[00:00:29] The bushwhacks were some of the worst days I've ever had in the mountains, or life really. Whereas Pantsy Mountain is totally opposite, it's a mountain on top of a crater. I think the weather challenges on this incident were particularly difficult. It is really the development of New York State. Catskills will respond to it.
[00:00:52] You're listening to Inside The Line, the Catskill Mountains Podcast. Let's have a good time. So hot off the press. 30 minutes ago I got this. So listen to this stuff. This is not Catskill related, but I want to just bring this up.
[00:01:19] Man dips fingers in boiling Yellowstone spring to show off it doesn't end well. What do you think happens? The freaking guy falls into the thing and dies. And there was no ranger there to rescue him. Oh, do we have to do this political stuff, Tad, again? Do we have? Yes, we have to. I could have. You just like teed that right up. I mean, how could I not, not just launch that into the stratosphere? Yeah. So...
[00:01:47] Are we recording now? Did you already? All right. Well, I apologize to all the listeners for talking politics under the 2750 elevation. But that's another story. Yeah. So a man has been caught dabbing his fingers in the boiling pool at Yellowstone National Park for attention, despite warnings from his companion. Also, taking a video, people took several people took videos, and apparently he fell in and died.
[00:02:17] So... Oh, oh, oh. Well then I am sorry. Jesus. This was posted on Torons of Yellowstone National Park. Now they didn't show the process of him unfortunately passing away. There's several close claws here at the hot springs. And unfortunately this has been an incident that is considered a death.
[00:02:35] So, uh, unbelievable stuff that they couldn't, of course, within the Yellowstone, like the hot pools over there, the hot springs, you cannot retrieve a person in there. It's, it's too hot. The water's too warm. Wow. And unfortunately within a day he, he dissolved. So when... Oh, he dissolved? Wow. This is horrible. Yeah. When did this happen? You said this happened today?
[00:03:00] Oh, oh, oh, maybe. Oh, I might have to, I might have to, uh, we'll, we'll, yeah, this is 2024. Oh, oh, oh, oh. You said this just happened. Oh, I guarantee. Oh, I guess it didn't. Wow. Shit. See, see, Michael, this is why we edit. Yeah, Mike, Mike, you'll never, if you listen to the show on Friday, you'll never hear any of this exchange because the editors come in, they make us sound good, they do voice odor overs.
[00:03:27] I want to get that background laughter that they have for sitcoms, you know, so makes it sound like everything I say is funny. Oh God, that's horrible. I'm going to leave this on there just to show how real this is. How real? Mike. Somebody dying. That makes it real. Mike, I'm sorry about that. Yeah, that's horrible. Wow. I was, once again, uh, I was bamboozled by, by the news. So let's, how about we get into some Catskill stuff? All right.
[00:03:56] So I just wait, wait, I just need a moment to re like calibrate after hearing this, but okay, go ahead. I'm ready to roll. All right. So this is hot off the press, you know, Tad, we, we, I'm guessing we both get Ranger reports cause we send each other stuff. So, uh, hot off of the press, 20, 20, uh, 20, 25, let's say it's 20, 25, February 22nd at 7 40 PM. Green County.
[00:04:22] Now, when we were received a call from two lost hikers on the escarpent trail, forest Rangers, Fox and Peterson were unable to reestablish contact with the hikers. So they hiked to the coordinates of the 9 1 1 1 call. Rangers reached a two 53 year old hikers, approximately one mile from the north south lake campground. And they didn't say which direction, uh, Queen County Sheriff deputies drove, uh, paired to their vehicle and resources were cleared by 9 50. So two hours. Once again, they didn't say north or south.
[00:04:50] So I'm guessing, I don't know. That's, that's a tough call to be north or south two miles. I would have to say they were south of the north south lake, uh, campground because you wouldn't want to go north and go up. You would always lead to go down. And that would be the escarpment trail on the southern part of north south, like campground. So. You think they were lost? You think they were lost on the south side? I think they were. Cause you wouldn't want to, once you start ascending, you'd have to go down.
[00:05:18] You'd, you'd get doubts and you'd be like, this is wrong. And you would turn around. So I'm guessing that's what they started to do when they started going up the, the northern escarpment. What about you, Mike? You got an opinion on this? I do. I have a comment, but we'll let you go first. Oh, well, I'm just curious. It says that they weren't wearing proper winter gear. And I'd like to know, you know, what, what exactly that means today. This is a different incident. This is hot off the press within the last 24 hours. This is this. Oh yeah.
[00:05:48] I'm sure if you go down in the show notes, we have this, but so. You added this? Oh, I'm sorry. No, no, no, no. It's okay. It all stays. It all. Yep. Yeah. So, so, so at any rate, this is, this is Saturday night this past Saturday. All right. Yep. And it was cold capital C O L D capital C O L D outside cold, right?
[00:06:16] 7 40 PM. And they're lost. So, uh, they're lucky. The Rangers got to him so quickly and, you know, found them, got them quickly. It'd be nice to hear the backstory. Like we heard from, uh, uh, rusher and horn a few weeks ago, the backstory to these rescues, but these guys were out, they got lost. They got lost. Doesn't say if they had headlamps or whatnot, but yeah. Yeah.
[00:06:45] I mean, that's, that's, that's the common area of people getting lost where they lost on or off trail. Cause off trail, the snow is pretty deep. Yeah. Did they have snowshoes? These are all interesting questions. The, they don't report it in this little blur, but those are things us hikers want to know. Yeah, exactly. And, uh, you know, I mean, we have a couple incidents located within the Catskills.
[00:07:11] And I, the mic, you know, I know we, we, you just talked about this and, uh, we'll, we'll chat about this right now. Yeah. Then in Denning, uh, on February 16th. So once again, this is a while back six days before last Saturday. So it was Monday, February 16th force Ranger Martin responded to a radio call for a no voice 9 1 1 from red hill road. Ranger Martin checked to the access point of the red hill fire tower and located the car parked on Denning road.
[00:07:38] So he was on the Northern part of the red hill fire tower. Uh, Rangers wider. I'll have to ask, uh, Rangers rusher and horn about that. It's that name hiked up the old Dinch road and the access point more Ranger marker. Martin hiked up the Denning road at 3 PM. Ranger Martin located hikers from New York city, returning to the parking area on the blue trail, which is a Southern part going towards setting. They had called 9 1 1 because they were concerned about the weather and getting frostbite.
[00:08:08] Since we were not wearing the proper winter gear. When why no one didn't go through, they continued hiking down to the car. Now that's, I mean, I mean, the story kind of says itself. They should have just done that anyway, but good for them for major Martin and, uh, and, uh, Schweiner hiked up the old Dinch road, which is on the other side, which is actually probably kind of tough because he had to park. Uh, their, their trucks are pretty good.
[00:08:35] So he probably just went fricking full bore right through to the parking area. I mean, Mike, have you been to both access points of red hill? Not, not both. I've gone from the Dinch road. That's it. You got to admit in the winter, that would be absolutely insane. Yeah. Yeah. That would be dicey. And I am impressed that with the no voice, 9 1 1 call that they get that kind of response. You know, the Rangers going out there without knowing anything about what the call was about.
[00:09:01] And, uh, you know, responding like that, uh, it's, um, you know, I listened to the episode that you had with a couple of Rangers too. And, um, yeah, it's, it's really impressive what those guys can do. Yeah. Especially coordinating together. Like, like one will go to one access point and one will go to the other access point. And they'll, I hate to say it, but attack at that way. And they found them at 3 PM. That's a, that's a thing is 3 PM. We still got at this time, we got like maybe two hours, two and a half hours of strong daylight.
[00:09:31] Time over there. It's kinda, I don't think it's hitting on the old inch road or on the, the Northern part. It's not even hitting slide mountain. You're not even hitting some big major peaks over there. So you're getting still some good daylight time. So, I mean, but they're concerned about the weather and feeling frostbite. So I'm guessing the weather had to be a little bit. It's a Monday. Was that president's day? Uh, I'm not sure. Yeah. Yeah, it was. So everybody was out on that day.
[00:09:59] So I'm surprised they didn't run into everyone, everyone, but me and me. Yeah. I had to, I had to do the grind. So yeah. So day before. Yeah. That was a Sunday before president. Was it? Okay. Good thing we have Mike on this show. He's keeping it straight and honest straight. He's keeping it going. So, yeah, I mean, good for, I mean, good for them to, you know, be concerned with what they are and, and, you know, maybe the Rangers liked getting that little workout that they
[00:10:28] had, but, you know, I mean, we heard from Russia and horn that, that sometimes they love getting called off of the desk and just getting out there. Good for them. Yeah. I mean, on the one hand, this doesn't seem like a big incident and they were rescued or retrieved or found whatever you want to say fairly quickly, but you know, had it been elsewhere in the Catskills, it could have been a much more, uh, you know, difficult situation to get them out.
[00:10:55] Uh, the consequences to these guys could have been more dire, but it's nice to see that it has a happy ending if you will. Correct. Correct. And we, we've got to hate to bring this up. Catterskill falls have another incident. I'm surprised that we just haven't heard incident after incident here in the past. Like I would say two, three months when we've had snow here. So apparently they're there.
[00:11:22] I don't think they're reporting everything, you know, because like, even when I've gone down there during like little snow, it's a little dicey with even hill sounds going down there. So, but apparently the next day, which is a Monday, as Mike pointed out, uh, 5 50 PM. So we're talking about there's, there's probably no daylight because the sun is below Catterskill falls at the time. Yeah. I mean, the sun is, the sun is to the west of there. Right.
[00:11:52] And this is on the east side of the Catskills deep and a cove. Yeah. Okay. So it's gotta, it's gotta be relatively dark down there for that. Absolutely. Yeah. Uh, Raybrook, just brought requested forest ranger assistant, but two subjects stuck on the ice at the lower falls of Catterskill falls. This is the lower fall. So that the bottom area at 6 40 PM, Rangers, Comerford, Fox and Peterson. So Fox and Peterson were over in fricking the earlier day.
[00:12:21] They were over in red hill and then they shuffled themselves all the way into Hunter Tannersville. Wow. The next day, uh, they reached two hikers. Uh, this is the first time the two graduate students ever hiked there. They didn't have a light source, proper winter gear or even traction devices for their boots. At least they were wearing boots. Uh, Rangers provided traction devices, headlamps, educated them on essential hiking essentials while walking them back to the vehicles.
[00:12:49] Resources were clear at 7 30 PM. So number one is I have been to Catterskill falls many times, winter, summer, fall, anytime. Getting down to the base of that falls in even the winter spring time is absolutely insane.
[00:13:10] I would rather go down some crazy, sketchy areas, uh, on, on the, the devil's path, then come down the stairs area where it's just an infinite. Go, go, go. You're done. No trees whatsoever. You're either going into the fricking falls and falling off of the first falls or you're, you're, you're dead.
[00:13:32] So, yeah, I see a lot of people sharing pictures on Facebook of the, the frozen falls and they'll be like behind the falls. And you know, other comments, big, Oh, it's such a beautiful picture. I mean, they are nice shots, but I wonder how many warning signs, how many fences do you have to climb over to, to get there for that shot? And, um, yeah, I'm just amazed that people wander back there with that sheer ice wall as well.
[00:14:00] Um, you know, I imagine chunks of ice have some pretty good velocity, uh, coming off of that ice wall. Um, so yeah, I think just the, yeah, there's a lot of people scrambling around on the ice at Catterskill falls. And, uh, yeah, I would imagine in these kinds of conditions, there are a lot of incidents out there. Yeah. So what do you think Stas? Should they, should they close access to the falls down in winter? Absolutely not. Seriously.
[00:14:27] Remember last week, we, we read some of those Facebook comments on the, or the week before those folks who got rescued off of Mount Washington. And the one guy says, well, in the winter, just close the trails problem solved. Why not do it at Catterskill falls close the trails? Because it's absolutely, it's absolutely phenomenal in the, in the winter. And I don't blame people die. Somebody's child could die there. You know, how many people have died with at Catterskill falls during the summer? We should close it down year round then.
[00:14:57] Year round. Year round. No one should see it, right? Unless you were a listener and sponsor of the show. Correct. What do you think, Mike? Should that be, should that be the new rule? That if you're a listener and sponsor of the show, you get to go to Catterskill. Yeah. That sounds fair. Why not? Yeah. See, I like Mike. I think Mike is like the third wheel on the show going forward. That'll be tough with the DEC. That's, I mean, if I own that area, maybe this is not, this is not, what is it called?
[00:15:27] Is it Haynes falls over there? This is not Twilight park. All right, dad. That's all those houses falling into the Cove. They are pretty much, you know, I'm, I am absolutely fascinated that, that those things haven't fallen in the Cove over in the Santa Cruz area. So if you, if anybody ever, if you know what we're talking about, if you hike the Ascarpon trail, the first ledge that you get to, I forgot what is that sunset inspiration point.
[00:15:51] If you just drive up 23, you see those houses in the morning with the sun coming in, it looks spectacular. And then you remind yourself they were built like almost a hundred years ago. Right. When, when engineering guys, you know, engineers still had pencils and slide rules. Yeah. And they're sitting right on the, the edges of. Yeah. Goddamn slides that are going to happen. And, you know, and they don't give you access to Haynes falls. What are the most beautiful waterfalls? Uh, that you can see anywhere.
[00:16:21] And there's very little documentation of this. I'm what I'm not going to say anything. Yeah. I'm not sneaking over there. What we, yeah, we, we, and plus we have Mike on the show and Mike looks like a pretty legit, honest law abiding person. So that's kind of you to say, Ted, thank you. We're going to try to keep it inside the lines tonight. And actually, you know, what's funny. We're actually going in order of dates, which is surprised because we usually like go backtrack and then get up the nurse. So it's, it's the Mike effect. I know.
[00:16:50] I don't know. So on February 19th up on Bel Air mountain. And we know that during this date, uh, three days later, strong winds, we had a big wind, uh, storm coming through the, uh, Southern Catskills. Uh, well actually the middle, like the, the Northern Catskills, Southern Catskills, the Huntington Valley, uh, a tree caused to fall in the Bel Air express on Bel Air mountain, resulting in damage to the lift that, uh, at this time was still being accessed.
[00:17:18] No one was injured and the lift is currently closed. Now we had an update recently that they have fixed it within, uh, I don't remember what this was. I think this was a couple of days, like two days later, uh, that the chairlift has been resumed and following through inspections. The call just came down that the lift had been cleared for operation. Lift maintenance crew worked tirelessly through the nights, re-spacing chairs, getting lift dialed in.
[00:17:45] And the lift might be slightly delayed for final tweaks, but the weekend it was, uh, jam packed because of the snow, of course, that we've had. And, you know, not being a skier or anybody, you know, anybody that's ever kind of skied except on the small mountains. Ted, what do you have to say about this Bel Air incident? Because you are a prolific skier, you know, the area, you know, skiing. So. Yeah.
[00:18:11] Well, I remember this lift from when it wasn't the lift that's there now, when it was the four person fixed quad. It was there before. And then in, I think it was in 2006 or eight, something like that. They upgraded the lift by putting in a four person detachable quad. So that means it seats four people per chair. And when the chairs get to the bull wheels at either end of the lift, they actually come off the cable.
[00:18:41] So they slow down. The cable goes at high speed too fast for people to board the, the lift while the chairs are on the cable. And so when they talk about re spacing of the chairs, what I assume happened is when the tree hits the cable, chairs are moving either at that time or later in the day when they started up and some of these chairs slid together.
[00:19:06] So the, the spacing of the chairs is really important to cable tension, keeping the cable on the rollers, keeping the cable from bouncing. You know, you gotta have them spaced appropriately. So, you know, these, these guys at Bel Air and, and at all of these ski areas, I think they, they really know what they they're doing when it comes to lift maintenance, lift safety. I remember when I was growing up skiing in the seventies. Jesus Christ. Yeah. It wasn't uncommon.
[00:19:34] It wasn't uncommon for people to die from a chair related accident. Okay. We had what I think was called blue hill or blue something. Not that far away from where I grew up and they had a lot of vertical drop. They got decent snow, but they also had this chair lift that would invariably kill a couple people a year. It was yeah. Eventually they shut the place. I was going to say, shut it down. That's like caddisco falls. Shut it down.
[00:20:03] But, um, now the state of New York and the other operators, let's look at a platyco, which probably has the leanest budget of all ski areas. And the cats skills. When's the last time you remember hearing about somebody dying on their chair lift and they have the one left. They're double is an old, old hall chair lift, maybe from the sixties or early seventies.
[00:20:27] It's an old lift, but they, I think they replaced the bull wheels and the, you know, the equipment on either end within the last couple of years on that. But it's still, it's an old lift runs flawlessly or so to speak. So, so what Ted, when we talk about the Bel Air express, this bringing you from the, what area to what area to base lodge to the top or we, uh, yeah, I forget what they call the lodges, but it brings you from the lower lodge to the top of the mountain.
[00:20:56] Um, where overlooks the sundown area. Okay. So, um, and then they, they have the don, the law, which kind of runs a little from the, um, uh, diagonal that brings you up towards the top of what I think they used to call or still call the tomahawk lift.
[00:21:18] But when they, in this article, the one thing that I, cause I haven't been to Bel Air in a few years that they, um, they refer this to this as the Bel Air express. It used to be known as the super chief and maybe they're backpedaling away from, um, you know, those, those names. So they might've gotten rid of the tomahawk. Oh, I see what you're talking about. Yeah. So, well, you know what?
[00:21:44] So, and I just, I just want to, now I want to point out, cause I know this has probably been grading on Mike Stas, you, you just got done saying how we, we've been going in chronological order. Did you catch that Mike? I did not. No, we started off like in 2024. You told us it was like recent news, but it was actually from 2024. Right. So that's chronological. Yeah.
[00:22:07] Then we, then we, no, then we, then we went to the 22nd, the, uh, red hill. No, the escarpment trail rescue. Oh yeah. So then we went to the 16th with the red hill, the 17th. And now Bel Air is on the 19th. So now Mike looks completely puzzled now, but Mike, this is how we make the sausage. He's over reviewing it. So yeah, yeah. Okay.
[00:22:32] So I feel the, uh, the listening comprehension portion of this podcast at the beginning when the, when the outline didn't match what we were talking about, but I am fully on board now. Okay. And I, I feel, I feel this, I feel the speaking comprehension portion of the podcast. So just, so it looks like the Bel Air express leads from, uh, not even the overlook, but below the overlook lodge to the top.
[00:22:58] And then the Catskill thunder gondola leads from the discovery lodge all the way up to the top. So the Catskill thunder gondola is the bigger one that leads all the way from the base to the top. Uh, Bel Air express leads from the top to the sunset lodge. And then the overlook quad leads from the long house to the middle of the sunset lodge and the thunderhawk learning area. So, uh, it looks like that was a pretty big one. Uh, I got to admit, I think I've, I know it's funny.
[00:23:27] I've hiked over there and I played disc golf over there. So that's one of the, the bigger ones, of course, cause it goes right by the overlook lodge. Um, I know it was pretty, pretty crazy that when Alex and I did disc golf over there, uh, it was odd because we saw over a hundred, 200 Jewish people at the lodge trying to find out how to get up the gondola. And I, I had to tell them, unfortunately, the gondola isn't open during the weekdays.
[00:23:55] It's only on the weekdays on the weekends. So 200, I was guessing about 200. This was a big pack. And I was just like, he, unfortunately he can't do this. Like it's, it's not open. It's not operable. You gotta go home. It's pretty crazy. A really bad day for whoever was coordinating that trip and brought the 200 people out there. Yeah. Right. It wasn't running. Right. Uh, sorry guys. Uh, we're not going to the top of the mountain too bad. Like sucks.
[00:24:25] Time for a re time for a refund. On the, on the story for the tree falling, were there people on the lift at the time when it happened? They said there were no injuries, but do we know I'm, I'm. I didn't hear anything. Okay. So, so it says on the morning of February 19th. So maybe the tree falls early morning before the lift has even been loaded.
[00:24:48] And then what I'm gathering though, at some point, um, they start up the lift and this fallen tree, um, now starts causing chairs to. Bundle up. Yeah. Well, so you had to slide on the cable and then they start to bundle up and then that's a big problem for them because it starts putting a lot of point load on the cable. It's hard for them. You know, when they get to the top of the, the bull wheel at the top of the mountain for them, the chairs to decouple.
[00:25:18] So I'm sure they have a process for dealing with it, but it's not what they were expecting. Yeah. And as you know, Mike, you bring that up, you know, it's, it's kind of tough for a tree to fall on one of those cables. Cause you know, those, those areas are pretty wide, but they've, they've had those trees for a while. So they're, they're taller trees, but, uh, it's, it's very tough for that to hit the cable.
[00:25:42] Cause it's like, it's, they're wide enough for the trees to fall, but there's like one or two trees that could accidentally. So that whole tree had to go down to knock that cable off. You got to admit that the force of that cable is pretty strong. So, um, with that, with that area, of course, Bel Air, white face, stuff like that, New York state run, uh, ski areas have gotta be kind of up to date on.
[00:26:07] You know, looking to see what is the less, uh, money that could be used to operate and stuff like that. So I hate to say that, but it's a reality. We, we, we, we start to talk about the tree falling on the cable. Usually they, they have the, the path or the runway for the chairlift pretty well cleared of things that can fall on the cable.
[00:26:31] But what would be interesting to know, at least for me and Mike Kudish maybe is what type of tree was that? Was it an ash tree that right recently has succumbed to, you know, the demise by the emerald ash borer? Or was it some other type of tree? Um, it'd be interesting to see what the, that little ash borers effect is at a ski area. Yeah.
[00:26:57] Ted, I just listened to that episode and I heard you all talking about what to call those hybrid ashes that have all the various resistances to the emerald ash borer. And I was just talking to my car stereo as I was listening to you guys, throwing out ideas and saying, bad ashes. Could somebody say bad ashes? Bad ashes. I feel like, I mean, those are, those are pretty cool trees. Yeah. And I thought Mike was the clean one. Yeah. Right. Like, okay. 20 some minutes.
[00:27:25] He's already throwing out bad asses. Wow. People from the Hudson Valley. Jesus. Yeah. I'm sorry. I thought this was an explicit podcast. We're not that explicit. All right. 100%. I've listened to enough episodes to know. Keep your fucking comments to yourself. Jesus. All right. All right. Like this is, at least we're 30 minutes in. And is that, yeah. God, I have sponsors on this show. Come on. Oh, that's right. We better clean it up. So I was waiting for the queue, but I feel like this is the right time.
[00:27:55] Do it. Okay. That sounded good. I was clear. I like this guy. He's like a pro. Oh, where'd we get this guy from? He's got like, he's got a diploma on the wall. It says, uh, podcasters of America. Mike Todd. Member three. Podcasters of Canada. I know your commitment to craftsmanship of opening the beer correctly on the podcast. So I'm glad that went okay. God, I went that outside. I feel bad.
[00:28:24] That was pro quality. All right. I'll have to, I'll have to open another one when we do the beer talk. Yeah. I'm very intimidated now. Yeah. I'm going to have to, I'm going to download some fake sound when I go to open mine up now. All right. Well, let's, let's move on. All right. Moving on. Let's get the, let's get the, uh, the news discussion out of, out of here. So, um, Catskill towns vote to allow land sales to New York city. So, uh, I skimmed over this.
[00:28:52] Ted, I'm not really sure what this means somewhat. It seems like that they were letting the New York city DEP, uh, and such purchase more land so they can protect it. Is that, is that what I'm catching? Well, am I stupid? Explain this to me. Like I was five. This, I think this is more or less legal gaslighting. If you will. Okay. And, and, and bear with me cause I'm just going on the fly on this.
[00:29:20] I didn't look into it too closely, but what I, I recall from when I looked at this is this law will allow the DEP to buy land when there is an approval by the local municipality, like a town board. Okay. So if the, so if the town board gives a thumbs up to the DEP buying land, the DEP can go ahead and buy the land.
[00:29:46] So then you get, you get into the political skirmish where if the DEP wants to buy land, the town can throw up their hands and oppose it. Or the town, if they're savvy can say, yeah, we'll let you buy this land. We'll vote in favor of it, but what's in it for us. Right? So maybe it becomes a little more transactional or a phrase that we see in the news now and then is the quid pro quo or this for that.
[00:30:15] We'll let the DEP buy this land, but we get something in exchange, whether it's, you know, some improvements here, some improvements there, payment for this payment for that. But I just, I think it kind of softens or neuters some of the weight and power of the city just to come up here and flex their muscles and buy whatever they want. Interesting. So would the towns have to vote on this? Would they have to have a proper vote?
[00:30:46] Well, the town board, not the town people. Oh. Yeah. So if you're like, if you're Farmer Jones in the town of Shandaken and you've got a lot of wetlands on your property and no developer wants to buy your land because of the wetlands, there's really not a lot of development potential. But Farmer Jones wants to get out of Shandaken. He's going to call up the supervisor of Shandaken. And I'm just doing a hypothesis here. There's no reality to this, but this is how it could happen.
[00:31:15] So Farmer Jones calls up the supervisor and says, Bob, who he goes back a long way with, Bob, I need to get rid of my land. The DEP wants to buy it. Would you put this on the town board agenda to prove the sale? And because they like Farmer Jones, they approve the sale. That's how some of this local politics can work. So I think that's what this is more or less is instead of the city going around
[00:31:45] and doing these deals without some town input, it brings the town to the table. They're part of the process. And if they want something out of it, they can try to factor that into the equation by giving it their blessings. So this is more of the watershed towns and the DEP. So we're talking about areas along watersheds. So creeks, rivers, stuff like that. Yeah. Well, I think the town or the city can make the case that pretty much any land
[00:32:15] impacts their watershed area. And they certainly have been buying up a lot of land until recently. And it seems that some of that land didn't have as direct of a connection to the watershed as one would think. But they've been able to do these acquisitions. So. Well, I mean. Yeah, I think, look, it's a good thing. You know, if it brings a little more harmony between the towns and the DEP
[00:32:46] and the locals. But it's, you know. You know, it's back and forth. Decent. Yep. Yeah. I mean, you know, protect those areas that, you know, we're talking about. We have more purchase land over on Wittenberg. Or not Wittenberg. Wyndham High Peak from the DEP. You know, stuff that has the streams flowing. I, you know, I'm all for that. Instead of developing and stuff like that, you know, we have a good wood stock.
[00:33:17] And stuff. But, you know, back and forth, it's a good thing. That we don't get the developments in the area. And I think that's what the towns are looking for. And do you think, Ted or Mike, you know, what do you think upon this subject of the DEP purchasing land, you know, to kind of protect it around the towns and the watersheds and stuff like that? So it's a tough question.
[00:33:48] Yeah. That's not being, you know, not living in the Catskills. I feel like I don't get a vote here. I don't live in the Catskills. Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's right. But, you know, I think we all as hikers benefit, you know, when the land is kept wild. But I know this is, you know, I think giving the towns the, you know, being able to chart their own direction here is the right way to go. Yeah.
[00:34:18] Yeah. And we have, you know, we have once again, like certain areas that we protect because of the watershed. Of course, it flows into like the Delaware water basin. We got the Niversink water basin. We have the Ashokan area, you know, we have those areas that are protected to protect the water going down to New York City and stuff like that. Which, you know, at times I'm like, hell yeah, that's actually good because, you know,
[00:34:43] it makes my area that I hike in forever wild and, you know, that I can enjoy it. But then at the same time, you know, what's it going to do to these towns that need more money, that need more development with what we got going on for the past, you know, 10, 15 years of everything going on? You know, once again, let's, yeah, I just wanted to bring that up.
[00:35:11] So we'll, we'll see how that progresses. We'll probably follow that. I will follow that. I don't know if Ted will. So I will definitely follow that. Ted's a smart dude though. He can like, he can talk about this all day long. Like you can, you can just go all out on this, but I'm going to, I'm going to follow it and we'll, we'll, we'll chat about that. So the next topic, the last topic of this, this conversation is, I don't know how I thought it. I saw this on Instagram and I thought it was pretty cool.
[00:35:37] So this guy named Connor Chapslane, AKA Jap Rabbit is going after the fastest known time of the triple crown. So the triple crown is the Pacific Crest Trail. The, uh, what is the other? John Muir. No, no, that's all. That's not, that's, that's a small one. Pacific Crest Trail, the Appalachian Trail and the, you know, Henry did this. The Escarpment Trail. The long path. Pacific Crest, CDT. What's the CDT? Continental Divide.
[00:36:08] So this, once again, this goes from Mexico to Canada, Mexico to Canada, and then, uh, Georgia to Maine. Now he's going after the fastest known time, uh, for the triple crown. So follow him on Instagram. He was chatting about it. He's been all through the, the shit of the shit going over through the John Muir trail, like you said, Ted, and the Continental Divide and the Pacific Crest and Appalachian trail.
[00:36:34] So fastest known time of three trails, which equals over 3000 miles. And I forgot it's like over a hundred thousand feet of elevation gain. So number one. Mike, what do you say? Does that sound like a fun time? That's, that sounds really tough. And, uh, I'm guessing he doesn't have to walk between them. He's probably allowed some transportation. Yeah. Yeah. It's supported. Yeah. I think there's a subway stop for each one. It's the, the D train.
[00:37:03] And remember, right. Yes. Yeah. It just sounds like a lot of type two fun. Yeah. It sounds intense. And I just, uh, I will have his Instagram on there because, uh, I just thought it was absolutely cool to talk about because he just started talking about this and it's fastest known time. We talked about fastest known time within the last three episodes where, uh, I mistakenly said, uh, what's his name was hike the escarpment trail in three days. And he said 10 hours.
[00:37:32] And I was like, what the absolute, like, uh, unbelievable. Yeah. But I think your, your pals on the slasher podcast recently entered interviewed somebody who was going to do the triple crown. Oh, no way. I haven't, I haven't listened to this guy. Yeah. And you listen to his, um, planning and his approach to it. And this is a person who has, um, done each of them before.
[00:37:58] And so we had this, you know, approach to how he was going to go about doing it. And as I'm listening to it is an example. All of his meals are cold or like the ambient temperature, everything, like all the dehydrated meals he's going to eat. He just cold. So yeah. Yeah. Right. You know, soaks it in water for a few hours and then he eats it. He doesn't, he doesn't bring a tent.
[00:38:27] Oh, Sheswick is, is the guy. Yeah. That's yes. Him. Right. And it's a good interview. It sounds like the kid's got it going on. He's got a good vibe, this, that, and the other thing. But why would you want to do this? I mean. I can see like putting the hammer down for one particular hike and going hard one day. And then the next day, slowing down, taking, you know, in the scenery, the surroundings, enjoying yourself, maybe eating a hot meal. Yeah. This guy for months on end.
[00:38:57] Why? What I want to do, we should get like a bunch of Harvard and Stanford psychologists to analyze all these people that do like these long haul fastest known times and find out what it is that their mothers did to them. Right. That ruined them. Mothers or fathers. I'm not going to discriminate. I was going to say it's probably the either or. Yeah. Or did they just have like a really, really bad gym teacher in grade school? You're not good enough.
[00:39:27] You need to do the fastest known time. Come on, Bobby. Cheswick, pick up the slack. Yeah. Connor, you need to run like a jackrabbit. Damn it. There you go. Yeah. Connor was told to run like a jackrabbit. Mike is smart. He's got it on mute. I'm trying to make him laugh and I don't hear anything. I look over, he's got that little red slash through the microphone. I'm like, damn it. No. My son is playing a particularly intense round of Fortnite downstairs and that was coming through. So. And you want to join them.
[00:39:55] Keep it off mute for right now, Todd. Yeah. So then the laughs come through, but you're going to get some Fortnite in there with it. I'm afraid. Just keep it off mute right now. We're good. So yeah. So check him out and we'll keep on his progress throughout the year. I follow him on Instagram. So. All right. So thank you to the monthly supporters. Chris Garby and Jeff shots, desert city radio, Mike. Yes.
[00:40:20] John Comiskey, Vicki for our summit seekers, Betsy, a Denise W. Tom H. Vanessa and Derek. Thank you guys very much for supporting the show. Really appreciate it. Once again, Tad, we're going to be supporting a local area. I got to figure out where soon. I think I might take Jeff's idea and go to with the DEC and support like kind of like a, there's a search, a certain branch of the Catskills. So I'll have to look into that. Oh, with the, with the donation.
[00:40:50] Yeah. With the donation. What about that fund that raises money for gear and supplies for the Rangers? Hmm. That sounds like a good idea. Yeah. You don't think New York state could do that with, I'm not going to say anything. Nope. Yeah. There's there. Look, we see it right now with the state and the prison guards, you know? I mean, I couldn't imagine being a state prison guard and going there every day for work. Right. Yeah.
[00:41:20] You talk, you talk about a tough job. I mean, these guys get all sorts of nasty and foul things done for them. Um, and then we find out that the state of New York has not necessarily got their back. So I, I had a good relationship with Jeff. So let's keep it at that. Thank you, Jeff, for the suggestions. So let's get onto the amazing sponsor of the show. Once again, that makes this show possible. And of course, our donations possible. So outdoor Chronicles photography.
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[00:42:47] To be honest, I'm going to say that's my best I've ever done with those ads. These guys are awesome. I got to admit, I love our sponsors. Thank you very much and our outdoor supporters. So let's see. Hardsiders mentions. We haven't had any Hardsiders in a while. So if you want to donate a Hardsider to the show to support the show, please do. Once again, if it doesn't go towards the show, it goes towards a donation to back to the Catskills. So, Ted, let's talk about who's outdoors.
[00:43:16] Who's outdoors? Yeah, I heard Tom had an eventful weekend. He did. So him and Jeff Jotz went up Peekamoo's table and loaned. So I read their story. They had a great journey going up Table and Peekamoo's and then went up over to loan and snow got deep. They had some challenges with breaking trail and such. And unfortunately, loan was their destination. I'm pretty sure they wanted to do the six.
[00:43:46] Is that correct? I remember him saying Tom said to me like he said he wanted to do the six. Yeah, they actually started out with Joe as well. Hiker Joe NY. Yep. He doesn't tag us anymore. Joe, please. We're going to send our people out to get you. So yeah, they were going to do. They spotted a car in Denning. Well, they started at Denning. They had a car out at Moon Hall. And they were going to do the through hike.
[00:44:14] And apparently, you know, one thing leads to another. And the snow was mighty deep out there this past weekend. So they were lucky because when they decided to bail, apparently a group had just come up from the fisherman's path to loan. A big group that had really packed down a trench for them to take from loan down to the fisherman's and back to Denning. So that's a good way off of loan when you can get it in the winter.
[00:44:43] Somebody trenched it for you. Yeah, and you know, if anybody hasn't been through that section of table and loan, it can be, once again, it's one of those wind tunnels, one of those areas that could make drifts that, you know, we have two feet of snow, but can make the drifts four to six feet of snow. Yeah. I mean, last time I was going through there, I was with Danny Davis.
[00:45:07] And we kind of had a, in terms of winter conditions, we kind of had a nonchalant day leading up to Lone Mountain. And then from Lone to Table, it just, you know, did a 180 on us. And the wind was really, really blowing. We saw some big drifts. And it was fun going through there, but we, you know, we were almost done. We were just, you know, a mile from the trail or so.
[00:45:34] But these guys, they had a lot of off-trail bushwhacking ahead of them. So. Yeah. Good for you on, you know, turning around on that point, Tom and Jeff, because, you know, once again, going over, everybody's just like, oh, it's a mile. And a mile going back from Lone to Table or Lone to Rocky, that's not bad.
[00:45:57] It's not the steepest, but it's a long mile when you go back and forth in and out of the thick trees and stuff like that. And then you realize, like, shit, I got to go back through that. And then you're thinking of when you're on Rocky that you have to go all the way over to Balsam Cap and Friday.
[00:46:18] Like, it's just, it's one of those miseries that you're like, ah, especially with between Balsam Cap and Rocky, it's just treacherous. Yeah. Well, you know, it depends on a lot of factors, but if you don't feel it's your day, Lone's a good place to bail and, you know, head back.
[00:46:38] They could have retraced up the table, which was an option for them, but they were fortunate that that other group had come through and trenched out what I'll say was probably an easier way back for them. So it sounds like they had fun. They worked as a team and everybody got back to their cars safely. Definitely. So we'll call it a win. Definitely.
[00:47:02] You know, and Richie, my friend Richie on the search and rescue team, Richie's nature escaped, went up to East Ross and Russ. Got two more or one more off of his 3,500 winter list. So congratulations, Richie. He always follows the show. He loves the show. He's on my search and rescue team. He's a fantastic, he's actually a lieutenant now. He's a freaking guy has built his way up. He's a phenomenal person, a phenomenal search and rescue volunteer.
[00:47:29] So, Richie, thank you for listening to the show and thank you for tagging us and glad you got East Ross and Russ. I don't know what he has left. He has less left than me. So I got nine left. I'm thinking, Tad, of sometime doing the, I would say the eight. So Peek and Moose Table, Lone Rocky, Balsam Cack Friday. Wittenberg, Cornell. Cornell Wittenberg. This winter? Yes.
[00:47:59] Trying. Trying. Thinking about it. That's tough. Just let me know. Yeah. That's tough, isn't it? I'll either be with you or, you know, I'll be there with, you know, my ready to 911 you. Hey, all right, all right. So, I mean, yeah. Yeah. So, Biasa Hardsider, support the show. That would be fantastic. Or support your trails and the Catskills and stuff. Rate the show on any platform you have.
[00:48:28] Mike, have you rated the show yet? I have not. Well, I wanted to make sure to do my due diligence first. I had to do my research, but I think I'm about ready. After this episode, I'll be ready. Okay. Five stars is what we accept only. So, it better be five stars. Yeah. And if you don't rate us five stars, your entire being will self-destruct. Yeah. I'll send a DEC on you. Yeah.
[00:48:53] You can either self-destruct internally, or we now have a new feature where we can send you out to Yellowstone. To test the water? And you know the rest of the story. Correct. So, you know, Mike, you have opened the beer, the first beer with us. So, how about you talk about what you're drinking tonight? I jumped the gun on that one. Sorry. No, no. Not at all. That was fantastic. This is an Allagash White. Yeah. I had that figured.
[00:49:21] I could tell from the back that's what you were pulling down. Nice. Do you have an opinion on that beer, Ted? Yeah. My daughter turned me on to it. I think it's a good beer. Look, it's something you can just keep in stock in the refrigerator. And, you know, it's a good go-to. Now, I'm opening up. I'm not going to say it's a mystery. I had one of these this weekend. And so, I thought I'd buy one to go and bring it home and crack it on the show tonight.
[00:49:52] I'm waiting for the crack. Oh, you're ready for me to do it? All right. The pressure's on because we have never. I mean, it was almost like an earthquake when Mike opened this. I was actually rattling over here. You ready? Let's go. Excellent. Awesome. I almost talked over it, Ted. That was really close. Yeah. But I think we worked it out. Excellent. Yeah. Mike, you're meshing in well. I'm not going to have to, because I had an okay crack. I don't have to nuke you. What? So, Ted, what do you got? Okay.
[00:50:21] So, what do I have? So, I was out hiking off of the Frost Valley Road. So, if you're hiking in the Frost Valley and you want a beer afterwards, go over to the Russian Mule, right? And Claryville. And is that still Claryville? I think it is Claryville where it is. Yeah. Yeah. I know what you're talking about. So, they have a brewery there, the Russian Mule Brewery. I hopped in and tasted a few.
[00:50:51] And the Frost Valley IPA coming in at a very promising 6.8% alcohol. Yeah. So, here we go. Ted's going to be a little tipsy by the end of the show. No problem with that. That's the way I want it to go. Yeah. And it tastes just as good as I remembered it from Saturday. So, yeah, it's not a bad IPA. I tasted some of the other ones. They were like, eh.
[00:51:21] But this one was good. This, the Pilsner. I got a few others. I got a four-pack. What was interesting, I don't know if you have seen this, Mike or Stosh, but I never knew what one of these craft breweries that right from the tap, they'll pour it into a can and put a lid on it right there at the bar. Have you ever seen that before? No. I haven't. I had an either. Not that I go to these places often enough. But, yeah, I told her what four beers I wanted.
[00:51:49] She poured them into four cans right from the tap. And then there's this little machine. She put lids on them and whatnot. Now, what I was concerned about was how it would affect the carbonation. Yeah. He's taking a sip. And? It's good. It's good. It passes. Yeah, I'd go to that. Nice. All right. It's a keeper. It's not a catch and release tonight. We can keep this. Yeah. All right. So, excellent.
[00:52:18] So, previous hikes. Mike, you're the star of the show. Do you want to go first? What have you been doing lately? My most recent hike was on Bull Hill in the Hudson Highlands down by Cold Spring. And my oldest son is 15. And he loves that hike in particular. It goes up around an old quarry. It has a view down of the river and West Point.
[00:52:44] And they've actually rerouted that trail to a new viewpoint that didn't exist as of several years ago. Looking over the quarry and north up the Hudson. And this was the first time that we had done the full loop together. Where you go around the back of the mountain. Go through the Cornish estate ruins. And this was my son's first time wearing micro spikes. So, he was enjoying dancing around on the ice. You don't slip at all. You feel superhuman.
[00:53:14] Yeah. Yeah. He was really enjoying that. We really needed him. We kept saying, ah, do we need him? And we just kept hopping on the rocks until finally, you know, the trail just became a sheet of ice down the back of the mountain. And, yeah. So, that was about two weeks ago. Mileage? What do you got? Mileage? I want to say five and a half miles. Nice. That's a decent mileage. Nice. Nice. So, that's just a warm up for you guys, I know. But, that felt like a good day to us. Oh, that's not a warm up for me. That's, I didn't do anything.
[00:53:43] I feel bad. I was sick this weekend. Yeah. I remember those hikes with my children. And whether it was three miles or 15, everyone was fantastic. So, you would enjoy those while you can. Absolutely. I will. That's the plan. Yeah. Yeah. So, anything before that, Mike?
[00:54:06] That you, I remember you said you were doing something with your child before that when you started listening to the show. I'm trying to think what that one was. Because that's been our favorite one lately. Because right across the street from that is Little Stony Point, which has a nice viewpoint also of the river. It's, you know, 100 yards from the parking lot. So, it's a nice place to catch a sunset when you come down from the hike.
[00:54:33] Or sometimes over the summer, we've just driven out there just for the sunset. And it's always, you know, on a nice summer evening, there's always a good crowd up there. And it kind of has a nice beach vibe to it. It's like a place for the, you know, folks in the town to come out and watch the sunset together. It's cool. Nice. I don't know if that was the spot that I mentioned, but that's another one. You know, even when we're not doing the full Bull Hill hike, we'll hop over and check out Little Stony Point, too. Nice. Nice.
[00:55:03] So, at least you got out. I didn't get out. I was sick this weekend. I was supposed to be in Massachusetts, being with my nephew for his second birthday. But I was sick. I didn't want to get anybody to catch a cold. And my parents, who are over 70 years old, didn't want to catch a cold. So, I freaking slept 9, 10 hours. It was fantastic. Wow. I was relaxed. We watched Dexter all weekend. Again, for the third time.
[00:55:33] God, what a- Is that a cartoon? What's Dexter? Dexter is the greatest TV show that has ever created. He is a serial killer that kills bad people. Well, that's great to know, Stosh. Oh. That's, yeah. He's a hero. For me, greatest TV show ever. What comes to mind? Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood? That could be top of the list. Yeah, sure. But you're with, like, a serial killer. Lovely. Dude. Come on.
[00:55:59] I also just want to point out, because I know Mike, he's being bashful. He doesn't want to say anything. But, Stosh, you didn't tell us what you're drinking. Oh. You know, I have two here, actually. Oh, double fisting. That's like Irish handcuffs. So, in one hand, I got a 1911 Honeycrisp hard cider, of course. And the other hand, when I- Shocking. I know. 1911. Okay. And then, in the other hand, when Mike comes on, I have a Downey Cider Donut.
[00:56:28] This is my last one from Vermont that I got, so. So, is that with sprinkles or just regular? It looks like it doesn't have sprinkles on it. Okay. But you can add them. You can add them, like, with a little funnel, drop some sprinkles in. And I'll add them. I'll add them later. So. All right. So, yeah. So, Ted, why don't you get up about your hike? You know, somebody, some wonder told me that you left a magic note in one of the canisters. I guess I did.
[00:56:58] I guess I did. So, what happened? Look, I don't know what to say about Saturday's hike. It was just one of those days where, was it enjoyable? Yes. Was it endless? Drudgery. Yes. I hate to say that, but it was. I just out of Biscuit Brook, I hiked the three. I did South, well, Double Top, Big Indian, and Fur.
[00:57:26] I got to say, man, once you got off the trail, the snow was deep. I mean, it was, and you, and what was weird about it is there was certain spots where it was so hard and firm, but with the dusting of snow on top, you really couldn't see what was underneath that dusting or how firm it was. So, you would hit stretches where you felt like that NFL running back who just caught the kickoff,
[00:57:54] you know, in the end zone and would just ran downfield and, you know, went all the way and scored six points because you could just fly on this hard pack. And then as you were ready to spike the ball, you just punch through to your waist because it would just give out underneath you without any warning. And so then you would, you know, continue and you would be going fast again and then you would punch through. So that was, for the most part, once I got off trail, that was my experience heading over to Double Top.
[00:58:25] There was no, there was no, uh, like breaking, nobody broke trail up to South Double Top? Oh no, there was nothing. Not even some 420 people like Sarah Zagan and stuff like that? I honestly, man, I, I'm not going to say that's what I was hoping for, but I wouldn't have been surprised to see some evidence of human life going over to South Double Top.
[00:58:48] And I didn't, I actually searched when I went to bang a left and head over to South Double Top. I was actually looking for somebody's tracks to come, you know, and there was nothing. So then I retraced, I got to, um, big Indian. Some guy, um, was there, uh, that seemed to be the only person that was there that day,
[00:59:11] which is odd because in the parking lot, um, I actually was called out by this woman, Stephanie from Saugerties, her and a group of three were heading up to big Indian and somehow she recognized me. She said for my voice, I don't quite get that, but at any rate, um, I thought I would run into their tracks when I got to big Indian, but just this guy, he wasn't going to go through to fur.
[00:59:41] So I had to slog it out from big Indian to fur. And that is, that is where I ran into the deepest snow of the day. I mean, it started off, it almost started off like I had going over to South Double Top really firm. I frankly skied off that first drop off of big Indian and then just plowed right through
[01:00:08] the snow when I got to where that, that area just starts to level out. And then it was, you know, just the whole hike over there was just, you know, you're, you're punching through here, you're punching through there. And I cut the hammer down though. I, I made good time. I got over to fur and I, uh, you know, signed in at fur apparently vented a little bit in the, the sign in book. And then I, um, what'd you say?
[01:00:37] Uh, I didn't say anything that I can repeat on the air. So help me God. And then I, um, I'll ask Jim Bowden, nevermind. Yeah. Yeah. And then I, uh, then I have, you know, coming off of fur, I was thinking to myself that I just might go down the really steep part, you know, into the drainage because it might be really fast to go down that way. And then once, you know, once I got like a couple of hundred yards off in that direction,
[01:01:03] I, I thought better of it and made my way back to that shoulder that everyone comes down and just kind of followed the sun on my way down. And when I got out and I, at one point going up for, I don't know if this was just me hallucinating from exhaustion or if there was really a group of people behind me, but I was like, should I wait for them? And then just, you know, get in the trench they're making, or should I continue going ahead? But I just heard these faint voices that never got any closer going up for, but eventually
[01:01:32] I got back down to the trail by Biscuit Brook. And by that time of the day, it's as if somebody came through with like a steamroller and made the, the most beautiful, firmest, widest trench imaginable. It was just like, I just went on autopilot and just cruised back to the parking lot. Yeah. We're on. It's probably, it's probably because you get out too early, man.
[01:02:01] I can't say I was that early because there was that group of three, you know, and then I passed some other guy on the trail, um, as I was heading out and then I didn't, you know, I didn't see anybody until I got back to big Indian. And that was, you know, I'm even on my way out. I didn't see anybody, but at the end of the day, it all comes down to the fact that when I was done with this epic hike and probably the deepest snow that we're going to see for the rest of the year.
[01:02:28] Um, I headed over to the Russian meal and picked up my frost Valley IPA in honor of hiking through the deep snow out of the frost Valley. Congratulations. Nice. Nice. Sounds like you earned that. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I really do. I earned, I should, I should have earned more that day. One beer for every vertical foot climbed. My quick question. Are you a 3,500 club member? I am not. No. Are you looking on that?
[01:02:59] Uh, I would say that it is a life goal. Yes. Um, and I've enjoyed listening to, to you, Stash and, uh, you know, as you're chipping away at it. Um, but yeah, I know that that's a serious commitment. I have, uh, tons of respect for the folks who do it. So Mike, you, you haven't answered the implicit question. Have you hiked a single mountain in the Catskills over 3,500 feet? Yes. I have. Okay. Good. Good. All right. Excellent.
[01:03:28] What was that? I've got a little ways to go though. Um, Wittenberg. Oh God. So you hiked the, the, I hate to say the bitch of the bitch basically. So that's, that's nothing or everything else is nothing. You know, I wrote a trail guide for Wittenberg and I said in there that I had tried earlier that day to convince she was my girlfriend at the time. And I, she didn't come with me that day. And I said, if she had decided to come with me, she probably wouldn't be my wife now.
[01:03:55] Um, cause that, that was, uh, that was more hike than she would have wanted to do that day. That that's a, yeah, that's a serious hike. Like, but it was very beautiful. Yeah. Everybody will say that the devil's path is, is crazy, but I think Wittenberg is one of, it's because it's longer and that last half a mile to the top is just absolutely insane. People will hate that. The, the, the walk down sucks, but it's beautiful. Yeah. What can I say? Yeah. It is gorgeous up there. Well, good.
[01:04:25] Well, let us know when you're going out on some, some 3,500 hikes. We'll fricking go out. I usually, it's Sundays. Tad's always Saturday. So. Tad's got a Saturday. Yeah. I'm available on Sundays by special appointment. Yeah. I'm, I'm actually going to be hooking up, um, with the tri-state hikers to, to go out with them on a Saturday. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. It's going to be my honor. Be my honor to hang out with that group. So nice. Nice.
[01:04:54] So, uh, once again, volunteer for any club, whatever available, 3,500 club, Catskill trail crew, Catskill mountains club, visitors center, Jolly Roval trail crew, Bradley mountain fire tower, volunteer. If you need stickers, send me a message, personal message with your, your name and your, your, uh, email or your, your home address. That would be fantastic. And I will send you a free sticker free once again.
[01:05:22] So also weather forecast, uh, right now it is shitty as heck 40 degrees in, in Oneonta. It's been 30 to 40 degrees in the last couple of days with the Catskills. It's going to be like that until Friday. Uh, Friday, it looks like we're going to be at 12 degrees in the morning with some clouds to 27 degrees at night. So we're going to have this freeze thaw freeze thaw crap. It's atrocious.
[01:05:52] Uh, once again, uh, and, uh, wind chill, they say is going to be a leg at 11. You never know. Bring your gear. Uh, Saturday looks like it says some snow showers, not much, but, uh, a couple inches of snow within Friday night. It says like three inches of snow within Friday night. So once again, snowshoes might be your best option with the traction and stuff.
[01:06:17] Uh, high of, uh, 25 in the morning on Saturday, but a low of one degree and a negative 29 at the nighttime of Saturday, then we break into Sunday where it's supposed to be cloudy and a high of five with a low, with the wind chill of negative 20 at night. My kind of shit looks like I might be going out Sunday. Oh, no, wait. That's my mom's birthday. Damn it. Bring mom with you.
[01:06:48] Ah, I don't think a 72 year old lady would be able to hike this, the, the eight. Thanks. Thanks buddy. I'm not that far away from that age. And I hope nobody's telling me then. Hey, you never know. You never know. Actually, your mom's birthday is on the Monday following. I try. I try. I was sorry. Trying to convince her to be like, you know, Sunday is not a good day. Like, uh, you know, it's going to be nice out. It's going to be super cold. You don't want to go outside. Let me go hiking and you can go do whatever you want.
[01:07:18] So, but yeah, we're going to go out to dinner. So, oh God, it looks fun. So pack your layers, pack your traction devices, whatever. If you're hiking up in the Cascals or in the Hudson Valley. Yeah. Be careful. Cause with all these warm temperatures and then the rain and then the super cold, it's going to be icy. Icy as heck. Yeah.
[01:07:40] We've been spoiled all winter long cause we basically have had, you know, fresh snow, fresh snow, cold temperatures. So we haven't had that snow pack turn into the ice monorail. Yeah. Yeah. This winter. Yeah. This could be the weekend. It could definitely be the weekend. And I'm sure your mom will appreciate Stash that you're, you're giving up that negative. What 22 degree weather to hang out with her. Um, Hey, you're making the right call.
[01:08:08] I did it last Tuesday up on slide and she was like sending me text messages every 20 minutes. Like, are you okay? And I kept sending her message of selfies and I'm just like, I'm fine. Leave me alone. I do not want to hear this shit. And I turned it on. Do not disturb. And she was just like, I'm concerned. It's been two hours since you contacted me. I'm like, I'm on my way home already. Stop. Poor mom. She's doing her job. She is. She is. She's a sweetheart. You never stopped being a parent.
[01:08:35] By the way, if you heard that fricking sound, she just sent me a message. So, uh, so let's go. She knows you're talking about her. So our last set of sponsors, and then we'll finally get on to Mike's and Mike talk about the Hudson Valley. So discover Camp Catskill in Tannersville, your ultimate hiking store. Find top quality gear, apparel, and accessories for all your hiking outdoors ventures. Our expert staff here help every hiker from beginner to seasoned pros.
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[01:10:28] Check out on their website, another summit.org. Also, spring forest ecology on Saturday, May 29th at 10 a.m. in Rhinebeck, New York. Check out on another summit.org for their dates and to sign up. All right, so let's get on to the guest of the night. So Mike Todd joins us from Hike the Hudson Valley. I don't know how to say it. Is it Hike the...
[01:10:55] You know, you do a website, hikethehudsonvalley.com with Hike the Hudson Valley webpage. How do you want to say that? Yeah, Stash, I have wrestled with that one as well. Hike the Hudson Valley. It is just the website. So Hike the Hudson Valley. Yeah, Hike the Hudson Valley is good. I think we'll go with that. So Mike from Hike the Hudson Valley. Like, this guy has done extensive research of hikes throughout the Hudson Valley. I'm not familiar. Ted might be familiar, more familiar with this. But the Hudson Valley is an awesome area to explore, to hike throughout and such.
[01:11:25] And, you know, I want to learn more about it. I wish I was closer to I could explore this. But Mike is a professional in this area. And he has been exploring this since when? Since... Well, I started the website in 2010. And I moved to the Hudson Valley in 2000. 15 years he has been doing the website. And he's been hiking throughout there for 25 years. Jesus. Do I count as a local now? 25 years? Yes! I've got to be closing in on it.
[01:11:54] You're definitely a local. Is that... Now, Mike, the big question, the first question, we're not even going to talk about the background. Is where do you live? What's your town? In Hopewell Junction. I have lived in Poughkeepsie and Rhinebeck. And now I live in Hopewell Junction. Been here since 2006. Is that considered upstate? Yes. Yeah. I'm just going to... I'm not even going to qualify that. I'm just going to say... Are you... Is it Orange County? No. Yes. So he's upstate.
[01:12:24] All right. Tad, we have a winner. All right. Tad, do you consider that upstate? Yeah, definitely. That's... Okay. That's upstate. All right. So, Mike, thank you so much for joining the show. I really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Yeah. I want to learn more about the Hudson Valley. I've heard that that's a phenomenal area. The only place I've ever been to is the Ferncliff Forest. Is that considered Hudson Valley? Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. It's in Rhinebeck. Okay. That's a phenomenal place. So that's the only place I've ever been to.
[01:12:54] So tell us a little background about yourself. I mean, you already said you started the webpage in 2010 and you were here in 2000. Go deep. Yeah. All right. So I'll go way back. I was born outside of Philadelphia and spent my whole life there. Grew up in Chad's Fort, Pennsylvania, a small town outside of Philly. So I was really excited for the outcome of the Super Bowl, not to get sidetracked. But, you know, my sons have decided on their own to be Eagles fans as well.
[01:13:22] I think we're the only ones in a 50 mile radius or so. So I was telling my son, you know, the Eagles have won two Super Bowls in your lifetime and two Super Bowls in my lifetime. I don't think you understand how good you have it. But I probably just turned off 95% of the listenership to this show by talking about the Eagles. So anyway, I come by and honestly, that's where I was born and raised. You know, I have always enjoyed writing. You know, I wrote a humor column for our high school newspaper with a buddy of mine.
[01:13:52] I went to Penn State. I majored in computer science. And partway through, I picked up an English minor just for fun, just because I enjoy writing. And I was close enough to the requirements anyway. I only needed a couple more classes. And I might be the first person in history who ever got a job due to an English minor. But I got hired by IBM in Poughkeepsie. Well, first as a summer co-op in the summer of 2000 to be a technical writer.
[01:14:21] So they were looking for somebody with a computer science and an English background for that job. And so that's what brought me to Poughkeepsie. When I got the offer that was located in Poughkeepsie, I ran to a piece of paper all excited. And I wrote down P-O-K-I-P-S-Y and then looked at a map of New York to see where this place was. You know, I had heard of Poughkeepsie, but I didn't know where it was. And it turned out to be, you know, about three and a half hours from where I grew up. So, yeah, came up here for the summer.
[01:14:51] Didn't know the area. Didn't know anybody when I got here. So in the evenings, you know, one of my favorite things of being an adult was that I didn't have homework to do in the evenings. You know, that was my time to do whatever I wanted. So this minute it was dating myself. But I went across the street to Barnes & Noble, picked up a couple of book trail guides to see, you know, what the natural area around Poughkeepsie had to offer. And I was just blown away.
[01:15:18] You know, if you go in any direction from Poughkeepsie an hour or less, there is some awesome natural sight to see. So I spent a lot of that summer just exploring the area in the evenings and on the weekends. And when I came back full time after I graduated in 2001, you know, I just kept checking out the area.
[01:15:40] I became, you know, IBM hires a bunch of people from outside of this area who are new here and looking to explore and find out more about the Hudson Valley in the area. So just because I didn't know anybody and didn't have anything to do in the early time of living here, except getting out and exploring the trails, you know, I became the new hire who knew where all the good hikes were. So I started leading a group of weekly hikers.
[01:16:08] We would meet after work, you know, in the parking lot at five o'clock on Thursdays. And I would take us on a different hike, you know, weather permitting. And I know you guys take weather permitting differently. We took the winters off. I know you don't do that. Nope, not here. Yes. But yeah, I did that for five years, just new hires, you know, at IBM, taking them on hikes and took some time off from hiking.
[01:16:37] You know, went back and got my degree at Marist. My wife and I got married. We just had a lot of other things going on. And, you know, I hadn't been out on the trails for a while. And when our first son was born in 2009, you know, I found if I put him, we got as a baby shower gift from my sister-in-law, a Kelty backpack to put the kid in. Good name first. Good first name. Yeah. Yeah. So that was a wonderful gift.
[01:17:05] And as soon as my first son, Evan, was big enough to ride in that backpack, I would take him out exploring. And, you know, even when he got to the age where he'd be teething and going nuts in the house, he would sit all day in that backpack. So I just went out, you know, re-exploring all these trails that I had done when I first moved here. And I started looking online for resources, you know, to find out, you know, other hikes. And I wasn't finding a whole lot.
[01:17:33] You know, at that time, this was pre-all trails time, or if it existed, it wasn't anything like it is now. There just wasn't a great place to find out. You know, I knew these hikes were out there from the old paper guides that I used to use, but I just couldn't find a whole lot online. And I thought, you know, this would be a fun project to start documenting some of these. I've always enjoyed writing.
[01:17:56] I didn't mention also that another hobby of mine while I was working was I wrote a weekly humor column for a couple small newspapers outside of Philadelphia. And I did that for 13 years. So, you know, writing is just something I've always enjoyed doing. I like taking pictures. I wouldn't call myself a photographer. You know, my strategy is take 900 pictures on a given hike and you'll probably get three or four good ones. So, yeah, I took it as a project to start documenting the hikes.
[01:18:26] And the idea for Hike the Hudson Valley came about through that. I would have called it HudsonValleyHiking.com. Somebody already had that URL and just parked it. There was nothing. I haven't looked at that in a while. I don't know if there's anything. Outrageous. Yes. And I was like, well, okay, we'll go with Hike the Hudson Valley instead. And just started putting it together. And I built a free, you know, a website using some free Google tools. And I showed a friend of mine from college. I was like, hey, look at this project I'm working on. And he was like, yeah, that's good for an amateur. But let me show you what it would look like.
[01:18:56] Somebody who knew what they were doing took a crack at it. And this was my buddy Josh Pearlson. And I am forever indebted to him because he took that, you know, initial prototype and made it into this beautiful website. And I just kind of built on it from there. And so, yeah, at the time, you know, there are those 50 hikes books. You know, that's a popular series, 50 hikes in. And then they have them for all different areas. There's one for the Hudson Valley as well.
[01:19:22] And I thought if I could get more than 50 hikes documented, that would probably be really useful to people. So, yeah, that's just been an ongoing hobby and project. I try to keep just plunking away at it for a few minutes a day. I've got, I think, 82 trail guides posted out there right now. I just went in, counted up. And the Catskills, I've got 12. And I'd love to just run down that list with you all and see, you know, what are some good ones that I'm missing and to get some recommendations. Yeah. Yeah.
[01:19:51] And if you have, yeah, I figured whatever recommendation you give me, that'll be the next trail guide that I write. Every trail possible. How about that? Yeah. Yeah. I know when you guys are talking about them, I know several of the trails that you're talking about, but I certainly don't know all of them. And, yeah, would love to pick your brains on that topic too. So, when you talk about when you worked at IBM, did you work at the IBM headquarters that is located right off that lake? No. And actually, I still work at IBM.
[01:20:20] And I'll try not to say anything on this podcast to get me fired. I hope I haven't already. So, yeah, I'm coming up on 24 years with the company. Oh, wow. Yeah. So, this is, you know, this has been the most rewarding hobby that I have ever embarked upon, this website. You know, when I first put it out there, I didn't know, you know, would anybody find this useful? Would anybody use it? And, yeah, it's gotten a lot of use.
[01:20:47] And I hear from people in the comments who say this has been their go-to resource. And even though, you know, yeah, I will say since all trails has really taken off as well, you know, I have kind of backed off on putting out as many trail guides because it doesn't seem as, you know, as essential. It's not the – there's plenty of other resources out there now. But it's still fun to plunk away at it.
[01:21:14] And I still hear – I just, you know, got a comment a couple weeks ago from somebody who said this has been really useful for him and his family. And that's heartwarming to hear. Yeah. You know, and then, you know, I asked that IBM question because I had a search and rescue training over there. And it, like, diverts you. You have the IBM headquarters on the left, and then you go along the lake on the right. And then it has the – I'm pretty sure the Jehovah's Witnesses.
[01:21:42] Do you – like, it's really weird. And, like, I had this training of where I had to, like, search for areas. And we did night hiking. So, like, I got home at, like, 2 o'clock in the morning, and I went by the Jehovah's Witnesses place. But that IBM spot had actually, like, guards in there with guns. And I went into there, and they're just like, you need to back away. You're not in the right area. And I'm just like, I'm looking for a search and rescue thing. And they're like, oh, yeah, yeah, you go over this way. Sorry.
[01:22:12] And I'm just like, Jesus Christ, those guys had M16s. I'm like, this is crazy. They don't have those in Poughkeepsie, but I guess down in headquarters, they're not messing around. Yeah, definitely not. So, the one thing I noticed about your page that is absolutely phenomenal and absolutely real – that's what I want to say is real – is your FAQs. Your FAQs. Thanks.
[01:22:34] So, now, what – like, how did you – did you run this by your friend when he made the webpage, and you're just like, hey, I want to go all out? Yeah, you know, I just – a lot of trail guides, you know, even if they have great information, don't really emphasize, you know, how entertaining or engaging is this to read. And I thought, well, why not? You know, we're here to have fun. Why not, you know, put some dad jokes in there, you know, make it a fun thing.
[01:23:02] So, I do take, you know, the accuracy of the information really – you know, that is the most important thing. But why not throw some jokes in there as well? So, yeah, I assume that's what you're talking to with the FAQ. You know, I have – I've rated the hikes, you know, a scale of 1 to 10 for difficulty and a scale of 0 to 5 cameras for the scenery.
[01:23:29] You know, while recognizing that, you know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. You can't really assign a number to nature's beauty. But I'll take a crack at it. And, yeah. So, Stash, when you wrote that you had looked at the FAQs, I went back and reread them to see what all I had put in there. Because I wrote those a while back. And, yeah, the five cameras, is it scenery? What is it? Scenery makes love to your eyeballs, literally. And then with a little asterisk. And then you follow the asterisk and it says, yes, literally.
[01:23:59] And then number five, your writing sucks. How can I have always seen more of it? Where does that come from? That was a sideways way to put a link into that. You know, back then I was still writing that newspaper column as well. If people enjoy my writing, they can go find some more of it there. Tad, I might have to put that in there. Your podcast sucks. Where can I avoid this? Like, right? So, yeah. Otherwise, you know, you can. Yeah, I say definitely don't click this link.
[01:24:30] And then otherwise just shutting your eyes or closing your browser should do the trick. Good luck. See, I like this guy, Tad. He's pretty outgoing. I like him. Yeah. I feel like I struck out with bad ashes. I tried that one with my family at dinner too. And they were like, don't say that. And then, you know, I did it anyway. It's always nice to have a scoping group. Yes. Right? To run your ideas by.
[01:24:54] So, Mike, before we do the deep dive and the little outline that Stash and I have, going over your website, one of the things I find remarkable, intriguing, is where's all the advertisements and associate links? And, you know, I'm rating this product here. Click here. Buy it from Amazon. Yeah. Yeah. Where is all that stuff?
[01:25:24] You think I should put some more of that in there? No, I'm not. I'm just, in today's world where you go to a helpful utility like this, you tend to get bombarded with, I think some of them are called like paywalls. You need to sign up and pay before you can read the rest of the article. They give you little teasers and then they want your email address to continue. Did you ever consider doing that?
[01:25:50] And if you did and you decided against it, what was the rationale? So, I really just, you know, as a user of the internet myself, didn't want to do all the things that I find super annoying. So, Tad, yeah, if you want me to send you some affiliate links after this, tell you some good things to buy, I'd be happy to do that. But, no, I can't say that the site is perfectly pure of ads. It does.
[01:26:14] I run a service on there that populates the ads and I have throttled it back so they're not every other sentence in ad on there. Because I realized early on that this was a revenue negative venture that I was paying to run the site, you know, because there are some expenses associated with it. So, there are enough ads on there that keeps this at least, you know, revenue neutral towards positive.
[01:26:42] So, there are some sprinkled in, but I have tried to make them as unintrusive and as few and far between as possible. No, I got to agree with Tad. Like, you're searching through this thing and usually you pop up half of the screen and it shows up as an ad. But, Tad, you point that out that you don't freaking do that. Yeah, that's one of the first things that, you know, is just striking is it's just clean and informative.
[01:27:11] And when you're looking for a worthy hike or better, you can come here and not, like, have to deal with all these shenanigans and buy this, click this, sign up for this. It just gets right down to, hey, I got a free day. I want to go hiking, you know, someplace I haven't been before. Bam. Yeah. There's all these ideas. Well, I didn't realize until just now how much revenue I was missing out on. So, I will fix this.
[01:27:40] So, we're going to sign you up with our people. Stosh and I get a 50% commission. Yeah, we get a 50% commission. On your hardsiders. Yeah, but it's going to be worthwhile. We're going to make you millions. I mean, look what it's done for me. I get to hike every Saturday by myself now. I'm an independently wealthy podcaster. Yeah. It sounds like you're living the dream, Tad. Yeah, I am. That's it. Definitely the dream. I definitely am.
[01:28:05] So, you want to dive into the beginner's hike, toughest hikes? You know, I will dive into beginner's hikes because I don't know the Hudson Valley. Then you can take it over from there because this is your somewhat area. I'm not familiar with this. So, Mike, let's talk about, like, I'm a beginner in the Hudson Valley area. What do you suggest that I do? Yeah, I would start by saying that you are the target audience for this website.
[01:28:32] I assume, you know, that somebody looking at this has no hiking experience and that the people who do have a lot of hiking experience who don't need to hear, you know, whatever warnings and advice I may have on here, they can skip it or skim it. But it's important to have it out there. So, you know, I try to make sure that nobody gets unpleasantly surprised or gets themselves in a dangerous situation because they underestimated the hike. So, you know, I will err on the side of, you know, I have had people reach out to me saying,
[01:29:02] oh, you gave this thing a 9 out of 10 difficulty. Like, come on, it's not that hard. I said, well, for you, it's not. But for somebody else, it very well could be. So, I don't want anybody getting surprised. And if they are surprised, I want them to be surprised by how easy it was for them rather than, you know, getting out there and realizing that they're doing this crazy rock scramble that they hadn't signed up for. Yeah. Yeah.
[01:29:25] So, yeah, I do have the scientific hike difficulty rating scale where a 1 is similar to the walk from the couch to the fridge. And a 10 is would make Bear Grylls cry for his mommy. And I don't know if Bear Grylls, you know, maybe I need to update that reference. Is it relevant anymore? Yes. Is he still? He did something in Balsam Cap with somebody.
[01:29:52] I think it's a dude from, like, one of the Iron Man stuff, but it was actually false information. But I guess he's somewhat relevant. But I wouldn't say that it was all relevant. So, I don't even know who's relevant upon that area. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I would say, you know, and then a 4 out of 10 is the last safe number on which to bring friends who don't like hiking. So, yeah, that's kind of how the scaling works.
[01:30:21] And that's a very meaningful reference right there. Okay? Right? You know? Yeah. I now understand very well what a 4 is. No further explanation required. Correct. Yeah. And I do. I tell this story on the site, too. But I did. In college, I took a bunch of buddies to Hawk Mountain. And I told them it was a fairly easy hike. I just remembered it being not that tough. But it was an 11-mile round trip. Oh. At the end, you know, they were all, yes. And that was the reaction they had as well. And the group shot at the end, they're all giving me the finger.
[01:30:52] So, I took that as a learning experience. You know, people don't want to be surprised by having a hike be much longer than what they expected. And so, Mike, when's the next time you got together with those guys? Yeah, right. I actually still keep in touch with someone. But, yeah. Most of them after that day never saw them again. Yeah. Correct. So, what do you have a suggestion down in the Hudson Valley for beginning hikes? So, for beginning hikes. And you can. So, I have an index page on the site. You know, all 82 hikes.
[01:31:21] And I have them broken out by east of the Hudson and west of the Hudson. And then you can sort by difficulty, scenery, or whatever is important to you. So, you can start with the easiest ones. And there are just some hidden gems around. And, you know, maybe some of them aren't so hidden anymore. But, like, Doverstone Church is one that I lived 20 minutes away from this place for at least a decade before anybody told me about it. And I don't know if either of you have heard of it or been there.
[01:31:51] But it's... Yeah, I've been there. Yeah. Is that a waterfall? Or is that Doverstone Falls that I'm thinking of that's up north? I think, yeah. There is a small cascade. I would call it a waterfall in the back of a cave. Yes. Okay. Is that the same spot? If you're talking about a waterfall in the back of a cave, it's got to be. Okay. And it doesn't have its own parking lot. You have to time it.
[01:32:18] You know, when the school's out of session and you can park in the elementary school parking lot right there. Or there are some local businesses that will allow you to park there. But yeah. It's remarkable. There's no parking lot for that. But they really seem to have worked up that area, you know, with the entrance walk. As I recall, you walk like this straight trail with trees on either side of it. Kind of this majestic thing.
[01:32:47] And there's benches. And then there's a few marked trails past the cave. My oldest daughter and I did it one day. And yeah, it was a great hike. Yeah. So just a real simple. And they have added some more trails back in there. So if you want to extend it, you can. But just to go to the cave and back, you know, that's a mile round trip, flat. Oh, wow. Nice. Yeah. Real nice spot. Yeah. So, you know, as you mentioned Ferncliff Forest up by Rhinebeck. That's a really nice one too.
[01:33:15] When you're headed eastbound across the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge, you can see the fire tower there on the hill. Just right on that bank of the Hudson River. And, you know, there's some pleasant trails that go back through the woods to that fire tower. You know, when I moved here, that was a decrepit old, you know, it was basically, yeah, just a rotting out structure. Yeah. It was all vandalized and abused. Yeah. Yeah.
[01:33:43] So they've done a really nice job in rebuilding that fire tower. Mount Beacon was the same way. You know, when I first moved here, that tower was lacking, you know, 90% of its steps. Wow. Yeah. I knew somebody who still, you know, shimmied their way up there that, yeah, I did not do that. But did I? Oh, wait. Maybe. Never mind. Yeah. No comment. Yes. But it is, it's really nice to see, you know, some of the improvements to the trails that
[01:34:12] have been done, even in the time that I've lived here, the brief 25 years that I've lived here. So, you know, I got a little, with the beginner hikes, like how much improvement within the last, you know, 15 years when you started this site, have you seen with these trails that you're just, are you blown away? Are you like, wow, that this is pretty cool? Or is this like, they need more? Yeah. Well, you know, we could always use more, but it is, you know, there have been some new parks that have opened.
[01:34:40] Like, there's a Scenic Hudson one on, let's see. I was about to say on your side of the river, but I'm, no, it is on your side of the river, the High Banks Preserve. Yeah. That's up by Esopos. Yeah. So, yeah, your side of the river. And, you know, that's a new Scenic Hudson park that wasn't here, you know, when I first moved here. And even the rail trail system that's just ever expanding. And I didn't appreciate what a resource that was going to be when they were working on that.
[01:35:09] The Duchess Rail Trail is not too far from me, and that's a wonderful place for walking and biking. And, you know, the connecting all the rail trail systems together down here in the Hudson Valley and headed up towards New Paltz. I think you can get from Hopewell, you can go pretty far south from here and up to New Paltz too. You can actually get past New Paltz and all the way into the gunk. Wow. Itself. Yeah. So, all right, Mike, I want you to bend over, tighten your boot laces. Okay.
[01:35:40] Enough of this beginner hike shit. Okay. Right. Let's talk about those hikes in the Hudson Valley that if you're capable of doing the tougher stuff in the Catskills, you know, the six, half of the Devil's Path, the entire Devil's Path. I mean, what do you have in the Hudson Valley that you would say goes toe to toe with some
[01:36:10] of the toughest stuff we have in the Catskills? Bring it on. Game on. Let's hear it. So, you know, this, I have the caveat. I was looking at this before to see what are the longest hikes I have documented here. And eight miles is the longest. So, I know that's, you know, that's what, you haven't even gotten to lunchtime on a normal Sunday for you guys at that point, I guess. Yeah. So, you know, this is really targeted. All right. So, Mike, it was nice having you on the show.
[01:36:38] Next week, go ahead. Tell us about the eight miler. Yeah. So, you know, the Taconic Range up in the northeast corner of Dutchess County, Brace Mountain, the highest point in the county, is just a gorgeous spot. And that's the next one. And Stash, this may have been the one that I was talking to you about. It's the next weekend free that we have. This is where I'm going to take at least my oldest son and maybe my younger one as well up to Brace Mountain. It's just a gorgeous spot.
[01:37:08] There's some, you know, scrambly spots on this trail that I want to take up to the top. And, you know, it's just a wide open view looking straight across at the Catskills and the Hudson River in between. It's just a really beautiful spot. So, this Taconic Range? Yes. So, where you started at, where you ended at? And the eight-mile hike? So, there's Allender Mountain. You can do, that's the eight-miler that I've got documented here.
[01:37:38] And, you know, that's an up and back. So, you just, you know, four miles out, four miles back. Okay. You know, I will try to, where I can, make a loop hike. But I don't have any documented here that you can't do with one car. So, it's either a loop that brings you back to the same lot or it's an up and back. Good call. Yeah. And I know there are, that would rule out a lot of the best hikes in the Catskills. There's a lot of great hiking that you can do there if you have the luxury of two cars that you can park on either side.
[01:38:07] But for this, I just assume that, you know, you just get to the trailhead and that's where we're going to finish. Well, that whole Taconic scenic hike is just absolutely one phenomenal hike. If you could spot one or two cars, it's just absolutely phenomenal. And this is not even the hike in it that I just know from like, you know, Tad, I know you've done that, correct? You've done some of the Taconic? Yeah, this is the Taconic Crest Trail, I think Stash is talking about.
[01:38:34] Is that part of your website, the Taconic Crest Trail? I don't have that one. Yes, I have heard of it, but I've never. But is Al Anlander is part of that, right? I don't think so. The Taconic Crest Trail kind of like straddles the New York, Massachusetts. Oh, okay. Yeah, going up to Vermont. So I think Mike has geographically said that's out of the Hudson Valley. True. Okay, okay.
[01:39:03] And I do get pretty, you know, I'm not scared to annex, you know, other areas into the Hudson Valley for the purposes of this website. I lived here for quite a while before realizing Hudson Valley doesn't apply to the Catskills. It doesn't? The commenter on the site was like, Mike, you know. Everybody comes up here from. I was like, I just thought that was everything from Yonkers to Albany. I'm sorry. Yeah, so did I. Yeah.
[01:39:30] So yeah, somebody was very clear with me that the Catskills are their own thing. This is not the Hudson Valley. Yeah.
[01:39:37] Well, speaking of their own thing and having determined that the Taconic Crest Trail is not in the Hudson Valley, why don't we talk about those hikes, whether easy, difficult, or otherwise, that are just the jaw droppers that if we only could do one or two hikes that are on your website, which ones would you say, yeah, these are the must-dos?
[01:40:02] So for the east side of the Hudson, as I'm looking at the ones that I have rated five cameras, those, I don't give that rating lightly. Even four and a half is tough to get. You know, I see Brace Mountain is at the top of the list and Breakneck Ridge as well. You know, that's kind of what the most popular hike in America I've seen. I would have to say, I've heard Breakneck Ridge is definitely, I've heard of many times, but would you say Brace Mountain? Yeah, Brace Mountain in the Taconic. Why have I never heard of that? I've heard of Breakneck Ridge a million times.
[01:40:31] You just mentioned doing it with his son. That was one we were just chatting about. Although, you know, as a side note on that, in that trail guide, you know, that was the only time in 25 years of hiking in the Hudson Valley that I have been rattled at by a rattlesnake. Oh, there we go. On that trail. And yeah, I know you all were talking about Witch's Hole recently. And Tad, you said, you know, you rarely go there without seeing one. And that's actually the reason that I hadn't gone to Witch's Hole. They're magnificent creatures.
[01:41:01] But, you know, if I'm going hiking with my dog or my kids, you know, I would, you know, I guess I wouldn't mind seeing one from a distance. But I, yeah. I'm not going seeking them out, I should say. One of the things that happens in the gunks is you'll be walking along and you'll be on these rocks that are, you know, little slab rocks that move around when you step on them. Yeah. And you'll hear a snake under the rock. Mm-mm. Yeah. Yeah, I'm good.
[01:41:31] Everybody knows about Breakneck Ridge. So, except for me. So, what about, I've heard amazing things. Like it's, unfortunately, it's overcrowded. Yes. But there's a lot of cool scrambling, right? Yeah. So, that is the first thing to know is the overcrowding. So, I would never come here on like a Saturday afternoon. But I live 25 minutes from it. So, a Tuesday evening, that's a great time to go. And, you know, I have done it with both of my kids and they both loved it.
[01:41:58] And I do recommend that on the website as well. You know, I had somebody, it was on my Caterskill Falls trail guide, an irate commenter. And I don't get too many irate commenters. But this one, you know, was blaming my site and social media in general for the overcrowding. And I do take that seriously.
[01:42:20] And I do try to tell people, you know, on these really popular hikes, don't show up on a Saturday afternoon and even have any expectation that you're going to get a parking spot. Especially, you know, in fall foliage season. So, you know, where you can visit these places at an off time, do it. You know, if you can take half a day off or, you know, come in the evening when we have nice long days in the summertime, you know, a weekday evening is a great time to do some of these most popular hikes. So, yes, that's just a little of that.
[01:42:49] All right. So, on the topic of Breakneck Ridge and going there at the off time, off hours, what would you say about doing Breakneck Ridge to catch a sunset? And you're going to be up there, you're going to watch the sun go down, you're going to come down in the dark. Yes. How advisable is that? If you're coming, if you're doing the full loop, yeah, that's the way to do it. So, yeah, beautiful place to catch a sunset.
[01:43:18] You know, it's looking the right way across the river and there's a few nice vantage points on the way up. You know, you keep thinking that you're at the top and then you crest that, you know, there's fall summits. And I think there's three or four of them until you're finally actually at the top. And some of the best views are actually a little bit further down before you get to the summit. So, yeah, it's funny you ask that, Ted, because my son and I did end up coming down in the dark. And he was like, yeah, I was like, don't worry, buddy.
[01:43:47] We've got headlamps. Daddy planned ahead. We're fine. But, yeah, if you and actually I think they've made that trail. You can't come down it. It's only it's one way going up. How do they do that? How do they have one way on a trail? Well, there's a new the Ninhem trail is like a bypass of the of the steepest part of the scramble. So if you want to come down, you got to take that bypass back down. You can't come down the scramble. Is there like a turnstile that keeps you from going down?
[01:44:18] I mean, what is this? They have like traffic lights sign. I mean, you know, from the popularity that I've heard of the break deck ridge, I wouldn't I wouldn't be surprised. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that part is that that is one way going up. And then, yeah, you do it. It's about a well, I've got it listed here as a three point seven mile loop. And you kind of come around the back and that's a nice gentle descent. So it's not. So what's the scent on that? How many feet do you have? Do you have the feet? Yeah.
[01:44:45] You know, I'm going to click on this handy website that I've got up right here. Hike the Hudson Valley. What's the name of that site again? Hikethehudsonvalley.com. It's never heard of it. Never heard of it. It's 1,442 feet. See, like, so that's 1.1. Yeah. That's serious shit. Yeah. And I'm assuming you buy that in the first mile. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's all. That's all. Ted, have you been there? You act like you haven't been there. I've driven by there so many times now.
[01:45:15] I, I, I've never been there. I've, you know, I've only hiked. This is for me to get there. It's easier for me to go to slide mountain. No shit. And yeah. Yeah. And, and this is Mike, this is the rub for me, for me to go over and hike in these areas. I have to go through like so many stop, stop lights, stop signs, traffic. To me, it's like almost like driving in the city. It just really kills the vibe for me, for me to get like in that, that mood of like, you
[01:45:44] know, yeah, I'm going out and you know, I'm going to go hiking. I had West, I drive over the gunks. I headed the Catskills. It just kind of like puts me in the right mood or setting to do a hike. I hear you 100%. Yeah. What about getting through New Paltz on a Saturday afternoon? I don't have to go, I don't have to go through there to go to the hike. Plus if I'm going through New Paltz to get to the hike, it's at 6 AM. Okay. Ted hits these early. Yeah. It's me and the paper boy going through town. That's it.
[01:46:14] So you know what I have to say? You know, that is challenging. You know, you talk about 3.7 miles. So, you know, that's, that's a hell of a hike for 1400 feet a game. But I got to admit that would gain kind of like my enthusiasm and my, my, my just, I don't know what to say. It's just like, oh, wow, this is amazing. And then you get to that, that view overlooking the Hudson. It's just, it's attention grabbing.
[01:46:43] Then there all the, all of a sudden click. Everything comes together. Yeah. I'll say this for Mike way, way, way back. And I should post this picture. But when my two daughters were young, we hiked up a bear mountain from that wreck area where the skating rink is and all of that. We went all the way to the top for them. You know, it was a rugged and fun hike. Yeah. And we got to the top and what did we do?
[01:47:09] We watched the sunset and it was magnificent for, yeah, for them, it was just kind of like a cementing experience. So I'll say this. There's a lot to be said for a Hudson Valley sunset or a sunset over the Hudson river. Absolutely. And I thought you were going to say that you got to the top and then noticed that the minivans and people wearing flip flops, you know, cause we, we call that the cheaters highway that goes up to the Perkins tower.
[01:47:38] I told my son, you know, just disregard the fact that we could have just driven up here. That's no fun. Yeah. Well, what I, what I did before we did the hike is I, I took my wife's van and I got it a little bit up the road that leads to the tower. And then I just parked it in an angle. I put up the hood and put the four ways. So nobody could get up. We had it to ourselves. I was thinking ahead. Good strategy.
[01:48:06] So with the breakneck Ridge being like the toughest hike, would you also consider that one of the most scenic hikes? Yeah. You know, it's, it's popular for a reason. It is beautiful and rugged. The scramble's fantastic. I know there are overcrowding areas, uh, you know, an overcrowding issue there for sure. Uh, and it's a constant topic of, of, of local conversation in cold spring. So I don't want to direct everybody to go there. And certainly if you do go there, hit it at an off time. And go in the right direction.
[01:48:36] Yeah. And then to Ted's point about the traffic, you know, on right on the other side of the river, storm King, uh, that's another popular one, but that is a gorgeous hike as well with views across, you know, looking back at breakneck, um, and, uh, up, up the river where it's really wide right there at the Newberg beacon bridge and Bannerman's castle. That, that is a beautiful, you know, quintessential hike as well. So get understanding. You're not a professional photographer, but you do know a little bit about photography and
[01:49:04] you've been to these places that presumably all times of day, all times of the year. What's the best time of year and best time of day to hit storm King mountain to get, cause I know that's gotta be a, like a spectacular view. Yeah. The Hudson river. So when should I go and hike that? I mean, it was fall foliage season, a cop out to say, I mean, it just, that is a gorgeous place to be.
[01:49:29] It is also again on the weekends, very crowded, you know, that's a limited parking area right there. So that's another one that I would advise, you know, great for a weekday evening in the fall. Um, and the hour before sunset, uh, would be a great time to be there. Or, or I guess before sunrise, I don't know. I, I only see sunrises involuntarily, Ted. So you'll, you'll have to, uh, yeah. Um, yeah. And that's not entirely true.
[01:49:57] I have done what we call a sunrise special in my house where, you know, I get to the trail head at just at the crack of dawn so that I can complete the hike and get back home before anybody really misses that I'm gone. And that's been a way that I've done. I did, um, tremper that way, um, that I could, you know, go experience that one and get back to the house in time for my son's soccer game, I think was the, the, uh, thing I had to get back for that day. Oh, nice.
[01:50:22] So now with the, I know that most of this area supports the Appalachian trail hikers, correct? Uh, going through the, the Hudson Valley has the AT, right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So have you ever, have you ever encountered some Appalachian trail hikers? Yeah, you'll see them out. A great swamp is a really nice hike out in Pauling that has a boardwalk over the swamp. They have a promotional video, you know, James Earl Jones, who passed away recently, but
[01:50:52] he was a resident out that way and has a, they did a promotional video for the great swamp that has his voice on it. It's kind of cool to hear James Earl Jones narrating that video about one of our spots. Um, but yeah, you'll see through hikers there and cat rocks is just beyond that. Those are connected. The Dover Oak is the largest oak on the Appalachian trail as it's, uh, that's, I have, I'm trying to remember where I got that piece of information from, but I think it's legit.
[01:51:20] It's on the internet somewhere, but it is a really impressive tree and that's right by, um, you know, right off the road. You can just park and see this magnet. If we bring a jackknife, can we carve our initials? Please, please don't do that. Please don't. Yeah. It's not a good idea. I will use that as a segue to say, Ted, I know you're, you're joking, but at the front of every, at the top of every trail guide, I do have some language, you know, imploring everyone to please, you know, pick up some trash along the hike as you go, you know, leave
[01:51:48] no trace and with a link to leave no trace as well for a primer on keeping the trails nice and fresh for each other. So on that point, Mike, before we move on, I have this thing I call it take five. And my view is on every hike, you should try to take five things off the trail. And so what I find it does to me is it forces you to really look to meet that quota.
[01:52:14] Cause sometimes during the year, it is hard to find five little things on the trail to pick up and take. But if you're really looking to put five things in your pocket or in your backpack before you hop in your car and go home, you can do it and clean up the trail. So take five, I'm going to trademark that, put it on t-shirts, bottle caps, take five lantern flies. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, yeah. I mean, I know that the AT is very popular through there.
[01:52:42] Uh, my friend Mo Lamore has, uh, an area that he, he navigates and he, he takes care of down through there. So, uh, I'm, I'm a very big Appalachian trail through, I don't through hike. I have, but I, I know that I've, I've dealt with them down in the Shenandoahs. We take care of them every two years. We go down to Shenandoahs and we support them and it's fantastic. And now, you know, I, if you know, the spots along the Appalachian trail, you know, I would
[01:53:11] suggest to post them and then have people support them when they're coming through because these Appalachian trail hikers love when you give them trail magic. I don't know. Have you ever done that, Mike? No, I have not. Oh, if you give them a bag, a 98 cent bag of M and M's, they will think you are a God from Rome and they'll be like, hail, hail Mike. I usually hike with at least one Zagnut bar in my bag.
[01:53:38] So I will, next time I see a through hiker, um, yeah, I'll be sure to toss it their way. You and Tad should probably hook up because he like. He like chugs one bottle of water and that's good enough through a 13 mile hike. I don't understand the physics with that, but it's insane. And before we get off the Appalachian trail as well, I don't know if you've been to nuclear lake over by Pauling as well. I was, I was going to ask you about nuclear lake. Tell us, tell us about it. Yeah.
[01:54:08] Um, I say in the trail guide, you know, I know the name sounds bad, but don't worry. It's only called that because the experimental nuclear lab that used to be on the shores of the lake had an explosion in 1972 that blew an unspecified amount of bomb grade plutonium out across the lake and surrounding woods. But, but don't worry. They've, they've cleaned it all up. And all those guys. At least there's no, uh, biting fish anymore. Yeah.
[01:54:36] So, uh, it is, it was declared clean and fine for hiking, you know, back in the eighties, I believe. That's because the government doesn't like hikers. Send them all to nuclear lake. Yeah. We do look for the Simpsons three eyed fish in the lake when, when we're walking by there, but I did have a through hiker drop a comment to say that it is the most beautiful lake on the Appalachian trail. And then the eyes, I've made a comment that I'm sure that was some hyperbole, but that's nice of him to say.
[01:55:03] And then he replied back and said, no, I meant it is the most beautiful lake on the Appalachian trail. So that is at least one through hikers opinion on that one. Tell us what, how long is that hike out to nuclear lake around the lake? So that I want to say it's about a four mile. Yeah. 4.1 miles. And it's a partial loop. So it's like a lot of you go around the lake and you can't extend it. If you want to go beyond and do a viewpoint up at cat rocks beyond, you can add another couple of miles and do that.
[01:55:32] Nuclear lake. Nice. God damn. I'm missing out. Yep. Maybe Stosh can charge his Tesla at nuclear lake. There you go. Just, yeah. Drop the cord in the water and you'll be all set. Probably would work. Another commenter did say that that is a, an area of high Sasquatch activity. Oh, well, that's good to know. Cause yeah. I'm there. Yeah. So keep your eyes out there for the Sasquatches and the mountain lions. Probably. Which reminds me, I think Sasquatch is coming on.
[01:56:02] What is that? Episode 165. We'll have. They're getting here. They're getting here. We don't know if he or she yet. So I'm glad I was on before Sasquatch. That would have been a very tough. You're part of the, you're part of the work up to the big show. Building buzz. It's kind of this cascade crescendo. So, so Mike, with all your experience in the Hudson Valley, what is your personal favorite? If you don't mind sharing. Yeah.
[01:56:29] So as I'm looking at the list here and the ones, you know, there's just so many great ones. And, you know, I've got 82 trail guides out here. I have a personal goal just to, you know, don't stop doing this until I get over a hundred. So I just want to hit triple digits. And that's so easy to do. I hope everyone, you know, recognizes how fortunate we are to live in a place with so many hiking opportunities and so many varied, you know, different kinds of hikes that you can do here. It's really awesome.
[01:56:58] You know, from the waterfalls, fire towers, rock scrambles, you know, get out into the deep woods and the Catskills. There's just so much here. So, so yeah, I'm not trying to avoid the question. You are. You are. Because you don't want us to go there. Yeah. Well, so it's, it's tough, you know, to, to pick the favorite, but Bonnekew Crag is one that I want to get my kids out to. And they have both done the amount, the lemon squeeze, you know, the labyrinth at Mohawk.
[01:57:28] God, I've heard that's incredible. Yeah. You know, it's, it's an experience. I call it a sometimes treat in the trail guide because it is expensive. It's up to 30, what? $37 a hiker. Something like that. Yeah. When I was a college kid and we went there, a few, a few college kids, we pulled up to the trailhead, you know, at the, to the guard gate. And he told us at that time, I think it was $23 per hiker. And we were like, per hiker? We don't have that kind of money. We're, you know, this is not.
[01:57:57] But so we, we, we went back and I think went for a hike in the Mohawk preserve, which was more reasonable. Yeah. So who owns the leaven squeeze? Like who charges that? What's money? It's owned by this. Yeah. The smiley family. It's part of the property that they still own. But Mike, I don't have a trail guide or anything, but when, when my older daughter really, really
[01:58:19] got into hiking and with Mohawk, Minnewasca, the gunks being five minutes from my back door, we hiked all over the gunks. And so she, she came up with this figure eight hike that takes you through a lot of these rock scrambles. Maybe they're not as big and as well-maintained as the lemon squeeze, but they'll, they'll give you a thrill.
[01:58:48] I'd love to know that figure eight. It sounds good. I'll, I'll, I'll, Stosh will send me your, you know, contact info and I'll, I'll turn you on to it. And you won't have to pay, you won't have to take a second mortgage out in the house to do it. Awesome. Thank you. I appreciate that. And since you mentioned Minnewasca as well, Gertrude's nose is another one that I would put up there at the top of the list. That's just a, an absolutely gorgeous hike up there. Hunter mountain, giant ledge and Panther. Now I know I'm getting into the cat skills.
[01:59:17] Those are the cat skills. You never heard of these ones? Tad, I'm telling you, if you've never been to giant ledge and Panther, you've got to check it out. I've never heard of it. This guy has been over like the, like overlook once and the caterscale falls once. No, excuse me. I still haven't been to overlook. Really? Yeah. And I take great pride in the fact that I haven't been there. And the only reason I went to caterscale is I was hiking the escarpment and part of that all trails challenge. All trails.
[01:59:47] Yeah. And it had done nothing but rain, rain, rain, you know, the days leading up to it. So from like 45 minutes out, that's all you heard was this waterfall. That's phenomenal. Yeah. It was like crack to a crack at it. I just couldn't walk by it. So I had to. Yeah. But there's, I'll echo what you said. There is just a ton of good hiking in this area.
[02:00:14] And it's remarkable when I say this area from really from the West side of the George Washington bridge going upstate and into the Catskills. And it's amazing that you're so close to the, you know, the largest city, the largest metro area in the USA. But let's, let's, uh, you told us your personal favorites. Tell Stosh about, I've only hiked in Harriman state park twice.
[02:00:42] And my first time there, part of my hike took me on the bottle cap trail, right? There's such a place called the bottle cap trail, right? What's a, what's a person. What's with that? Yeah. I Harriman is massive. I have a couple of hikes around Harriman on the, on the guide. There's a lemon squeeze there as well. And that's one of the ones that I've written up, but I'm not familiar with the bottle cap trail. Really? Yeah.
[02:01:08] So the bottle cap trail, actually, I hiked it down to the lemon squeeze. It doesn't go to the lemon squeeze, but I, you know, I did like a legit 18 mile hike there that day. So I was like all over and I got on this trail called the bottle cap. And it's called the bottle cap trail because the trailblazes are bottle caps. Yeah. They, somebody hammered like all these bottle caps on the trees to mark the trail.
[02:01:38] And I thought, okay, that's a good way of repurposing bottle caps. Leave it, leave it to the Harriman crowd. Is it worth it? Yeah. That's very efficient. Yeah. I, you know, I found, look, I found that terrain to be very interesting. A lot of diversity there. I could see myself hiking there a lot more with the exception. And maybe this is where I get Mike. Mike hasn't done a lot of hiking and Harriman.
[02:02:06] I really, I just have this thing about when I'm setting off to go to a hike, part of that experience is just the drive over to the Catskills really puts me in the mood. Sure. You know, seeing those peaks and stuff like that, it really gets you into that mood. I gotta admit. Yeah. So Mike, I have a question. I know I'm trying to think of the name of the place and you know, Tad, you might have a little knowledge about this as well.
[02:02:32] There's a place where it requires like a guide and it's like a massive gorge that you need to go through. It's my friends have offered this as well. I'm trying to, you're, you're thinking a shingle gully. Yes. Have you been through there, Mike? Mike, no, that's in Minnewaska, right? I've heard that in that area. Yeah. It's, it's, um, on the Western slope.
[02:02:57] I don't know if it's part of Minnewaska state park proper, but it's part of the Schwangunk ridge. It's I've heard it's one of those geological wonders of the East coast. Yeah. So there you go, Mike. We'll have to get you hooked up. All right. You sign up through the, I'm going to call it the. Ranger station. I think it's part of, um, Sam's point. You, you, I don't know if you email them or call them how they do it now.
[02:03:27] Um, but they do have, you know, on weekends, at least one, if not several chaperoned tours through there. Uh, very worthwhile. Don't go there on a hot or humid day because there will be no wind and it is going to be hot and humid, but you will find through the middle of June snow.
[02:03:52] You're going to be, you're going to be hiking up, uh, like these just huge piles of snow that over the winter, like a winter like this have filled, you know, these areas. And then you'll go down into, you know, these ice caves that are really interesting. So yeah, it's worthwhile. I can almost assure you, you're going to see something with the tail that rattles when you go through there. Yeah. Um, but I've done it several times. It's, it's free.
[02:04:22] And if you, you know, if you live an hour away, half hour away or five hours away, it should be on your bucket list of things to do in New York state. All right. Mike with the, with the Hudson Valley area, do you wear like, uh, uh, uh, gators and stuff like that for this, the, the, the venomous snakes and stuff? No, no. After I, um, I encountered that rattlesnake on brace mountain.
[02:04:49] Um, my folks sent me one of those, uh, suction rattlesnake kits that don't, that don't do anything. Um, yeah. Yeah. And I did put it in my pack for a few hikes. And then I, I, I did some, you know, online research on these things. And I was like, oh yeah, tell you, don't, don't use these. Um, I think just step carefully. Now I would say, you know, I've only seen that one rattlesnake. My wife almost stepped on a copperhead in Connecticut. Uh, Castle Craig was the hike that we were doing there.
[02:05:17] And we incorrectly identified it as a baby rattlesnake at first, cause it had the yellow tail that looked like a little rattle. Uh, but it was a juvenile copperhead. And I think those, those are the two kinds of venomous snakes that we've got around here. Right. So I've seen one of each, but I'm not hanging out in the place of Tad's hanging out. It sounds like there's more opportunity. And I know, you know, yeah, I know where, where to go to see him, particularly in the August timeframe. That seems to be when they're most active, you know, shun among the Taconics,
[02:05:46] Menahuasca overlook is, uh, you know, fairly well known for them as well. Right. What about the, the most horrific, uh, anything of all ticks? What are you doing? Yeah. Right. Especially down in the Hudson Valley. You know, that that's, you know, I got to admit seeing the tick population in the Catskills, the Hudson Valley is absolutely insane. Just seeing about that. Yeah.
[02:06:11] I've seen people post like horror story pictures, um, you know, of even like the brushing them out of their dog's fur and there's just dozens of them in there, but I, I've never experienced that, you know, one or two here and there. Um, yeah, it's just never a fraud. I don't believe that. Yeah. Who is this guy? Who is this guy? He doesn't look like the real Mike Todd. The real Mike Todd is taller. It's an, it's an occasional, you know, well, yeah. An occasional.
[02:06:40] So how do you do it then? You bug spray? I bug spray. Yeah. My. What do you use? What's your brand? What's your brand of choice? It's just whatever they sell at Costco, you know, 30% deep stuff. Yeah. Agent. Yeah. Um, well, it used to go with a hundred percent deep. That's what I was. That's what I was raised on. My family would go on vacation to Maine and we would have the percent deep, uh, that would melt your raincoat if you got it on the raincoat.
[02:07:06] Um, but I really, I just spray my shoes and the bugs, you know, they really bother the rest of my family. They fumigate their entire beings before we go anywhere. Um, but yeah, I just, I spray off my shoes to keep the bugs off the like ticks from crawling on and carry on. Well, first time I got Lyme's disease was at Minnewasca. Uh, I don't know. Yeah. It was, of all the things I was riding, uh, a mountain bike there with my kids and within
[02:07:36] a week I had the, the bullseye. So what's instead of, uh, ticks, which don't seem to bother you. What about bugs? When's bug season in the Hudson Valley? What bugs do we have to worry about? And what do you do for them? Yeah, I think mainly the mosquitoes. Um, and you know, same thing, you know, I get bit, went to Vanui Kill Falls one time. That's out, you know, out of your way. And, uh, we, we had to die. It was a, it was a cold misty day, but we jumped in and swam just to get away, to get
[02:08:05] some relief from the mosquitoes for a little while. Um, they were insane. And we were, my wife and I were like running and smacking our arms. We were both bleeding, uh, but she swells up. I don't seem to react. So I have been blessed that they, you know, they, they do, you know, they do extract what they're going to extract from me, but I don't seem to react to it too much. So, so I don't go too crazy with the bug spray. Um, but that, that's really it. And yeah. How about you guys?
[02:08:34] I use a head net and then I just fricking sprint. Yeah. Yeah. Like what? It, it, it, it's, it's, it's, it's all, it depends on the day. You know, you have some wind, you're, you're, you're okay. But then once you don't have some wind, you got to make the wind yourself and, and guide up the fly up the mountain, fly down the mountain. It sucks. Yeah. Well, I think in part in the Catskills, once you get to a certain elevation, you're above
[02:09:02] and beyond, you know, those little pests, they seem to be in the lower elevations. And once you get up higher, uh, at least my experience has been, I've been okay. But some days when you're out there bushwhacking and it takes you a while to get up to like 2,800 feet and above, you just start getting eaten alive. You, your face looks like it's hamburger, but it's worth it. Cause you're outdoors hiking. At least that's what you keep telling yourself. I'm hiking. Yeah.
[02:09:30] I have to know. So it's good. So, you know, Tad is more familiar with this area, but, but I'm not. So he, he wrote down a bunch of, uh, he calls stupid questions. What I don't find stupid actually. So like when you're in these areas are very popular. So like parking lot safety, you know, I've, I've seen this up in the white mountains where people's cars get broken into and stuff like that.
[02:09:56] So what happens like your doors don't lock or you, you want to protect stuff beyond like what they can see? Because it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a big probability with the amount of population coming from New York city up there. So do you have any suggestions? Yeah. You know, I just don't, I take all my valuables. I try not to have anything in the car and, you know, pack my wallet in the bag and don't,
[02:10:24] don't leave it in the car and just, uh, you know, hope for the best that's always worked out so far. And I I've never encountered, you know, any, I I've seen the pictures on social media. I know that this is happening and it is a problem. Um, but I, I haven't personally, you know, had an issue with it myself or, or witnessed any, you know, windows being broken out at trailheads, anything like that. That's good. It's it's, you know, it's, it's crazy to see that up in New Hampshire and stuff like that. And I'm grateful that it doesn't happen down here in New York a lot.
[02:10:53] So at least we heard. So it's, it's, it's, what about the, uh, you know, I hate to, to ask this, this is good old Tad stupid question. I love it, but water quality. You can drink the water that flows down from the top of breakneck Ridge. This is a trick question. I feel like if the tick one wasn't, if you weren't scoping me out with the tick, this is a trick. This is a trick podcast. It's been one trick question.
[02:11:20] I would not, you know, I have been on camping trips where I filtered my own water that, uh, for any of these day hikes, no, just, just pack enough and always, you know, overpack. I figure worst case, I get a little extra exercise. Um, but I always try to, to end the hike with a bunch of leftover water. So, um, correct. That's the way to do it. Always filter your water. Even, you know, the Catskills.
[02:11:46] Uh, I can't say I'm 50 50, but I will filter my water in the Catskills just because, you know, the deer might've pissed in the stream up, up ahead. I, my, my filtering is based upon where I'm getting it from. You know, am I down? Like if I'm going up the East branch of the Neverstreak and you got all those campsites upstream from you, I'm filtering. Yes. But if you're really, really out there and it's fast flowing water and it's clean, it's
[02:12:16] not a lot of turbidity, then maybe I won't filter, but sometimes you're stuck out there and the water you're going to take is water that's been sitting around and then you're going to filter. But on Breakneck Ridge, we're going to filter 100%. Because it might have some crystal meth in it. It's horrible, but it's still, it's worth it. I'm sorry, I think I just insulted Mike. He's like not laughing at that one. It's like, that's my home turf, bud. But then that'll make the experience, they'll make the sunset 10 times more magical.
[02:12:46] I wouldn't know because I don't know what crystal meth is. I just heard about it on Breaking Bad. That's my experience with it. Do you watch TV shows? No way. Breaking Bad, that was a good series. Then you would like Dexter. God damn. I was going to say, yeah, that's right in that same wheelhouse. If you're into Breaking Bad, Dexter, yeah. Yeah. Well, beyond that, you will be blown away. So are you, Mike, are you affected? I know this is, are you affected by like the noise around there?
[02:13:15] The motorcycle noise, the truck noise, stuff like that. Yeah, let's put this in context. I hiked in Harriman Park a couple of times. Yeah, so Todd, take this. A few summers ago. And like I said, that one hike, I did 18 miles. The other one was cut short by that rainstorm that shut down the park a couple of years ago. You should remember that.
[02:13:36] But the one thing that really, really struck me is it seems like there's all these guys or whomever on motorcycles racing around. And so you're out on this hike. You're seeing all this great stuff. You feel like you're out in the middle of nowhere. And next thing you know, it's like a Formula Grand Prix, like bunch of guys or whomever racing motor. Do you experience that around where you hike? Or was that just me? Just me being hypersensitive.
[02:14:06] For the hikes that are near the thruway, for instance. And yeah, I know in Harriman, it's near the thruway and also has some of those scenic roads that people like to go on, you know, scenic drives through where you're going to hear that. Yeah, it is a bummer. So I would, you know, that'll cost them half a camera on the scientific scene. A nice, nice show. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. But you wouldn't avoid that.
[02:14:30] Like I hear that in the Catskills once in a great while, you know, when you're, of course, you know, when you're by your car at the parking area, you hear that stuff. I hear that stuff on Panther and Hunter and stuff like that when they're going through, you know, 42, everybody's taking that scenic route on 42. Come on. And when you're on the dink, what are you hearing? Friday, balsam cap, right? The blacks, what are you hearing on Black Dome, Thomas Cole? Everybody's coming up through.
[02:15:01] When you're doing your trail maintenance, what are you hearing out there? I'm actually hearing people downshifting up on the 23A. Really? Or 2323, yeah. Because they're going down the frickin' Wyndham area and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Come on, that's a high. I guess maybe because I'm there on a weekend. But Mike, does that draw you away from those hikes ever? No, you know, I generally think if you just keep walking, eventually you're not going to be able to hear it as much.
[02:15:28] You know, you keep climbing, you get further away from the roads. And yeah, it is a bummer. I hear you 100%. And yeah. Yeah. Spoken like a true hiker. Just keep hiking. Just keep hiking and enjoy the view. The view will capture your presence and stuff like that and it'll wipe everything away. That's the way I see it. So, Ted, you want to go with the Highlands Ford project?
[02:15:58] You want to talk to Chad about that? What do you know about that, Mike? Yeah, I'm passingly familiar with it. I know they've got big plans for the area down there, right? And there's a connecting Beacon and Cold Spring and the areas that we were just talking about earlier that have seen this influx of interest and of hikers and visitors. Yeah. So, that's right along the Hudson, right? That's going to connect those two towns. Right along the railroad. Yeah.
[02:16:26] And I will say I just was down there not too long ago and there are some yard signs with the fjord trail with a circle around and a line through it. Like, it's not unanimous, the support for this. To me, it sounds really cool and like a great thing for the area. Yeah. I'd vote that this is a cool project, great thing for the area. I don't see the environmental concern because it's a very actively used railroad.
[02:16:55] I mean, it's the commuter line into the city, you know, from Beacon, Poughkeepsie, etc. And, you know, obviously, if you're not an outdoorsy person and you don't want people, you know, walking nearby your house, I can understand on the one hand why you're against it.
[02:17:11] However, I do know from the research I've done on rail trails, the studies show that when you have a recreational corridor like this right next to your property, it increases its value.
[02:17:26] Because maybe you're not a big proponent of it, but somebody who is looking to buy a house is going to look for something like this because you can literally walk out of your front door and be on this pedestrian, hiker-friendly, biker-cyclist-friendly linear trail that takes you to all these cool places right along the Hudson River. Okay.
[02:17:52] I mean, you want to go out and catch a quick sunset on the Hudson from your front door? It's hard to say no to something like that, you know? And I could see somebody who's, you know, making big money in New York City wanting to move upstate. This would have some appeal to them if they could buy a house along this corridor. So I see it as a big plus. The downside is they spend all this money building something like this. And then what happens?
[02:18:20] Budget cut, budget cut, budget cut. And it falls into a state of disrepair. And that's the sad thing is they pump money into it to build it up and then they don't maintain it. And then it's going to be volunteer, volunteer, volunteer. Yeah. Hopefully it'll go the way, like the walkway over the Hudson where I feel like every time I visit there, you know, they keep adding to it, making it nicer. The welcome pavilion's on either side. The elevator takes you right up to the deck. Yeah. Wow.
[02:18:48] And if you know the history of the walkway over the Hudson, at first, the local community was against it. Right? It was just a few individuals that kept plugging away year after year trying to get some traction with that project. And now I think it is one of the top five tourist attractions in upstate New York, excluding anything around Niagara Falls. Yeah.
[02:19:17] I got to admit, you know, I haven't been over it, but I've seen it from below. One of my friends lived below it. And I'm just fascinated. I'm like, wow, this looks like something. It's like, you know, a personal, like Tappan Zee bridge over the Hudson. Like I wish I could have spent more time out there and seen that. And I'm so jealous of the high.
[02:19:44] I love the Catskills, but the Hudson Valley sounds like it just got so much opportunity for me. Absolutely. We want to learn all about it. Just plug into Mike's webpage. Hike the Hudson Valley. I thought it was lost in the Hudson Valley. Yeah. So, Mike, why don't you hook up with the Hudson Highlands and, you know, plug yourself into that project. And maybe you guys can hook up with doing some research and stuff like that.
[02:20:12] Like, that would be a great phenomenal thing because you're a big part of the Hudson Valley. Well, thank you, Stasher. I appreciate that. And the park manager there has reached out to me a few times at the Hudson Highlands State Park. Nice! Just to say, like, hey, could you update this on your site or tell people to go this way? So, I really appreciate, you know, hearing from, you know, somebody in his official capacity, you know, making sure people get good information. And then you're like, give me $10 million and I will do it. Peace. Yeah.
[02:20:41] And I'll be sure to put wrap affiliate links all around. Right. Yeah. Make some money off of that. Right, right. You got to make some money off of all this stuff that you're doing. So, you know, Mike, I want to do one last thing. I want to thank you so much for donating, like, your time to making this webpage and to, you know, being on the podcast. Because I got to admit, you have probably reached out to so many people that has helped grasp the hiking experience.
[02:21:10] And once it grabbed their attention to be like, hey, like, this is awesome. And you've expanded their lives into not just hiking Breakdeck Ridge, but like a bond, like beyond that. And it's just phenomenal what you've done all individually. So, without trying to profit from it, you know, it's just phenomenal. And Tad and I both appreciate that because we come from the kind of same time.
[02:21:39] We just do this for fun. We do this for our love of the Catskills. And you just do this for your love of the Hudson Valley. And we thank you. Well, thank you both. And I really, I've become a big fan of the podcast. Really appreciate what you guys do here. I've learned a lot from listening to the show. And you guys do an awesome job with it. So, thank you. It's really interesting topics and really topical for folks who love the outdoors here. So, thanks. Keep doing what you're doing. And I really appreciate the opportunity to come on here.
[02:22:08] Yeah, sounds like we're going to have Mike on again. Yeah, right? I mean, maybe later on. So, last question. Post-hike bruising bites. Do you have a preference? You know, in the area that we were just talking about, I will say the one I've been to frequently and recently is Tuto's Pizza in Cold Spring. It's right on our way home.
[02:22:30] So, when we climbed Bull Hill, you know, half the reason my kids want to go hiking in the Hudson Highlands is because we have to drive by this pizza place on the way home. And there's an ice cream space connected to it in the same building. So, light on the bruise. But the pizza and ice cream, if you're into that, if you're hiking. Tuto's? How do you spell that? T-U-T-T-O. Okay. Tuto's Pizza in Cold Spring. You don't drink with your kids? T-U-T-O.
[02:22:58] Well, they're downstairs playing Fortnite and I'm having a beer up here with you guys right now. So, discount. And the wife doesn't know. So, all should. Hey, nothing else. Yeah. Yeah. So, excellent. Mike, thank you for joining us tonight once again. We just thank you for doing your support for the Hudson Valley, for just doing this all for free and for basically for the knowledge and for the general public. It's really, we really appreciate it.
[02:23:27] Like, once again, it's like what we're doing for the Catskills. Just giving the general knowledge and people the experience that they have in the Hudson Valley, you have expanded that beyond the capacity. So, thank you once again. And, you know, keep in touch. Let's get out there. Let's get your 3,500 peaks going. Yeah. All right. I better hustle and get the winter ones in before I run out of time, huh? Yeah. Well, there's always next winter.
[02:23:55] You don't have to do it in one season. That's fine. Your son is only 15 years old, man. He would fly above us. So, we're just like, goddamn, slow down. I would love that. Let's make it happen sometime. And I also want to say, you know, that this area has so many wonderful trail organizations. You know, I write these guides, but I'm not the one out there, you know, maintaining the land, creating these trails, and giving us all these awesome places to hike and explore. So, I'd like to thank all the folks in the outdoors community here who make all this possible.
[02:24:25] Because we really do, you know, we're very fortunate to live in this area that has so many opportunities. And that's due to the hard work of a lot of great people around here. 100%. So, once again, thank you to the monthly supporters and the monthly sponsors of the show. We'll be making a donation soon to the Catskills. Really appreciate it. Thank you to everybody who's donated so far. And thank you to everyone who is still listening. Mike, I can't believe you're still listening to the show. I really appreciate it. Hopefully, you enjoy it.
[02:24:55] Yeah. You've earned a hard cider if you're still listening. So, go treat yourself. Yes. Well, thank you. Thanks, Mike. Good night. All right. Have a good night, guys. Thank you, guys. It's a pleasure chatting. Hey, everyone. I just want to thank you for listening to the show. If you enjoyed the show, subscribe and throw down a smooth review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or any podcast platform that you use.
[02:25:24] You can also check daily updates of the podcast, Hikes, Hacking News, and local news on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and the official website of the show. Remember this. You gotta just keep on living in the Catskills, man. L-I-V-I-N Wicked. Wicked. Wicked. Wicked. Wicked. Wicked.