:56:30] In most cases, these log towers were put at the highest parts of the mountains that overlook the most amount of forest areas so they could definitely put a good observation view of what they can detect and to battle at the same time.

[00:56:46] So open summits were used as much as they could, but at the places where the highest peaks were, that's where they also put them out in the fire towers as well. Amphir Sand Mountain up in the Adirondacks was used because it was a small stone hut.

[00:57:03] There was definitely some other places in Faroe Mountain up in the Adirondacks, Whiteface Mountain is where they put them. Once again, open summits were definitely idealistic because they could easily put a view up there or not even put up a 70 foot fire tower.

[00:57:19] So once that happened, it all started to go in place in the Adirondacks. They brought them down to Catskills. They had 1909, they had, I think it was Hunter Mountain down in the Catskills and there was also Balsam Lake Mountain or Slide Mountain was down in the Catskills.

[00:57:40] And there was some other one that was down in the Catskills as well. Slide Mountain was actually not just a fire tower for observation, but it was also seen as kind of like a, what do you call that?

[00:57:54] Kind of like a, Ted, what am I, the word I'm looking for is where tourists come up to. The observation platform? Yeah, it was an observation platform where you had to pay to get up there.

[00:58:06] So 1918, there was a new fire district located on Lion Island that kind of just projected this and said, hey, this is a bigger problem that we had. We need to expand this as much as we can. And from there on, it just exploded.

[00:58:22] And all of a sudden there were fire towers. I wouldn't say everywhere, but in a lot of places. In 1926, uniforms were now issued to each forest ranger and forest fire tower observer. So it got serious. And now the American flag would be put on the fire towers.

[00:58:39] At the time, in the 1920s and stuff, the designs were improved and they started bringing in cabins instead of, you know, the fire tower observers had to sit up in the just the top of the fire towers or down in the bottom in a tent or something like that.

[00:58:55] So they started making cabins. And as that came along, not just the top areas of the Adirondacks and the Catskills were housed with fire towers. But now it started to move over in the Hudson Valley up in the Finger Lakes.

[00:59:09] The Mong Hong area had a fire tower now in 1922. 1931, Pocatello Mountain Fire Tower, two-way radio communicate with also an airplane happened. So once again, we're starting to move along with technology to improve everything and to help out this time with the fire towers.

[00:59:32] Because, you know, if you don't have a bird's eye view of the fire tower, how are you going to battle it? And with this time we have trains all over the place.

[00:59:40] And when I was at a meeting of Marty Podscotch when he did his stuff about the fire tower. So he has a bunch of books about the fire towers. He asked, what was the number one cause of fires in the upstate New York and such?

[00:59:58] And Tad, I'm going to ask you, what do you think? It was the railroads. Yes, exactly. The embers or yeah, the embers that would come out of the smokestacks. And what I thought was interesting, the sparks coming off of the steel wheels as the wheels would be

[01:00:19] braked on the rails that would generate sparks as well. And apparently, you know, if the conditions were dry enough, that could cause a fire. Yeah. And, you know, with all those, of course, those like little timber pieces and stuff like that are around the edges of the

[01:00:38] of the railroads, it would just spark and then all of a sudden it would start a huge forest fire. And, you know, at the time the railroad people weren't absurd with it because they had to deal with their own stuff.

[01:00:49] So those would also be railroads that were owned and operated by the family. Oh, we're tying this all together tonight, folks. They owe the New York state a lot of money. You'll have to go back a couple episodes to appreciate that.

[01:01:08] Yeah. So once again, in the 1930s, the U.S. Forest Service provided 19 new fire towers to the state that were erected by the CCC, which was What does the CCC mean again? Conservation Corps. Civilian Conservation Corps. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. Right here, page 20.

[01:01:30] Yep. I'm thinking that's what I'm on. I'm flying through this. So we haven't hit. Yeah, yeah. World War II, everybody and everybody was pressed into the war, of course. And 85% of New York's fire towers remained in operations and women were staffed, which was awesome. Absolutely phenomenal.

[01:01:47] We have a picture of the lovely Bertha Timmer at the Gilbert Lake. That's right next to me. Yeah. It's like 20 minutes away from me. Absolutely phenomenal. As we move on, you know, the Great Depression hits beyond that. World War II radios became more compact.

[01:02:06] 1950, nearly half of the fire towers have been equipped with two-way radio units that'll help out between the ground and the top to communication improvement that will help battle these fires. And once again, Yogi the Bear, Smokey the Bear came in in 1950s and was

[01:02:24] Yeah, I'm sorry. It looked like Yogi at the time. So Smokey the Bear comes in and once again, the mustaches look like they're in the 1960s like they are now. So the 60s are coming back once again.

[01:02:39] And we start getting a little bit deeper into the fire towers as they start getting a little bit more Well planned, well built and stuff like that. They start hitting steel. Steel starts bringing in.

[01:02:54] We start getting more compact structures of fire towers, bigger fire towers more spread out. So now that the region, the New York state is more equipped with fire detection and so that we can battle this everywhere. Basically had fire towers. We got fire towers in the Finger Lakes.

[01:03:13] We got fire towers where I live in Opanonianta down in the Hudson Valley, Catskills, Adirondacks. It's just all spread out all over the place and it's absolutely incredible. Now in 1970, the Department of Environmental Conservation created DEC.

[01:03:30] Now more responsibilities were placed on the Bureau of Fire, Forest Fire Control and increased funding of the Bureau was not provided. So once now we start unfortunately seeing that decline in the fire towers. Now aerial fire detection was somewhat familiar during 1970, 1980s.

[01:03:52] It was developed in 1969, but it started getting a little bit more aggressive and it started becoming more recognized. Now because of that, a redundancy of several fire towers led to a close in a 46 fire tower facilities.

[01:04:06] Now these vegetation maintained were in the standby status of leaving 64 fire towers open for the 1971 fire tower season. Now if we close 46, it was 100 fire or 110, right? Yeah, 110 fire towers. So now it goes down from 110 to 64 fire towers.

[01:04:26] Private airplane owners were contracted to fly 14 designated routes decked fire towers throughout the state. Now. As that happens, the savings by closing 46 fire towers provided the money to expand the wildland search and rescue programs.

[01:04:43] So now we get into the search and rescue. It goes from fire towers to search and rescue. Now they did more routes again. Once again, FM radios begin in airplanes start coming in. And now basically they're they're like, hey, why do we need fire towers?

[01:05:00] So about 50% of the fire towers were placed and operated on private lands. Now during that time and around 1975, more fire towers would be removed from state land to come into compliance with new state land master plans for the Adirondack and Catskill Mountains.

[01:05:16] Now if you look on it once again, I'm going to I'm going to put the link in here. It's really crazy because you can see the removal of certain fire towers, the knocking over of fire towers.

[01:05:26] And it's just it's very sad to see. But, you know, understandable that it happened through the 1980s. More and more fire towers were being closed. But the number of aerial detection routes did not increase by 1990.

[01:05:40] The state budget office reviewed the budgets of all state agencies would determine that the cost to operate the five remaining fire towers was not a good return on state investment. Therefore, Governor Cuomo ordered that the five remaining fire towers be closed by Labor Day of 1990.

[01:05:55] These five fire towers, Blue Mountain up at the Adirondacks, Hadley Mountain, Red Hill down in the Catskills, Rocksdale, Bald Mountain, which is in the Adirondacks and St. Regis, which is also in the Adirondacks, I believe.

[01:06:07] So those five fire towers were to be remained. And that's it of all the 110. So cutbacks 1994, aerial fire detection was the biggest operation. But it was to be seized now for some reason. Hold on.

[01:06:27] Through cutbacks and funds, fire towers were closed, but they remained a popular destination for the public.

[01:06:33] Now the Huntington Forest and State University Environmental Services in the Goodenow Fire and Environment were trying to be stayed open because of people wanting to see them and to visit them and stuff.

[01:06:44] And now that also led to, once again, adopting natural resource and the New York State law that led to these refurbishing of the fire towers.

[01:06:57] Now, the floodgates opened after that and the Forest Preserve and individual groups adopted five remaining Catskill fire towers in a cooperative based effort at the Catskill Center in Arcville. Now this was in, I didn't find it, 1994.

[01:07:15] So once again, I remember reading that around 2000s, early 2000s, that basically the redemption of these fire towers started to bring back in place and then all like broke together. And now we have a bunch of fire towers. Jesus, it's the water.

[01:07:36] I don't understand that they came brought back. It's the Mountain Dew. It is. It is. So now we have all these fire towers back in upstanding because of, you know, communities wanting to bring these fire towers back to services and for the public to enjoy it.

[01:07:55] And I understand why, because the views from these fire towers are absolutely phenomenal. Number one, that's the number one reason. Number two, the hikes up there are not that bad. You don't have to deal with roots and rocks and stuff like that.

[01:08:08] And it gets you introduced to the mountains that just blow your mind away. So there's a short, horrible explanation of the fire towers that I totally probably blew apart. And hopefully you understood it. I tried to go as good as I can, as fast as I can.

[01:08:30] I think the important thing is you're going to post a link to this 42 page booklet, if you will, by Bill Starr, who at the time was the state director of the Forest Fire Lookout Association and indicates the copyright on this is 1984 to 2010.

[01:08:52] There's a lot of great historical photographs on here, such as on page seven, the two dudes at the Whiteface Mountain fire observation hut. If you will, if you even want to call it a hut.

[01:09:10] Okay. Those are those are two bad guys that I wouldn't want to run into in the woods. And right then my favorite is on page eight, forest fire observer Richard Guile on Mount Morris in 1909. Very stoic photo.

[01:09:29] Then you fast forward and it talks about when the forest fire observers were required to wear uniforms.

[01:09:37] Why? Why would you require a guy to wear a uniform when he's sitting in a little hut or cab on the top of a 40 to 60 foot fire tower on top of a mountain? He's not. I mean, how many people is he going to see during a day?

[01:09:53] Then for me, the most interesting stuff was on. Well, some of the most interesting stuff was on page 15 where it shows the circular maps in the Allendale.

[01:10:06] The sighting line that they use and what I didn't know is that there was so many fire towers in use that they would get the bearings that the fire ranger would take in one tower.

[01:10:23] Compare it with the bearings taken by another forest ranger or fire ranger in another tower. And then where those lines intersected on the map and they show this on page 15 is the area where they should find that fire.

[01:10:40] So they were able to like triangulate and pinpoint the location. So Bill Star gives a really good history and explanation of the use of fire towers in New York State.

[01:10:55] Speaking of the FFLA, Forest Fire Lookout Association plan on making on behalf of the podcast, making a donation to the FFLA. So it's going to be probably around three, four hundred dollars.

[01:11:12] Yeah, I mean, because one of the things I'm conscious of in the winter is we hike to these summits with our micro spikes on and then you go up the tower with your spikes on.

[01:11:23] And if there's not enough ice cover, snow cover over the steps, you'll see how people with their micro spikes, myself included, actually start to put little divots or pinholes in the top of the wood, which probably makes it deteriorate faster.

[01:11:43] So it's something that I become more and more aware of over time and try not to climb up the tower with my spikes on unless there's good cover for it. But this is a cool article. It's got to be on your must read list.

[01:12:01] Yeah. So Bill Starr, hopefully we can get him on the show a little bit later. Yeah, hopefully Billy is still alive. Yeah, right. I'm going to I'm going to definitely look it up. So once again, thanks for listening to our Catskill Mountain History.

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[01:13:53] All right. So let's get onto the topic of the night. Yeah, just before you move on, did you say that scenic route guiding is booking adventures to mountain lion dens? I guess that's what Sarah sent to me. Wow, that's very interesting. I hope that goes well for her.

[01:14:15] That's what Sarah sent to me. Play the intro to the next segment. All right. Topic of the night. Fire tower challenge. So most of us that listen to the show know about the fire tower challenge. So we're going to break it down a little bit tonight.

[01:14:32] Maybe get to reach out to people who don't know about the fire tower challenge. And to somewhat check it out because I got to admit this is a fantastic way to learn about the cat skills,

[01:14:45] to get great thoughts and views about the cat skills and to get kind of like an entryway into hiking somewhat. Because this will just break your path into what could be a lifelong journey that'll cost you thousands and thousands of dollars.

[01:15:05] Yeah. Unless you hike in your blue jeans like true hikers were meant to hike. One of the things I like about the fire tower challenge and using it as a means to introduce new hikers to hiking is it does expose you to hiking off a list

[01:15:25] or doing one of these challenges, which would tend to keep people interested and motivated to do other hikes by finding out what other challenges are out there and then pursuing them. So I see a lot of hikers are motivated by it.

[01:15:42] It's nice to think that you're getting other people interested and motivated in hiking off a list. Yeah. And it's very fun. I got to admit, you know, I've done this several times and, you know, I haven't done it since the new challenge.

[01:15:58] So we're going to chat about this. So the requirements number one is to visit all six Catskill Fire Towers between January 1st, 2024 and December 31st, 2024. There's six of them. That is, start with Hunter, Tremper, Balsam Lake, Red Hill.

[01:16:22] Oh my God. Overlook and then the, what is the Catskill Visitor Center? Does that have a name? Yeah. What do they call that? They had it down here as the Upper Aesopis Fire Tower. Okay.

[01:16:38] And, you know, if you want to get philosophical, is it really a fire tower? Although it was used as a fire tower elsewhere, it was never a fire tower here. No.

[01:16:51] So yeah, we won't get too technical. It's on the list. It's easy to do. You can stop in the Catskill Visitor Center. Buy some swag in there.

[01:17:02] So your next step after finishing that is to fill out the 2024 Catskill Fire Tower Challenge Survey on SurveyMonkey and include a photo of your favorite fire tower. Or you can download the survey and email it to us as a PDF to catskillschallenge.decnyork.gov.

[01:17:21] That'll all be in the show notes, of course. Also, it can be submitted via mail, but who does that anymore to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Outdoor Recreation 625, Broadway, Albany, New York 12233-102. And entries must be postmarked by January 6th, 2025. That's a lot.

[01:17:43] And also the website, I guess. You can go to the website that will be posted in here. We'll have that in the show notes. The Catskill Center and the DEC for definitely more info.

[01:17:54] So, Ted, have you completed this yet? Did you get anything yet? Have you done it? No. Oh. Yeah. I'm not a patch guy. Neither am I.

[01:18:04] Yeah. Yeah, you'll find later on when we go through the list, I'm going to embarrass myself by admitting to certain places I haven't been. One of at least you already know. Probably overlook, right? I'm not admitting until we get there.

[01:18:20] Not a minute. All right. So all finishers will receive a commemorative patch and enter it in the grand prize giveaway drawing. So I've already gotten my patch. I got it last two years ago against me and Alex finished it. Oh, really? That's cool with Alex, Mr. Vertical Madness.

[01:18:37] I've gotten three actually. One with myself, one with Jessica and one with Alex. You're so modest. Yeah. It's like in hockey they call that a hat trick, don't they? It is. There you go. The hat trick. Nice. Nice.

[01:18:50] Yeah. So in the 2024 challenge, first 1000 finishers will also receive a one year subscription to the DEC Conservationist magazine. Oh my God. We got to do this right now. I'm leaving. I'm exiting. Chad, this is all you can do. To check out the magazine?

[01:19:08] Yeah. I got to get a free magazine. You're heading out to do the list right now before your vacation. Done. Yeah. Have you ever read the Conservationist? I don't even know it exists.

[01:19:20] If you want to get a free copy of it, you just go to your dentist's office. It will be there on the coffee table in the center of the waiting area. Yeah.

[01:19:30] So after that, finishers who have completed the challenge in multiple years will receive an additional commembrator of Catskill Fire Tower Challenge Prize. Now, I guess I got to enter this. But see, they don't say what the commemorative prize is or what the grand prize is.

[01:19:47] At least if you fill out our survey, you know what you're getting starting off with the $25. Well, what you're going to win, everyone doesn't get it, but you have a chance to win the $25 Stewart's gift card, which can be redeemed for coffee, gasoline or chili and a milkshake.

[01:20:06] So there you go. And a lot of other great stuff. Yeah. Exactly. Okay. Onward. What do you want to number four? Yeah. So to receive a bonus prize entry, submit a photo showing your self-practicing Leave No Trace while participating in the Fire Tower Challenge.

[01:20:23] Of course, that's like picking up litter, carrying out planning and preparing for like staying on trail. So basically, I would say basically taking a selfie would probably, if you have a backpack and a selfie, you're kind of doing Leave No Trace right there.

[01:20:39] You have some of one of the 10 essentials in there. If you're hard up, you just drop something on the ground, then have somebody take a picture of you picking it up. I do it all the time. Yeah, same. Same. You got to get famous somehow.

[01:20:53] Now, employees of the DEC and their families may complete the challenge, but will not be eligible for the prizes. Sorry. Which really makes us wonder what that grand prize drawing is.

[01:21:05] If it's so prize worthy that DEC employees and their families aren't eligible, it might be a brand new Tesla. Yeah, right. They'll do a bolt. They'll do the cheapest. They won't do a Tesla. Yeah. So let's talk about the six fire towers. Let's do it.

[01:21:24] So do you want to go in the easiest to the hardest or do you want to go in the way you have? I just yeah, I mean, the way I had it one through six, I did obviously Balsam Lake. Why did I put Balsam Lake first?

[01:21:37] Take a wild guess. Because it's right next to Graham and Double Top. No, it says it right here under the heading number one. This is what we're looking at fans. Number one, Balsam Lake Mountain town of Hardenburg elevation 3723 feet.

[01:21:54] And here's the reason why it's first on the list under the history segment. It says it was the first fire tower on top of a mountain in New York State was placed at the summit of Balsam Lake Mountain in 1887 by the Balsam Lake Mountain Club.

[01:22:14] It was made of wood and only had an observation platform, but not an enclosed cab. The existing 47 foot tower was erected in 1919 and closed in 1988, but reopened in 2000 by the Catskill Fire Tower Project in the New York State DEC.

[01:22:34] So that's why I put Balsam Lake number one on the list. It was the first fire tower, but I thought it was interesting that it wasn't even put there by the state of New York. It was put there by the Balsam Lake Mountain Club.

[01:22:47] Was that a mountain club or was that like it says Balsam Lake Club? So I'm wondering if that was kind of like a shooting club. Yeah, I think it was one in the same back then.

[01:22:57] That that whole area was owned by a club, but we can look into that for a later episode because there's a lot of private use history in Balsam Lake and Balsam Lake Mountain Club.

[01:23:13] Yeah, and you know, there's several I got to admit Balsam Lake is an absolute phenomenal place to kind of catch the beauty of the Catskills because it just the 360 view is just absolutely phenomenal.

[01:23:27] The hike isn't that difficult at all if you're approaching it from the Millbrook Road parking lot. You know, going up the round trip, it's around six miles, 1200 feet, 1300 feet of gain. And it's it's easy peasy.

[01:23:45] Just follow the old the old logging trail, the old trail up to the top of the mountain. And it's it's a snap. It'll get your attention and it'll get your enthusiasm and it'll just make you feel that you have conquered everything.

[01:23:59] And I got to admit every time I do that, it just it blows my mind every time. I've never been up to a Balsam Lake where I haven't been blown away.

[01:24:08] And you know, there's several other places and Ted, you probably I've been through the different areas, but I haven't gone to them probably as exclusively as you have.

[01:24:16] Yeah. So if you've been up to the fire tower via the other two approaches, I give I've been from Alder Lake. OK, which I thought which so when we refer to Alder Lake, you come in on the Millbrook Ridge Trail generally heading in from the west.

[01:24:33] It's six and a half miles from Alder Lake. You're climbing about 30, 2300 feet of vertical. You're going over Millbrook Ridge. And I found that to be a really pleasant hike to to come in that way. And I, you know, I definitely do it again that way.

[01:24:53] And the other I put the third approach.

[01:24:55] So a lot of people just as we get into the third approach, a lot of people are might be saying, gee, there's more than one way up to Balsam Lake where there's more than two ways because most people either come up the Drybrook Ridge Trail from Millbrook Road or the Balsam Lake Mountain Trail from the parking lot at Balsam Lake, which that is one and one point six miles up 1200 feet of vertical.

[01:25:18] As I point out here, you can kind of turn it into a lollipop by heading down towards the Millbrook Ridge Trail on your way out and then coming back down to the Balsam Lake parking lot. But I don't know. It's there's three ways to get there.

[01:25:36] All of them are nice hikes. And they're the two coming up the what they used to call the turnpike from the north or west. From the north or west are rather from the north and south or easier. But the Millbrook Ridge Trail is, I think, very splendid.

[01:25:56] And you do go through some old growth areas going that way. Definitely. So yeah.

[01:26:01] And the other thing I put on the list, I don't know if you want to go over this, but for each place I pointed out or for each approach, I pointed out some places to check out afterwards for post hike bruising bites. Yeah, fantastic.

[01:26:15] So what do you think? Have you ever been to the Catskill Brewery in Livingston Manor? I have not. That's a pretty cool place. Again, over in Livingston Manor.

[01:26:24] So if you hike in from the Balsam Lake parking lot or the Alder Lake parking area, you can check out the Catskill Brewery in Livingston Manor afterwards.

[01:26:39] And then if you hike in from the ever so popular parking lot on Millbrook Road, you can check out Oakley's Woodfire Pizza just outside of Margaretville on 28. Wasn't that mentioned previously? I always mentioned Oakley's. Absolutely phenomenal burgers. Oh yeah? Well there you go. See?

[01:27:04] It's got an endorsement from Staj. And you know, of all the places, I tend to take the Alder Lake one because just it's secluded as heck. Yeah. And if you want to go fast, definitely take the Drybrook Ridge parking on Millbrook Road to go up the three miles.

[01:27:26] You're just going up the regular way. But just the old fire tower way. Easy. No rocks and roots and stuff like that. The Alder Lake is a little bit more secluded, a little bit more wilderness.

[01:27:40] And then you're going from the Balsam Lake Trail that has a little bit more rocks and slipperiness and stuff. You'll be going by the lean-to and stuff. But all the ways are phenomenal. Yeah.

[01:27:51] So another perk by taking the longer route on the Millbrook Ridge Trail is if you're driving all the way up from Long Island, New Jersey or any other place that's far away,

[01:28:02] you come in on the Millbrook Ridge Trail, you're six and a half miles in, six and a half miles back. You're getting roughly a 13-mile hike in, which is a good day. The other two ways, they're short.

[01:28:16] If you're driving a long way, it's not a lot of hiking to do for a long ride. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. But all in all, Balsam Lake offers so much beautiful old history and stuff.

[01:28:33] And then you get to have that old reminisce of walking by the good old area of Graham, the short kind of detour to Graham. And you'll have that thought of what you could have done if good old Goulds loved it. Yeah.

[01:28:53] If they still allowed the outdoors person to enter their lands and roam around. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So next. Red Hill. Red Hill. You know this, I got to admit, easy as heck, but also one of the coolest fire towers I've ever seen. Why is that?

[01:29:16] Because of just the top of it is grass and ferns. And just it's beautiful, beautiful view of the boroughs range. So now there's two different ways to get up Red Hill. Now there is one from, you know, I'm trying to find the name of the road it was.

[01:29:34] Well, the older way to come in. The older way. Yeah. Yeah. Because now off of Denning Road, they, and here I'll buy you some time while you look that up. I'll take the microphone.

[01:29:44] The DEC recently built a 1.8 mile trail in from Denning Road that is a 1200 foot vertical gain. And people tell me it's a pleasant hike, but yours truly has not ever been to the Red Hill Fire Tower. Oh. Yeah. It's a 60 footer constructed in 1921.

[01:30:10] It's listed on the National Historic Lookout Register. And it has been nominated to the National Register of Historic Places. Like all fire towers in the Catskills, it offers unsurpassed views of the Catskill High Peaks to the west and north, along with the Roundout Reservoir to the southeast.

[01:30:31] It was reopened to the public in 2000. And then Stas, did you locate that other trail in? I did. I did. Okay. So it's located on Dinch Road, a very short hike. But you know, in the winter, it's absolutely, you cannot get to it.

[01:30:50] No way possible will not be plowed. But Dinch Road offers a shorter hike, a little bit not aggressive climb as going from the Denning Road area. I think it's about 1.6 miles, not even back and forth.

[01:31:07] Well, not back and forth round trip around, you know, three miles, I would say. It's definitely got a lot of rocks all over the place, but the parking lot is very, very tight. Probably can hold around eight cars, not even.

[01:31:23] Alex and I did that on a crazy day where we got up there. There was nobody up there. We were the only ones parking there, but it was, it started to rain. And it was an easy hike, beautiful, got up to the top, no views of course.

[01:31:37] On the way back down, we hit a bunch of Hasidic Jewish people coming up there. And now we hit three and then we hit six and we had three more and then we hit about 65 of them. Definitely a crazy experience. Yeah, you were hiking on a Sunday.

[01:31:56] No, it was a Tuesday. Oh, okay. It was a Tuesday. Yeah, it wasn't a Saturday. Yeah, but I got to admit, Jessica and I went up for my birthday. We went up there for a sunset hike and I got one of the most beautiful sunset hikes.

[01:32:13] The cabin wasn't open. Of course, of all these places, the cabins are not open during the weekdays, unless there is a person up there to open the cabin. So just remember that we should have probably brought that up in the beginning.

[01:32:25] But the cabins aren't open, but you can still get a view when you're at the second or third level. And I got one of the most beautiful sunsets on my birthday. And it's pretty crazy for me to do because that is two hours and 15 minutes away.

[01:32:40] It's a long drive. Yeah, but it's worth it because that view just overlooks Table Peek-a-Moo's Burroughs Range, Ashokan High Point, everything to the north that just pushes on. And then you got to the south, you got the Gunks,

[01:32:55] and you got a bunch of different areas over in the Pennsylvania border that you can see. It's just a phenomenal sight. I can't believe you haven't been there, man. Yeah, maybe I'll get out there this summer.

[01:33:06] And I do note in our little agenda here that afterwards you can drive into downtown Denning and check out the Russian Meal Brewery, which is kind of tucked back off the road a little bit.

[01:33:23] There used to be a general store in Delhi out front, but I think that's all closed down now. And you're forced to go into the Russian Meal Brewery these days, which is a new facility, gets good reviews online. So you can check that out.

[01:33:42] Yeah. Yeah. So onward to the next number three, Trumper Mountain. To be honest, this is really odd because you think that Trumper Mountain located like on the the western eastern part of the Catskills would be a high mountain.

[01:33:58] It's actually the lowest mountain of the fire towers at 2700 feet in Shandacan slash Trumper. Yes. So this fire tower was believed to be the original structure that was built in 1970 teen and used for fire tower observation until 1971. I was reopened to the public in 2001.

[01:34:21] Forty seven foot fire tower offers a spectacular 360 degree view that includes the Burroughs Range, Stony Clove, Deep Notch and the Devil's Path. One crazy thing about this this challenge is that this is the second place of the fire tower challenge that offers a caution of timber rattlesnakes.

[01:34:44] So I have never seen one on Mount Trumper, but I have heard several people talk about them. And it doesn't matter which direction you go. And there's several directions you can go. Ted, do you have you been up to this one yet?

[01:34:58] Oh, yeah. And I don't see in the notes that that stuff I pulled on the directions to it are here. I can just tell you from my own myonics, my memory from my head. Oh, yeah. Well, you're better than I. And indeed I am always.

[01:35:18] I'll repeat that Stash. You're just so much better than I am. Right. So if you go from like kind of like the heart of Trumper, Mount Trumper area, I think it's called Trumper Mount Trumper Road. Actually, I think it's like 212 or something like that.

[01:35:32] Yes. It's tussled on the opposite side of the Aesopis from 28. Yes. Yep. And it is around a round trip. You're going to go up and down. It is a round trip around six point two miles.

[01:35:48] I got to admit it's a frickin beast going from they say it's Plank Road, but I think it's like 212. It is a beast because it's just elevation gain all the way up. It doesn't frickin stop until you get kind of like towards the very top.

[01:36:03] So you hit there's one lead, there's two lead twos. There's one down in the middle of the trail and there's one near the top. And the one that is top is when you kind of get relief from the elevation gain.

[01:36:13] It's just it's a slog up there. It's wet. There's a lot of like gravel pieces almost feels like shale all the way up. It's just a slog and you keep going and going and going, but it's still really good.

[01:36:26] You get to the top Mount Trumper is a little neglected in terms of the fire tower area because the trees are all growing around it. You got to seriously go all the way up to the top platform to get a good view.

[01:36:41] And I haven't I haven't seen any rattlesnakes from that way, to be honest. And now I got it. That's the hardest way.

[01:36:50] But if you go from Jessup Road, which is a little bit further to the northeast in Phoenicia slash Trumper, wherever you want to say it's from, that is an absolutely phenomenal hike. That'll lead you up through what's that? Willow trail. Willow trail. Yep.

[01:37:15] And the Willow Creek kind of area. And I think that's an absolute it's eight miles, two more miles, but it's just gradual beautiful woods. The trail is just awesome with phenomenal switchbacks. Just the terrain is beautiful. You don't have to battle any shale or anything.

[01:37:34] But that's where I've heard that the the timber rattlesnake kind of linger is on that side of the trail. But this is more off trail. Yeah. So I've been up on the Willow trail over to the Werner Creek trail to the Trumper Mountain Fire Tower.

[01:37:50] And I don't know, maybe it was the time of year. I don't know. As I recall, I did that in warmer temperatures. I didn't see any timber rattlers. Oh, yeah. I mean, this is this is once again, people's observations that they have they have seen.

[01:38:10] So I'm not sure. I'm not sure exactly where they have seen them, but this is people observation. I've never seen any on there. So but what can you say? Yeah. Now, now I got to admit Trumper. Once again, it's one of the neglected ones of the fire tower.

[01:38:30] They had some problems back in a couple of years ago. But the one thing I see is great of social media power is that a lot of us.

[01:38:39] And social media came together that this fire tower is going to be closed down due to the stairs, due to the windows and stuff being neglected. And social media came together and we kind of forced New York State to redo all this stuff.

[01:38:55] And it opened up back up for the season of twenty twenty two, I believe that it was so it was so fantastic.

[01:39:04] Wasn't it wasn't it last year that the DEC had to go out and apprehend those two hikers that one of them I think was having a psychedelic experience. Yeah. Yeah. On Mount Trumper. Yep. That was it.

[01:39:22] Yeah. Maybe you won't see rattlesnakes up there or timber rattlers, but yeah, the hikers might be rattling up on the weird ones. Yeah. So. It's damn Woodstock, people from Woodstock. Yeah. Right. Those people still looking for the summer of love.

[01:39:39] I'll say one time I hiked Trumper from Route 40 along the Aesopis all the way out to the Warner Creek Trail out to what is it? Inglewood on 214 and that stretch of the Warner Creek Trail is a must do.

[01:40:00] It's just lightly traveled, excellent terrain. Warner Creek is just beautiful. And you get the viewpoint of the fire tower and that nice hike along the Warner Creek Trail.

[01:40:16] It's a gem and it's also it's a long hike. It was a full day for me. I enjoyed it tremendously. I would do it again. Yeah. So once again, anything beyond the north of going along the Warner Creek and such like that is just an absolute phenomenal trail.

[01:40:32] But you know, you get if you go from the Phoenicia side, it's around six and a half miles. If you go from the Jessup Road side, it's around eight miles, a little bit, a little bit 8.1 miles.

[01:40:43] But I prefer the Jessup side showing that it has such a nice little elevation gain. Plus it's more enjoyable and more nature. And the most important intel here is afterwards you get to wine and dine in downtown Phoenicia, which is chock full of great places to eat. Like?

[01:41:10] Like the, I think it's what is it the Getty station or is it the Citgo station in town? Brio's? No, I'm talking about the place across the street. Obviously Brio's is on the list. I mean, it's a definite. Then you have the Phoenicia diner nearby.

[01:41:25] Yeah. But you've got a lot of great spots to eat at in Phoenicia. And we talk about Brio's all the time. They have more than just pizza. They do. So yeah, you can please the whole family in downtown Phoenicia. Wow. Yeah. Awesome spot. Phoenicia, beautiful town.

[01:41:46] Have you ever been to the Phoenicia steakhouse? I have not. No, I'm not a steak eater, but yeah, you drive by late in the day. You see the parking lots full. It must be good. It's been there for a long time. Must be. Yeah.

[01:41:59] All right. Onward next, Overlook Mountain. So you want to take the role on this one? Well, okay. So this is kind of like the height of hypocrisy here. Me talking about Overlook because I've never been there.

[01:42:13] The Overlook Mountain fire tower is the newest of the five remaining fire towers in the Catskill Park. Having been built in its present location in 1950, the tower closed in 1988 and was reopened in 1999, making it the first fire tower to reopen to the public and the Catskills.

[01:42:34] The 60 foot tower offers incredible views of the Hudson River Valley across to the Berkshires, DeConnix and Litchfield Hills, the Ashokan Reservoir and the Devil's Path Range. Once again, yours truly hasn't been there. Wow. Yeah. The greatest view in the Catskills is from here. You really think so?

[01:43:01] I just looked on my map that I have. I've been here nine times. Nine? Wow. Nine more than me. Yeah. So if you've been there nine times, there's probably people that have been there 29 times. Oh, I believe so. There's people that fricking run that thing.

[01:43:20] So you go up, there's several, well, there's two ways to choose to go up from. Now, of course, you go up from the Woodstock area. That is going to be way more busy than any other place

[01:43:32] because everybody knows of that parking area that lies right outside of Woodstock. And it's a very nice, easy, gradual hike, around 2.2 miles going up to the top, 1,300 feet of elevation gain. 1,300, 1,400 feet depends on where you kind of go. There's several really different ways you can take it up.

[01:43:52] There's the logging road and then there's a bunch of side trails that you can go. But overall, around maybe 4.6 to 5 mile hike. Beautiful, nice, easy road going all the way up. Anybody and everybody can do this hike and it's definitely well worth it.

[01:44:10] Now, if you want a challenge, you can go over from the Platte Clove Road area, which is you can also park at the Caterskill High Peak Parking Area to take that. And it's around five miles to get to the overlook thing. So it's five miles just there.

[01:44:26] So it's about 10 mile round trip that you go over Platte Clove Hill and you go down to Echo Lake, which is a really scenic area, really awesome spot just placed in between two mountains kind of like a little, I don't even know what to call it,

[01:44:41] almost like a glacier lake that's been sitting there, hill by beavers, overrun by beavers. And the one biggest, of course, besides the view that I find the greatest, grandest view in the Catskills because I've been there for sunset, sunrise and anything and everything between wind, ice, cold.

[01:45:02] I've never found this area to be disappointing. And the other part is in the summer you can get views of timber rattlesnakes because they have really cool stewards up there that know the places that these rattlesnakes take up.

[01:45:19] And there's not one or two, there's very plenty up there. And absolutely phenomenal spot, great way to get yourself introduced into the Catskills and into the Firetower Challenge. Everybody uses this place. Yeah. And I would imagine afterwards we just drop down into Woodstock

[01:45:41] and there's some great places to eat in Woodstock. So it makes for a good day. You can do some shopping in Woodstock and grab some nice food. My favorite place to eat in the Catskills used to be in Woodstock,

[01:45:56] and that was I think it was called the Mountain Restaurant, which was the Indian restaurant in Woodstock. They had really, really good Indian food, but they were a victim of COVID. I've also hiked in on the Overlook Turnpike down to Echo Lake,

[01:46:18] and I'll echo your comments on what a splendid hike that is. I did some bushwhacking off of it, but there's a lot of quarries there. There's just a lot of interesting terrain. A lot of chairs there, those medieval stone chairs.

[01:46:37] Yeah, you take some of the side spurs off of it and you hit these old quarries where folks have then built chairs out of a model campsites in there. There's this one huge quarried area that's, I'm not going to call it like an amphitheater,

[01:46:54] but it's big and substantial. It's got some great views overlooking the Hudson Valley. So I got some great views without having to go down to Overlook and deal with all the crowds down there, so I avoided it. I'll have to take you when it's negative five degrees

[01:47:11] and nobody is up there. It's worth it. Will do. Will do. So once again, timber rattlesnakes. And I mean, people that listen to this, once again, know their shit, so just keep your dogs on a leash because that could be a serious problem with the timber rattlesnakes.

[01:47:32] And I watched when I got my 3500 Club of the Certificate, there was a presenter on there that did snake bites of timber rattlesnakes, and it was absolutely insane to see the progress of a timber rattlesnake bite over the course of hours. Wow.

[01:47:51] It was, I was just like, you know, it's funny because usually someone comes on during those times and they like people like, yeah, I don't want to look at this. Every human being stayed there to watch it just because it's like,

[01:48:03] oh, this is what it looks like after five minutes. This is what it looks like after 30 minutes when it's engulfed into a hand that basically looks like it was inflated by helium. And it's crazy. It was pretty, it was pretty cool.

[01:48:16] I feel sorry for the person that had that arm amputated because- Did they really progress that bad? Yeah, because they had to, you have to fly down to New York City to get a venom shot, anti-venom shot. They don't have them up here.

[01:48:31] Nothing in Kingston, Poughkeepsie, Albany, Westchester. Damn. And this was, but this was 2017 though. Okay. So that was a while ago. So let's, how about the last? Oh, there's one more after this. Yeah, there's, yeah. The pseudo fire tower comes last. Okay. Onward to Hunter Mountain. Yeah.

[01:48:52] You want to roll with it or you want me to do it? You want to do like rock paper scissors to see who goes? Go. What'd you get? I didn't see you. I have the rock, but I'll take it. You're tired. It looks like you're ready.

[01:49:06] You should have had the Yeti coffee tonight. Okay. Hunter Mountain at 4040 feet has the unique distinction of being the fire tower has the unique distinction of being located at the highest elevation of any fire tower in New York state.

[01:49:22] The original tower was constructed from logs and the current 60 foot steel tower was constructed in 1917, about a third of a mile from the present location. And for those of you who have been up there, you can actually off the trail see where the former tower was

[01:49:43] located and the foundation from the observers cabinet. So when 1953, the tower was relocated to its current location on the summit of Hunter Mountain. So I've identified here five ways to hike to the summit of Hunter Mountain. Yeah. So it's the obvious Jeep trail from Sprookston road,

[01:50:14] which is 3.3 miles up 1950 feet of elevation gain. The next place to park and hike up is at the end of Sprookston road at the parking lot. The end of the road, it's 4.4 miles, 2100 feet. You're going to hike along the devil's path.

[01:50:36] You're going to go by the diamond notch falls. That's your typical Catskill hiking trail terrain where it's rocky, rooty, et cetera. The Jeep trail is more user friendly. Then we get to hiking from route 214 from devil's tombstone, 3.5 miles up another 2100 feet of vertical gain.

[01:51:04] And Stas, have you gone up that way? I have. Yeah. I think that's just a fantastic section of trail. And as Mike Kudish points out in his book, you go through a very unique stretch of old growth forest along the way that really stands out.

[01:51:25] And I enjoy that. And it's really a great way to get up there. It is steep though. Yeah. But it is not as steep as climbing from Decker Hollow. Also Decker Hollow. Yeah. Right? Also on route 214, Decker Hollow is a 2200 foot vertical gain in a mere 2.2 miles.

[01:51:52] So it's a real Catskill huff and puff. But again, it's a fun hike up. It's straight up. Yeah. I mean you just, you got like a little walk in, you go across the bridge. It starts off at a gradual incline and then bam, it's in your face.

[01:52:12] Oh yeah. It's like constant. And again, it's another unique thing about the Catskills is you get to a certain point where there just goes into, we'll use Alex's phrase, which I love is it just turns into vertical madness. Right? It is. Yeah.

[01:52:29] When you're reaching that point of maximum lactic saturation and your muscles, then it just, then it just goes up 90 degrees on you and you're kind of like hand, knee, arms, crawling. Then another way up. I don't know if you've ever gone up this way, but Diamond Notch Road.

[01:52:49] Right? I have not gone from the full diamond. Like you're talking about the... Diamond Notch Road. All the way to Lane Street? No, it's not called Lane Street, but you turn off of 214 onto Diamond Notch Road. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah.

[01:53:06] You go out to the end of Diamond Notch Road and when you think you're at the end of Diamond Notch Road... Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I haven't got to that. No. Yeah. You go a little bit further and as you go a little bit

[01:53:15] further on like the one lane dirt road part of Diamond Notch Road and you think you've gone too far, you still have to go further and out, out further than you would expect it to be on this like single lane dirt road.

[01:53:28] You find the DEC parking lot and it's worthwhile because I hiked that just a couple of weeks ago and it's really just a... I think it's a scenic hike. You go through one of those deep notches between West Kill and Southwest Hunter where you can literally stand

[01:53:50] on each mountain at the same time. Yeah. And I've been through there where I've seen snow down in the deep part of the notch in the month of June. I did see some snakes when I went through there this last time, but it's a nice hike in.

[01:54:08] Then you get to the falls and you can either banger right there and head up the Devil's Path or you can go down to Sprooston Road, go up the Jeep trail and make it like a lollipop hike for yourself. But at six miles,

[01:54:23] 3,100 feet of gain if you go up the shortest way. And according to the DEC website, they give you this pro tip. Be sure to have a good trail map for your Hunter Mountain Fire Tower climb. There are a number of trails that crisscross

[01:54:40] Hunter Mountain and can be easy to get turned around and end up at the wrong trail head along your way from your vehicle if you aren't paying attention. I actually know a guy that started out at Sprooston Road, like to the tower and ended up at Becker Hollow.

[01:55:01] Of course. Yeah. And he was lucky. The guy was lucky because he's in the winter. He does this hike. He ends up in Becker Hollow and he was lucky that there were some people there that were like, oh yeah, sure. We'll drive you down through the town of

[01:55:17] Hunter, 23A, through Lexington, up Sprooston. That was the long way to give a guy a ride. So they drove him back to his car, but that's what hikers do for one another. We help each other out. Exactly. And I got to admit, the Hunter Mountain

[01:55:33] is an absolute, I got to admit any way you approach Hunter Mountain as a ball buster, it will make you work. Yeah. I think one of the nicest things about Hunter Mountain, one of the most unique things about it is it has a different forestry

[01:55:48] at the summit than you find elsewhere. Right? You either typically you're at a hardwood summit or balsam fir summit, but these are more spruce trees at the top. Right? And that's unique in the Catskills and there's just some, like as this list

[01:56:07] points out, these, what do I have here? Five ways to get to the summit of Hunter. And then, you know, you can just turn this into a nice loop hike from any one of these places. You can just go out and, you know, hike to Westkill.

[01:56:22] You can hike to Rusk, Southwest Hunter. Hunter, you can just mix it up out of any one of these parking lots, mix and match, do a lot of hiking in one day. And then afterwards you can, you know, Westkill Brewery, Fenicia, Hunter, Tannersville, it's kind of Hunter's right

[01:56:42] in the hub or center of a lot of different places to go afterwards for post-hike, brews and bites. So you want to move on to the last of the six, the Pseudo Fire Tower. Yes. But I want to say that Hunter offers a phenomenal view.

[01:56:59] And I think I remember lawyer Rankin saying that you can see the most amount of 3,500 peaks from Hunter Mountain. Because of course it's at 4,000 feet elevation, but I got to admit it's a ball buster. Any way you approach it, we'll just give you a run for your money

[01:57:17] after the horse stable area. It gets aggressive. But the greatest place that I have witnessed a sunrise or a sunset, I got to admit was from the John Roblin too. I was just saying that. Yeah. That's just an incredible viewpoint in the Catskills to hang out there.

[01:57:40] I've never camped there. I would love to camp there and just hang out in those rocks and watch the sunset. Yeah. Jessica and I did that a while back and it was just, I was beautiful night was blown away. But yes, last Fire Tower, what'd you call this?

[01:58:00] The Pseudo Fire Tower. Although it is a legitimate Fire Tower, there was never a Fire Tower used for fire observation purposes located at this location. Right? Right. We were just there. Yeah, we were. Okay. You want me to hit up the video? Yeah.

[01:58:26] I'm going to go ahead and do that. I'm going to go ahead and do that. Okay. You want me to hit up the history? Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. So it's a, the tower was originally used in Florida for fire observation and it was completely restored for use

[01:58:42] at its new home in the Catskills. It was rebuilt on the grounds at the Catskill Visitor Center in the fall of 2019. It's an 80 foot steel tower, which makes it seem like it's the tallest tower, but not at the greatest elevation in the Catskills.

[01:59:00] And it's a great way for hikers, casual and advanced to enjoy a reward and view of the area for only about a quarter mile of walking from the parking area. And I bet you in that quarter of a mile, there's what? A vertical gain of 10 feet. Not even.

[01:59:18] I don't think so. Yeah. So at any rate, you're right there in the town of Shandacon on route 28. And, you know, afterwards, there's a lot of places on 28 to, to hang out. So Stash, have you ever been up this pseudo fire tower? I have. Really? Wow.

[01:59:41] What was the view like? It was very nice. I mean, yeah, yeah, Trumper. Are you being, are you being like, you know, politically correct here? Very, yeah. Nice. Nice. That's the word. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was nice. It was for the beginner. Yes.

[02:00:00] It's definitely, I gotta admit, it's awesome to easy to get to it. It kind of, it sparks your enthusiasm of what's to come when you go up higher. I mean, you can see Trumper behind you if you're, if you're facing that

[02:00:12] way and you can see the arms of Wittenberg go down into Woodsocks. See part of the Ashokan area a little bit. And then of course, Tysenyech or Tysenyech, whoever, however you say that off to the, the East. And then I'm pretty sure you can see

[02:00:26] part of Devil's path, a little bit of Devil's path, like part of twin and plateau, but nothing too crazy. Like you get, of course, above all the others, but you know, it sparks your interest of what you could get from the other ones.

[02:00:40] You're like, damn, if this shows this, what could the ones that are 2000 feet higher than this show? Yeah. And you, you weren't, you didn't even go there from when we were there. No, I, I was too busy. I was too busy doing errands for you that day.

[02:00:56] I mean, you know, do this, Tad, do that, Tad, take my Tesla down here, get the oil changed, get it washed, right? Change the cables on the battery. I did all that stuff, you know, get more stickers out, give everybody, give everybody the wrong

[02:01:14] survey, get the right one. Everybody the wrong survey QR code. I seem to master that task. Yeah, we got to get that. But yeah, I mean, I would say go down there, check it out. If this is your first time or just check it out anyway,

[02:01:30] Catskill visitor center is right there. It's pretty cool. And it's a, it's, it'll take 25 minutes to do the whole thing. And then there's plus my favorite part. I hate to say this. There's a bathroom there. I have a bathroom. That's right. You brought that up before.

[02:01:45] My favorite part is, and are we going to have any intro music for this segment? It's it's the let's go. The stump stash. So I'm stop. Yeah, we need, we need, I need some intro music for this. We'll have to get our music director to generate something.

[02:02:02] I'll get it. As I learned this past weekend, this is the new segment that everyone loves. Okay. Oh really? Everybody loves Stump Stash. And we have a new question format and tonight's questions. So listen closely. It'll be the third question. First question of all the fire

[02:02:24] towers in the Catskills, they were made by the air motor company. And it seems that the air motor company was the, or one of the leading manufacturers of fire towers in the country. The air motor company was located in Chicago, Illinois. What was the air motor company's

[02:02:50] other main product? What was the other main product of the air motor company? Probably have to do with motors of airplanes, but I could probably be wrong because it wouldn't be this easy with the, with, with some stuff. Yeah. Yeah. With this easy. Oh, come on. Questions.

[02:03:12] Is it airplane motors? No, no, no. Yeah. When was it? When was this built though? What are we talking about? Well, they were making fire towers in the early 19 hundreds air. You almost got it. You were close when you say airplane motors, but then you're

[02:03:32] also completely off base air motor, air motor company, air motor air condition. I don't know. Go ahead. The other main product of the air motor, in fact, their original product were windmills. They were used by farmers to pump water from deep wells in the great American desert. Windmills.

[02:03:57] Remember those windmills that were on the Derek's right? The Derek constructed tower that would have a windmill at the top that would spin and it would be used to draw water out of the ground. And then along the way, somebody got the idea of, Hey, why don't

[02:04:13] we put a platform on top of these and guys can stand there all day long for $253 a month and look for forest fires. So that's it. The air, air motor company of Chicago, Illinois is leading manufacturer of fire towers and windmills. Certainly they're, they're no

[02:04:34] longer in the business. Okay. I would say so. Now we're going to go to question number two and I'm sensing there's going to be some controversy about question number two. Cause you already, you already talked about this. Was there a fire tower on slide mountain? Yes or no.

[02:04:56] You know that once again, this controversy, it's a 50 50. There was an observation tower that was first up there and then it was be used periodically as a fire tower. Yeah. So I, I read in the sources I looked at it reads as follows and 1912, a wooden observation

[02:05:15] tower was built on slide mountain, but it wasn't used for long due to persistent or visibility conditions. In 1934, an air motor tower was erected on slide, but it wasn't used as a fire tower and it's unknown why it was built on slide. It wasn't built or installed

[02:05:36] by the fish forestry and game commission. I've actually seen, now if you look at Mike Kudish's field notes that are available online, he draws these detailed maps of his hikes, which then get uploaded now on the, the website. He notes, he notes that in

[02:06:01] the 1960s being on slide and he actually has a drawing on one of his maps of the fire. Well, I'm not going to call it a fire tower, the observation tower, but in the, the materials I read, they said they didn't consider it a

[02:06:18] fire tower because it wasn't built by the state. So we'll give you a half a point for that. Half a point. Okay. Yeah. Cause I can, yeah, we're not going to debate over it cause I want to get to number three. This is like be nice to

[02:06:33] Stash just before his vacation questions. So everybody listened close. It's a new format. Ready? Are you ready? I want to hear some enthusiasm, not just ready. Let's, let's go. Well, it's after your bedtime. I know. All right. Ready? If you were the commissioner

[02:06:54] of the New York DEC on what other Catskill mountain would you locate a seventh fire tower and why, if you were the commissioner of the New York DEC on what other Catskill mountain would you locate a seventh fire tower and why? Hmm. Let's see.

[02:07:20] So we have all those others. It's a great question though. Right. I would go with what that's already being done right now is Bramley mountain. Really? I mean, but that's happening. You would have two towers there. Is that what you're saying? Tower one, tower two,

[02:07:37] tower eight, tower B or you would have your own private tower kind of like your throne, your throne, but that's okay. So, but that's, is that in the Catskills? It's not inside the blue line. Okay. So maybe, no, it's not. So maybe, uh, maybe my last

[02:07:52] spot would either be Thomas Cole or Windham High Peak. Ooh, Thomas Cole. Thomas Cole. High peak. That's interesting. Huh? Thomas Cole would be perfect because it's kind of like, there's no fire towers near it, but Hunter. So. Yeah. I, you know, so when you think about that, you're

[02:08:10] almost at the corner of the escarpment, right? That would be an interesting view to have. Definitely. Yeah. So I nailed it. Yeah. Well, obviously, cause that's like a give me your commission. Now don't let that go to your head. I mean, I'm not going to do that.

[02:08:25] I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. Don't let that go to your head. I'm not going to throw you one of those every week, but that's one of our new question formats. If you were, it's like you're putting on your crown Stash

[02:08:39] as the head of the New York state DEC. What would he do? What would you do? Yeah. Definitely. So excellent. Good stomp stops. Like always, I'm getting very embarrassed by this. It's a listener favorite, listener favorite. I'm just, I'm going to start my conversation with you.

[02:08:55] I'm going to start my own podcast and that's going to be, it's going to be called stump stash. And it's going to be you, myself and your wife at your kitchen coffee table asking you questions. I'm straight. I allow it. I'll allow it. Excellent. So post hike,

[02:09:11] bruise and bites, I'm going to suggest place that we got down at the cat school expo called the pizza box. The pizza box. That sounds good. It's a box. I'm going to suggest that you go to the cat school. The pizza box. That sounds good. It's a box.

[02:09:26] Very good. It was very good. And no, it's not wood fired. Remember it was, it was in the, like a little horse carriage that they made. It was fantastic. I'm going to tag them. I'm going to definitely tag them any place. How about you? Anything for you?

[02:09:42] No, I'm, you know, I'm, yeah, I made a beeline home after the expo. Yeah. Okay. Boring, boring afternoon for me. I'll expo out. So yeah, so once again, thank you to the monthly supporters and monthly sponsors really appreciate you guys supporting the show.

[02:10:03] Really appreciate everyone who is still listening after 128 episodes. Unbelievable. Ted, thank you for joining me tonight and putting a lot of good work into this awesome thing about the fire tower challenge. Hopefully this will get some people to listen and get people to some newbies

[02:10:21] to listen and maybe get them involved more in the Catskills and get them on the right path of hiking in the Catskills. Right on. Yeah. All right. Well, enjoy your vacation. Definitely. So next week, unfortunately we won't be having an episode because I will

[02:10:35] be on vacation, but I'll be doing stuff on Instagram and Facebook. So keep up to date. Super duper. All right. So have a good night, Ted. You too buddy. All right. Hi everyone. I just want to thank you for listening to the show.

[02:10:52] If you enjoyed the show, subscribe and throw down a smooth review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or any podcast platform that you use. You can also check daily updates of the podcast, hikes, hiking news and local news on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and the official website of the show.

[02:11:16] Remember this, you got to just keep on living in the Catskills, man. L-I-V-I-N. Wicked. Wicked. Wicked. Wicked.