Episode 243 - STS - Previous hikes, Luxury Hotel Woes

[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] Passing into Inside The Line, the Catskill Mountains Podcast. Episode 243, we don't have a guest tonight. It's gonna be you and me, Tad. No, but it sounds dangerous.

[00:01:16] No, it sounds great. I've been waiting for this. I like, I mean, I love having guests on. I love talking to them and stuff. That was nice. All right, all right, we're doing that. We're doing that then. I like that. Tad doesn't want to hear my shit. That's why he did that. He was just like, whatever. Shots were fired. Don't say that. Don't say that. So, all right. I will do mine as well and we'll talk about what we're having.

[00:01:44] Well, this wasn't, this wasn't like the official. This is, this is like my pregame. That's true. Okay, cool. That's fine with me. I got another one. All right. Yeah. That's what that cooler is for in the background. It is. It is. So, yeah, I mean, I would love having guests, but you know, you and I, we can shoot the shit and have fun and talk and stuff like that. And, you know, I really like chatting with you as we had this weekend, you know, we had a great time. So. I'm glad one of us had fun.

[00:02:13] Oh, Jesus. Oh, yeah. Well, you. Zing. One right across the bow there. God, he is. I'm fired up. He's not in a good mood for some reason. I just got done with therapy at a late afternoon PT session. So just got the ice off my, my shoulder is like still cold. All right. That means you got to drink more to get the pain, ease the pain away. Right? I should have had coffee. All right. Let's roll. Let's do this.

[00:02:41] Yeah. So once again, no, no guests tonight. All right. Next week will be a guest. Matthew John Klankuk. I think that's his last name. So he did the cat's tail marathon. So, and Ted said every year it rains. Correct? Yes. Yes. I don't know if statistically that's true, but it seems, I mean, look, it's the fall, even if it rains the day before, you know, the leaves can be wet. Yeah. So that'll be interesting.

[00:03:09] And then the week after that, we have somebody coming on from Raven's beard. You ever heard of that? No. And Socrates. So it's like a rehab place for birds. Like, well, let me guess, let me guess. Uh, Raven's, your dogs rehab dogs. That's mountain goats, mountain goats, mountain lions, camels. They do camels. At times. Yes. So that, that'll be cool.

[00:03:39] And, uh, I'll, I'll chat about it. Uh, a little bit more today, later on that. I met somebody that we're going to have for a future guest, uh, hopefully soon. So it's a really cool to meet. Um, but anyway, that was it, that rocker that we met? What was his name? Nazi. Oh yeah. Not so. Not so. That's it. Yeah. That was, that was, that was weird. That was intense. It was in very intense. It's like the hike would have ended like an hour and a half earlier.

[00:04:09] Yeah. He was a great guy. He was a great guy. Had a great story. Maybe we'll get into it later on when we run out of other things. We'll get to not. So, yeah. So anyway, far and high outdoor co David from episode two 30 downstate 28 is offering exclusive deal for our listeners. So using the code inside the line, all capital letters, uh, gets you guys to do 25% off everything in the shop.

[00:04:35] Uh, David has a shop on Etsy that does awesome stickers, canister stickers, orange and gray canister stickers, 3500, uh, or 3500 elevation stickers, um, uh, register stickers, uh, a lot of others downstate 28 stuff like that. So 25% off use the code inside the line. The link will be in the show notes. I'll post more about that on, on Instagram and Facebook as well. Yeah.

[00:05:01] I think, I think the bottom line here is if you've got some vacant real estate on your Nalgene, you can fill it up pretty much at Dave's store and get 25% off. Cause you're a listener to inside the line. Yeah, definitely. And you got your stickers, correct? Those are nice, right? Yeah. That was awesome.

[00:05:22] Can't wait to go like to the post office and other government buildings and affix them to where you're not allowed to cause I'm that I'm, I'm kind of that mischievous fellow. Okay. Um, uh, also I wanted to state that it is this start. I start old was not the start, but, uh, we are in hunting season. It's big game, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[00:05:48] I saw, yeah, I saw some guys with a compound bows walking out of the woods as I was coming back from hiking on Sunday. Okay. Yeah. So, um, we have, uh, where your, your orange, your bright colors, yellow, pink, whatever, just to get you. So you don't look like big game and they, they shoot you, which they shouldn't.

[00:06:09] No, but when, so when you say that we're out hiking the loop that we hiked on Sunday, or if we were out hiking, uh, the Eastern side of the devil's path, do you really think you need to wear orange when you hike those areas? Do you think you're going to find hunters there? Not really. No, I think there's a low probability of finding hunters there, but when you're out hiking off trail, bushwhacking, you definitely need to.

[00:06:38] And maybe in the Western Catskills, there's more hunting out there because there's less trail traffic. So definitely wear your orange out there. Correct. Correct. So, uh, as I did today. So once again, get that. If you're out bushwhacking, you're doing some bushwhacking peaks, one of the more popular ones, maybe, or, or, or the remote bushwhacking stuff, uh, definitely wear your bright colors.

[00:07:03] Um, so I wanted to bring this up on October 10th, Kaaterskill Falls, saw a record number of visitors, 3,346 people stopped by the Kaaterskill Falls. Now those are the ones they counted. So there, once again, uh, they have their booth up front and I don't know if they have it on the sides of where you can come in from inspiration point and from the escarpment trail. So there probably was even more than that.

[00:07:32] Um, during the fourth, first six months of 2026 forest ranger conducted whatever. I, that was to stop. Yeah. Are you really skipping over Kaaterskill Falls has like an entire village visit it? I know. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. I, that was, that was added on there by the thing, but, um, yeah, I saw that and I was just like, holy crap, man. I thought, yeah. Did you see the photos? I did. Yeah. Yeah. Like the lines. Yeah. People were literally waiting in lines. Yeah.

[00:08:01] Right. That might've been like the top rescue is people that just got tired and collapsed because they were waiting. It's not how far you hiked. It's how long you waited standing still. Some people might've thought if there's certainly time up to the Catskills hiking, they might've thought this is what the rest of the Catskills are like. Yeah. And they'll never, and they'll never come back. Damn. I'd, I'd rather wait for a hot dog down in Manhattan and go up there and, and hike is what they're thinking. True.

[00:08:30] Now it's crazy. And I thought it made the case for restrictions on how many people show up because there's a certain point where the user experience goes way down. The, the damage to the area goes way up and there's no corresponding benefit to anything.

[00:08:50] When you get that many people out there clogging up the roads, clogging up the trail, trampling on whatever, it's hard for them to develop any sense of appreciation for nature. So I've, I think there is a theoretical number that they should cap it at.

[00:09:07] However, just, just like with Dave's store and getting 25% off, if you show up without a permit to hike Kaaterskill Falls, but you mentioned inside the line and run fast down the trail, they'll let you in. Yes, definitely. That would be something interesting. Like make sure when you do that, you're recording yourself and, and tag us. Yeah. And your local bail bondsman tag.

[00:09:34] Yeah. It's, it's, it's crazy to think that, you know, that was, uh, I think we were at peak at that time. So, uh, October 10th was a, Oh, that's November. Why am I? October 10th was a Saturday.

[00:09:49] So, um, it's just, it, it's just crazy to think. And, you know, does, is that like, where can they like bring up some more information of how many people came on other days of the thing? I want like every day compared to this day. Like, does it need to be capped at a thousand on certain specific days or does it need to be capped all throughout the summer?

[00:10:13] Well, as I remember their, their study went into that. I think they capped it at 1800 on weekends and they don't have a cap on weekdays because the usage is present on weekdays or non holidays, I should say, and not weekends is, you know, much lower.

[00:10:33] But here, 3300 is obviously over the top. They think 1800 is a respectable number of people to have there for me personally. I would not want to go there on such a day. Correct. Well, I mean, we had 31 people at the top of Hunter and that was a little crazy. That was, I mean, it wasn't bad, but yeah.

[00:10:55] Yeah. But you know, is that, but I also would say that's fairly typical for up there and that's not enough density to really absorb that space at present. But you, if you do notice, like I notice the little spruce grove, that juvenile spruce grove is maturing and they're growing, right? Reaching into that area.

[00:11:16] So in probably 10 years, it'll be more like the summit of slide mountain, that open area than what it is today. Or like Balsam Lake. Yeah. A little bit like tighter, but I mean, everybody was respectful up there. Everybody was having a good time. I think the people that go up to there from, they were going up for, from Oktoberfest, most of them.

[00:11:40] Yeah. They seemed, they seemed like once again, they're more respectable to nature than people going to Catterstall Falls and creating their own path because they can't get down to the, the base of the falls or stuff, you know, it just, it just seems like a whole different crowd. And they, they were, people were fun. They were enjoying the views and stuff. And, you know, you and I had a great time chatting with some people and, you know, it was just, it wasn't 3,346. Good Lord. Like that's, that's insane.

[00:12:09] Like that. Yeah. So maybe these days, you know, we, they D I mean, sure. Should have spent that much money on that study. Like I could have told them to cap it at a certain amount, but like it's, yeah, there's the, they spent a ton of money on the study. And I did look up while you were talking, the visitor use management plan recommends a maximum cap of a thousand visitors per day.

[00:12:36] And the study reported that the average weekend use is 1850 a day. So on October 10th, that was almost twice the load of usage on that day. And the DEC wants to cut it to less than a third of that, which probably makes sense. But you didn't, how many hundreds of thousands of dollars did you have to spend to figure that out?

[00:13:02] Mm-hmm. I wonder if, you know, you could ask the people that were working that day or volunteering, like, you know, what do you see as it a, an easier day or as a respectful day where people can enjoy Kaaterskill Falls and stuff? And they were like, Ooh, this would have been half that. And then bam, you just didn't spend that much money on somebody saying like, Hey, there's a cap there. That's about it. Take it easy. Have a good day.

[00:13:28] You're like, God damn. That just hits me a little bit hard, but, uh, that they spent that much money and, and not the money that we're going to talk about later on Hunter mountain, where it could easily be used by volunteering.

[00:13:39] But Hey, that is a triggered anyway. So once again, avoid Kaaterskill Falls at peak foliage. Definitely. Because apparently people think, I mean, at the top of the place, you can get a good view of, of round top and Catterasco, somewhat Catterasco high peak, but you can't get like the fall foliage of really much of that.

[00:14:01] Like we do up in the high peak. So avoid, I would guarantee nobody from that listens to this podcast or very, very, very, very few went to Catterasco Falls on that day. They were like, hell no. So I could just couldn't even imagine the line getting into there. So that's, that's crazy. So yeah. And I've only been there one time. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And even go in the winter, Ted, it's, it's nice in the winter.

[00:14:28] Maybe this year. Yeah. So maybe somebody will invite me this year. Cause I'll have to carry my stuff for me, but you did get 11 and a half. Well, yeah, yeah. But that was, that was, sorry. Sorry. That was right. That down here. Down. Sorry. What are we at? I had to write that down that I said. Oh yeah. And we should keep score. It should be every, every time you slip, every time you drop an F bomb, you got to do a shot.

[00:14:54] That should be a new thing. Just making it. We're just making it as we go here. Yes. Yes. Okay. Improv. It is really. It's, it's, it's like our first time doing this, but whatever. Our memories are that bad. Every time seems like the first time. Oh yeah. Yeah. Um, Ted, you're on the negative side. Let's, let's get it to a little positive. All right. All right. All right. Well, you know,

[00:15:20] not really this next topic isn't really that positive. So once again, we're going to go into talk about the Wyndham hotel, the Wyndham mountain club hotel and a delay again, like they want to delay again. Like it just seems like every week there's a new update about a new different delay. Um, this, this week, this seems to be that a government or Senator Michelle Henchy questioned the planning of

[00:15:45] the board's hotel review and the ski mountains, um, said that she should, uh, they should tour that or, um, pause that planning as well. So I, I did some, a little deep diving yesterday. When I was at work, uh, once again, uh, I really don't give a shit at work, so I just do whatever I want. So originally the hotel wasn't actually planned. It was renovations that was planned.

[00:16:11] So they were supposed to approve eight townhouses. Instead, the Wyndham mountain club now wants to do 26 hotel rooms for detached cottage and villas, valet park in a small cafe bar and stormwater landscaping and stuff like that. So they didn't essentially in April, 2025, 60 plus townhouses, which would be eight kind of like that. And that was, that was at the time was approved. I think

[00:16:38] they, what's it was 80 townhouses, which was 60 rooms. Sorry. So then they, they changed and they said, Hey, we're building this. They want to, they want to build a that. And then now we want to build something else. So it started, uh, the proposal started on March 5th, uh, 2026 agenda that it said, um, excuse me, that they would have to look into, um, you know, ecological stuff, uh, if it would make an

[00:17:04] impact down there, because once again, this is located inside the Catskill park. And as that was going on and stuff, uh, three of sit Wyndham six planning board members recused themselves because they were in involved with the Wyndham mountain club. Uh, they had connections. Uh, I remember one of them or some of them were, were in kind of like the Wyndham mountain clubs, uh, what do they call

[00:17:28] that? Like business group or something like that. They aren't, they're just, they're not involved just in with skiing, but they do like the planning and stuff like that with the Wyndham. So three of them had to be, uh, excused from that. Uh, July 16th meeting, the planning board couldn't act on the hotel proposal because it didn't have a quorum. Horace was absent, uh, leaving only two eligible members. Then in August, again, we're talking about, uh, what is March, 2026? Uh, they face scheduling

[00:17:57] complications because O'Neill was going to be absent from Monday. So all of this goes on. And then the environmental impacts were approved saying that they weren't as of like a big environmental impacts, but the board considering had to consider things like stormwater, uh, damage, you know, lighting. They didn't want too much lighting because we, once again, being inside a park, you want it to be a darker park. You want it more nature and stuff. Uh, landscaping, of course,

[00:18:28] a bunch of different things that they, they added into that. And then definitely the mountain club is starting to get a little bit, uh, what do you call it? Impatient and stuff. And it just keeps going on and on. And then we saw at one of the, the meetings that a guy came up to the board and said, gave, gave him something about the Wyndham mountain club and he ripped it apart. I'm sure that was,

[00:18:54] was that it. Yeah. Some, uh, local resident brought up a full page newspaper article that was, uh, put in the newspaper in support of the proposed hotel and, uh, wanted to show it to the board. And I understand it was the chairman of the planning board stood up, grabbed the newspaper out of the guy's hand that like crumpled it into a big ball and threw it back at him. And just to clarify

[00:19:21] that when you refer to the planning board, it's the local town planning board that's made of typically seven people who are appointed by the town board. They get paid a modest stipend to do site plan approvals and environmental quality impact, uh, reviewing and determinations under CECRA

[00:19:44] with respect to whether or not a project can be harmonized with the environment and the community and its character, yada, yada, yada. Uh, they don't review the planning board does not review the financial feasibility of the project. And they are technically not supposed to consider in terms of the

[00:20:06] community impact whether or not approving a project will generate economic blight or, you know, harm other businesses because after all America is a capitalistic economy and capitalism means survival of the economic fittest. So if your hotel puts out a business, the other hotel, it's not supposed to be the planning board's concern that that occurs. But it seems like this project is on a rocky road,

[00:20:35] particularly after the environmental approval, because if they issued a negative, uh, declaration under CECRA saying that there will be no adverse environmental impacts that cannot be mitigated, then there's really not much left for the planning board to do it. And it becomes, uh, you know, just design details going forward. Apparently though, the state Senator Hinch, what is it? Hinchy,

[00:21:03] wants some type of impact study done. I think that's ill-advised. And like I said, 24 luxury hotels, uh, hotel units in Wyndham, I don't think is going to hurt the local businesses because I don't think the local businesses are catering to the thousand dollar, $1,200 a night market. Their bread and butter

[00:21:28] is, you know, a hundred, 200, 300 bucks a night during season. So if you get turned on to coming up and staying in this place at Wyndham and then you find out that it's a thousand dollars a night, arguably you're going to shop around and look for something more affordable. So who knows, maybe it'll kick off more business for the local proprietors. That's my sense. I'm not opposed to it. And it's going, it's, it's going in a largely developed area. I mean, you got a ski area there. It's like,

[00:21:57] it's not with, with snow guns at night. It's not like you're going to disturb the local wildlife. You do that every night that you're running the snow guns and you got the snow cats going up and down the mountain. Correct. So like, you know, today I was thinking, I was just like, so what does the Midwindow Mountain Club, do they have that sort of demand for, for that, the, the high luxury and hotels that people like a lot of people come up and be like, Hey, you know, we'd like more of this.

[00:22:27] You know, we are the more of the high end. Okay. Like, did they say like, Oh, this is a good proposal or is it just something I'm sorry to say? Like rich people do that. They just like think that they're going to make it big and stuff and then just build it. And then we've seen, didn't this happen? Like it wasn't the first time that the Wyndham, uh, ski resort was built. This happened like five to 10 years later, they went under bankruptcy and then the ski. Yeah. Well, ski areas fall on rocky

[00:22:57] roads all the time, depending on the, you know, the season, how, how strong of a winter they have or how poor of a winter they have. And certainly over the last 20 years, it's gotten harder for ski areas to remain in business because you're spending more and more money blowing snow on the mountain. And you're spending more money on insurance for, you know, various risks that you have.

[00:23:20] But I think statistically, uh, private or semi-private ski clubs like Wyndham mountain club historically do not perform well. And maybe one out of 10 or fewer actually survive over the long haul nearby where I grew up, there was a place called Holly mont and it still is in business to this day.

[00:23:47] They've been really well managed and it doesn't cost as much as they charge here at Wyndham mountain club. But, uh, Holly Mount's been, you know, in business as a private place for, you know, maybe 30, 40 years or longer. Um, but in the Northeast, generally these places don't do too well. And when you, you consider the cost of blowing snow on a hill, it's really hard for me to believe that you're going to be able to

[00:24:13] do it without like going like Hunter or Belair and just selling a ton of lift tickets to pay for all that cost. Yeah. Let them build their luxury hotel. Uh, I think I'm going to say six years from now, Wyndham mountain club out of business. That's my prediction. You heard it here first on inside the line. You heard the predict. I mean, I'm saving all of our listeners $250,000. Cause I know quite a few of them

[00:24:43] were ready to lay that down. And those of you who are going to spend $250,000 to buy your membership at the Wyndham mountain club, Stosh and I have a wonderful business venture for you. It's on moon hall road and you can contact Stosh for details. It involves buying us a luxury retreat at the end of moon hall called the moon hall mountain club. No snowmaking, no ski lifts, just fun.

[00:25:12] All natural, all natural. Even the cider is natural. And, and, you know, I was, I was thinking the same thing. How long will this last? Like what's going to happen afterwards? You know, we, did we see, we saw once again, how many years of great success with somewhat great success with the regular Wyndham mountain club. It must've been, once again, they started as cave mountain

[00:25:39] a while back in the sixties. And now I remember reading, I got, I wish once again, they went bankrupt in 1979. So that is what happened in 79. And then it became Wyndham ski Wyndham. And after that, it's been all to that. And then all of a sudden they were bought out. Once again, could that been because the person was losing so much money that they needed to sell it? Or was it

[00:26:07] because they saw that this environmental impact that we're having, that skiing is no longer like a sport that can be maintained up here in the, in the Northeast, because we're losing so much snow per year. And that making snow is just going to cost way too much. Maybe it was all the above. And it's just, it's, it's crazy to hear this, you know, once again, tad, you do have a good point. You've kind of changed my thoughts. Like if you build it, what's going to happen? You know, somebody is

[00:26:37] going to buy it out. Hopefully not like a private, another private person and they'll make it back to the public. And then we'll have more places to stay up in Wyndham for us poor people instead of the rich. And we can all enjoy having an inside the line podcast, live podcast from everybody having a hotel resort up there and stuff, you know, maybe. Yeah. And I, I also think in the short term

[00:27:02] that if the Wyndham mountain club is going to be advertising and promoting a thousand dollar a night luxury ski hotel, that's going to generate some level of interest in people coming up to ski. And when they see how expensive the rooms are, I really think they're just going to shop around. And when they can find someplace to stay at for two 50 a night, it's that much cheaper for them to

[00:27:27] come up to Wyndham. On the other hand, I think I said this on the last show or before, if I'm coming up to ski for two nights and it's going to cost me $2,000 just for my room, I'm probably going further North or I'm just going to hop on a plane and fly out West. Yeah. We said, we've said that every time. So yeah. Or I'm going to hook up with Brownski and,

[00:27:50] you know, hit platykill. Yeah. Right. Real cat skill scheme. Yeah. Um, uh, let's see what else. I mean, once again, uh, Henschey decide to ask to pause it. And then, uh, after that, we'll see what goes on. I know this will be an ongoing thing. We had October 1st was a formal public hearing and apparently somebody called out from the, the public that one of the people, Lisa Yager should

[00:28:19] recuse herself because she was on the Wyndham chamber of commerce. So she's involved with Wyndham mountain club. So it's just the whole thing's going on and, uh, we will keep you updated. We'll see where it goes. As we've seen in the past, I think it was 2023. They announced that they were going private as we've seen, it is not gone uphill. It has gone downhill. They used to have helicopter rides, helicopter rides are gone. That was probably the coolest thing that they did.

[00:28:48] They did. And everybody, I forgot what they, somebody, I saw somebody named them. It was like Wyndham mountain ice club or something like that, because all it is, is just ice. And who knows? Maybe some of the listeners have, I mean, I do know that they, they are private, but they do offer lift tickets for, you know, the public. And I guarantee that there's not 3,346 people

[00:29:16] skiing on Wyndham mountain club on a day or weekend or probably all year. I don't know. I don't know. And the one of the guys, one of the guys on this, uh, actually asked for a foil request. Um, yeah, wait a minute. Um, yeah, he asked a foil request when he called out, uh, one of the people on the Wyndham chamber of commerce, uh, seeking records related to the review process. So Ted is on your, your kind of, your kind of guy right there. Yeah.

[00:29:47] But we will keep that up and going and we will see what goes on. Of course. But other than that, Ted, I haven't really found that much to go on. Did you, have you heard anything about that, uh, tower going in Shandaken? I haven't been there in a while. Uh, well, Shandaken, big Indian. No. You say big Indian, the tower. Cell tower. Oh, okay. No, I haven't seen anything further on that. I haven't looked either.

[00:30:14] And I, I heard, uh, somewhere a rumor that there might be one going in Shandaken as well. So, uh, I know when you go into Phoenicia, you have no service whatsoever. Um, which, which isn't bad, but you know, once again, like they could get a little bit more publicity and stuff like that, but so big Indian and Shandaken would kind of connect the Catskills better connection service. So we'll see, we'll keep you updated. So.

[00:30:39] Yeah. So even if you put up like one of these 100 foot or 150 foot cell towers, it's not, it's really not going to give you the expansive coverage you would get elsewhere because you're in a mountainous area. And so at best, what you're looking to do is get connectivity along route 28 and they should be able to do that without putting up these super tall towers.

[00:31:01] Just put more towers up that don't go to a high elevation and maybe try to co-locate on church properties, maybe some municipal properties. Yeah. That are already along there and that they need or would like to have the ability to get an antenna up for their purposes on a cell tower, but not necessarily one that's over 75 feet tall.

[00:31:31] Yeah. And unlike 75 feet, like what's, I mean, what's that's the average of probably like two houses. Uh, yeah. If you say your average story is 13 feet and you take a two story building with a, a, a gable peak, you know, uh, attic in it, you're, you're around 36, 38 feet high at the peak. So you double that you're up 75 feet, maybe close to it.

[00:31:57] It's not bad. I mean, a lot of, a lot of people are, are for it. I remember reading local stuff cause I'm in like the Margaret, Margaretville chat and a Shandaken community chat and stuff. Just, just to hear around and see what people are saying. A lot of it is really funny. It's just like, I heard a sound, a large bang at 1 30 PM or 1 30 AM. What was that? Uh, there was sirens going over there. What was that? And then there's this that's informative and helpful. It's just so good old

[00:32:26] Facebook. I love it, but all right. I haven't seen anything else. Uh, that was shooting the shit. We would like to give a huge thank you to the monthly supporters, Chris Garabian, Eric Rosario, Oskana Nichols, John Comiskey, Mikey S, Desert City Radio, Henry Burmeister, Vicky Ferrer, Jeff Jotz, David Oliver, Vanessa, Jim C and John Dunn. Thank you guys so much for supporting the show.

[00:32:53] Greatly appreciate it. Also thank you to the amazing sponsor of the show, like outdoor Chronicles photography, Molly from outdoor Chronicles photography specializes in adventure, elopement and adventure couple photography in the Catskills, Adirondacks and white mountains. She's an officiant for getting married, a licensed guide, but most important, she is a story maker. Molly won't just give you photos. She'll give you memories that will last forever. Don't hesitate to get a

[00:33:20] hold of Molly on all platforms. Also, have you ever wanted to learn more about hiking or backpacking or even brush up on some of your old skills in the, in the back country? Check out trailbound project, a hiking and backpacking school. Scott and Joe from the New Jersey search and rescue team have amazing backgrounds in wilderness first aid, wilderness first responder and the mountain rescue association. And they're there to teach you all the new skills of hiking and backpacking.

[00:33:47] They teach everything from first aid map and compass and many other skills that could help you while I'm going to trail. Check them out on their website and every single social media platform. So, Ted, what, you said that was your first beginner. Do you got another one? Oh yeah. So I was just drinking a sparkling mineral water. Um, but is this, we've reached, if we reached the point in the show where we get to pour ourselves one.

[00:34:16] Yes, we do. Well, this is, this, I, I, this is an old format. So I got to redo this like up there. Cause I, I figured we do, we would do this before and give cheers to everybody who was really outdoors. Okay. So this is the frequent listener now knows I'm taking my beer out of the wall hiking sock because I'm not as sophisticated as stosh and I don't have refrigeration in my podcast chamber.

[00:34:50] Steen. I get the, I get the nod of approval with that. It makes me happy. It gets the, the God damn, that was good. That's basically what it is. It was that everybody doesn't remember that's it's like, hell yeah, that's what it is. And maybe if, you know, you've been listening to the podcast long enough when we crack them open, we're, you're kind of like Pavlov's dogs and you start to salve it. The sound of us opening our, our beverages.

[00:35:15] Correct. So got another one. Let's check this one out. Ooh, God damn. It got all over my phone. Tostache slurp. All right. What do you got? Big slurp, big slurp. All right. So, um, that's, this has been on the show before it's from zero gravity, uh, coming on from Bennington, Vermont,

[00:35:41] the home city of Bernie Sanders. For those of you who know who Bernie Sanders is, he started off his political career there, I think as a mayor. So at any rate, zero gravity, doc, doc juice. Nice. Coming in. Yeah. Coming in, in a very drinkable 7% alcohol by volume. And it is a juicy IPA.

[00:36:07] I will say of the IPAs I drink, this is the only one that comes with my wife's seal of approval. That means anything to anyone out there, just throwing that out there, but it's a juicy IPA that has a hoppy flavor burst of red berry, tropical mango, and a touch of lemon lime zest. And they say all that. I never knew it had lemon lime zest. There's something I've been missing out on the

[00:36:36] lemon lime part of it, but yeah, I pick up the, the flavor. It's nice. It's good. That sounds actually really good. There's a lot, uh, going on on that thing. Yeah. And let's not forget about the 7%. Yeah. That's, I mean, those, I have, I have rookie numbers. I was told that this, this weekend. So, uh, so I cracked open earlier at awestruck hometown

[00:37:04] homicider celebrating the homicider. Yeah. Hometown homicider. Yes. So, uh, barrel aged pumpkin cider is what it says. So good old Sydney. It's right down, uh, 20 minutes away from me. So good stuff. And then the other one was Sydney, New York. That's where that's from. Yep. Oh, okay. I know where that is. Yeah. It's good stuff. Is, uh, I mean, the,

[00:37:28] the logo is pretty cool. It has a knife in it. Uh, the sign it, see it. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's pretty neat. Um, and then the other one that I just cracked open was the raspberry bombshell hard cider. That's from up north in the Finger Lakes. Very delicious. Both are delicious. So you're, you're basically, you're like, um, an Irishman locked up with handcuffs. You got

[00:37:53] an alcohol in each, each hand, right? Hell yeah. There you go. And are you at all Irish? Any Irish? No, I am. Am I? No. Polish. Polish? Yeah. Stash. Stanislaus. So that's, that's my trail name. It's Stanislaus. Is it? No, I never knew this. We weren't, you listen long enough. You learn something interesting once every 200 episodes.

[00:38:18] Yeah. Right. I mean, how long you've been, you were like 125. So 240, so 120 episodes somewhat. Stop. I stopped keeping count. Yeah. But I've been doing it long enough that my accountant says, I can start deducting this on my tax return. These drinks, the IPAs, I can, I can, it's a tax deduction. I like it. Hey. As long as I talk about it, I can. Yeah. So that's, you know, for those of you who were thinking ahead of me, yes, I'm just doing this so I can deduct my, my beverages. Nice.

[00:38:48] I drink, I drink for free. Thanks to the government. Worth it. All right. So on to who was really outdoors. So a lot of people were actually mentioned the podcast on one of your hikes through social media, and we will chat about it on the show. Tag us by typing at ITL Catskill MTM podcast. So we have a little bit of time to chat a little bit more with no guests

[00:39:18] on here. So we will talk first about the, the big dog, Sean, the long Island hiker. Uh, he has been out and about for the past week and a half so far. No, it's, uh, he's doing a three week hiking. Just traveling. Yeah. He started up in the Adirondacks then he, for a week, and then he did a week down in the cats. And right now he's doing a week over here in the Schwan Gonk Ridge. Okay.

[00:39:44] So he did, uh, as of this tag, he did Hawkett as well as Catterstool Falls, North and South Lake and the Burroughs range. And then we saw him over on Hunter at the end of the hike. We got to see him when we met up with him and went over to Westkill and had great chats with him. Great to see Sean. It was fantastic to, I don't know if he, he said he wasn't stalking us, but I think he was, he was, he just, he did Hunter. So he was, he was gone and probably done in like 45 minutes.

[00:40:13] Yeah. I think there was a few people stalking us that day. We'll get into it. Yeah. But it was great hanging out with Sean. He's really nice guy, real, you know, chill vibe that he throws off and he's able to get out there and explore the woods quite often. So good to him. And then I, I missed that. He went down to the gunks and stuff, did a hike, uh, at Peter's kill

[00:40:40] falls and, and then, uh, saw mill falls, little falls and stuff was, uh, out there in Minneapolis as well and doing some hiking. So Sean is out there kicking ass and he has had, he has been the luckiest dude. He's had some great weather doing all this. Like he has had some killer weather. So good for Sean. Uh, thank you for tagging the show. Thank you for, for going out to have a drink with

[00:41:04] us. It was fantastic to chat with you. Uh, next Vicki hiker goddess adventures was up on Catterskill high peak. And then she also went down to the lemon squeeze. I believe, uh, had a client that she wanted to take that wanted to go to the lemon squeeze. So she took a different route going, uh, up to the lemon squeeze through, I believe she parked somewhere off of the Mohonk reserve and then went up

[00:41:30] to the lemon squeeze. And then she said the line was insane to go up to the lemon squeeze, just people after people. I believe she said she had an over an hour of wait to get up there. And I've never been there. I can't say that I've ever seen what it is like, like Tad, have you ever been to the lemon squeeze? Uh, yes, I have. And, uh, the times I've been there, it has not been, uh, crowded at all.

[00:41:58] Uh, but I've told that it does get intensely crowded and it's not that fun when you have to wait, wait, wait, wait to go through the rocks. Yeah. She said once again, true cow crowding got encountered. It was a wall of people, nice and patient and stuff. And our weight was still enjoyable. So she went to

[00:42:24] the labyrinth, uh, and lemon squeeze. So that's, that's pretty cool. And then maybe, maybe I got to plan a week to take off and then get down to the gunks and just, uh, hire Tad as a guide and have them take me all over the gunks and just, I have a party or something. Yeah. Well, you'll see later on.

[00:42:44] Um, one of our listeners tagged us for a epic gunk adventure. Nice. Uh, Tony TJ I 72 was over in Colorado doing some, I'm pretty sure he was doing over 10,000 feet of, uh, of peaks and stuff like that. Saw some snow as well and such. So Tony was just ripping it up over there in, in the West coast,

[00:43:11] getting over 10,000 feet. And, uh, I don't know if he's knocked off 14 years. I don't think he has, but, uh, if you have Tony, make sure you tag us because that's some pretty cool shit. And, uh, maybe get Tony on the show to have them compare, be like, how is it out West compared to the Northeast? And just like everybody says, it's pretty easy compared to the shit we got here. That's a triggered. That'll get people triggered. So many people are triggered by that. Um,

[00:43:39] moving on Mike, AKA the Catskill mountains hiker was up in the Adirondacks tagging white face and Esther. Congratulations, Mike. Uh, Michael Finn 59 completed three challenges. The Harriman trail challenge, the Harriman shelter challenge and the bear mountain trail challenge. So I'm going to look all these up. I'm going to put them on the show notes, uh, so people can maybe do this challenge. So Michael, thank you for doing, for completing those. Congratulations. That's awesome.

[00:44:09] Have you never heard of them? Neither have I. Yeah. So that was pretty, pretty cool. These challenges are all over the place. So, uh, jet shots and Orlo were in New Jersey highlands, exploring the Ramapo mountains with exploding colors. He said, so we had once again, this previous week, uh, Ted and I were, we're a little bit past peak. So these were both people in the previous week

[00:44:33] and this weekend, as we get further down, they were more this weekend. So, um, Todd Tebold outdoors did slide via the Curtis Ormsbury trail and had a perfect clear day. And then he went and did breakneck ridge today or yesterday, I believe. So, um, that was pretty cool. And then Todd also told me that when he was on slide mountain, he met two people who asked where Panther mountain was. Yes. You should

[00:45:02] see the reaction. Todd and I are having nodding their heads, nodding our heads and be like, huh, there's trail signs everywhere. And every junction has a sign that says slide mountain, but it doesn't say Panther. So maybe if it doesn't have that name of pointing direction, you shouldn't go in that direction, but, but well, we can. Yeah. Well, so Todd, thank you for probably redirecting these

[00:45:32] people and saying, helping them out and saying that this is not Panther mountain. You're looking at Panther mountain across that way. So summit slide mountain instead and have a good time. So Jim C did the bond trapped mountain half marathon in Vermont looked pretty, pretty cool. He said he had snowflakes up there and then he went and did Mount Mansfield and said he did all sorts of stuff out

[00:45:57] Mount Mansfield in Vermont did like, uh, apparently Mount Mansfield's profile is shaped as kind of like Indian head mountain. They have something called the nose, the chin, stuff like that, that, that leads up to the summit. So he did all of that and it looked to be a fantastic day. He got open views at the top of Mount Mansfield and that is an open summit. And it's one of the, I didn't have views on the top there,

[00:46:23] but it was one of my most favorite hikes because you get above tree line pretty quick, the way I went and it was just absolutely beautiful, stunning. So congratulations, Jim. Uh, Maria M a Jose 9 18 was out doing trail maintenance with a 3,500 club. Thank you for volunteering Maria and also did some more boot installations at the Catskill center on the man.

[00:46:49] I thought I put this on here, but I guess not. Oh yeah, it's down there. So, uh, well, uh, boot brush station at thorns preserve. And then we saw a good old friend, Jack in the photo. He is the buddy that created our logo and different stuff like that and did our banner and everything. So Jack, thank you. And Maria, thank you to everyone who volunteered for both of those excursions. That's

[00:47:13] a pretty fantastic promote volunteering and in this podcast. So, uh, James, John O'Boyle did Windham High Peak as well as doing the nine for his first time. So congratulations, James. That is fantastic. And once again, like I must be a little behind because I went to bed early the other night. So

[00:47:51] I'm trying to keep up our auditors are updating for this. So they're recompiling and double checking the entries me. So yeah, I said, did the nine with John, Jen, and Scott, I believe. Yeah. And who else? Uh, Sam, John, Jen, Sam, and Scott. So they did the nine. And then apparently today he

[00:48:19] tagged us for, he did fur. So we did 33 of 37 for the regular season peaks for us. He just has four winter peaks with Sam. So pretty cool. Once again, did a fur, uh, and big Indiana Blair for just for, so that's, uh, it's different to just do fur alone and not both. Like he must've had conditions. Yeah. Where he had already done big Indian. Didn't want to go over there.

[00:48:50] So congratulations, James. It was great to tag on the show and great to have you on the show about your North full plastic trail hike and Brown ski. We talked about him before Andy did a little patrol and lift training on Plattekill mountain. So they're already starting to do their stuff, getting ready for the season. They had snow the other day, uh, which was it? Was the day we got that crazy rain Saturday morning? Yeah. Crazy. It was, I mean, we've seen snow here this early easily

[00:49:20] many times. So cool. Keep talking about that Brown ski. Uh, once again, ask Danielle, if she wants to do an episode with us and we'll chat about Plattekill mountain and stuff. So Danny, mildly mischievous was out on West kill when we were out on Southwest hunter and hunter. I was extremely disappointed that I heard about this later and I was like, God damn it. We could

[00:49:45] have met up with them. So apparently they did West kill and Southwest hunter. So when we were probably coming down, they were going up devil's path and doing Southwest hunter, we should have had two cars. That's fine. Well, you should have had your Jeep. We would've parked one at the West kill parking area and then one at the, uh, the Hunter and somebody would have seen them. Yeah. It's like a hundred

[00:50:08] yards between the two. I mean, it's like probably two tenths of a mile close. It's not, it's not enough for a car shuttle. True. True. But really it is. But anyway, uh, Rob, the sloth tramps, uh, tramps did Parker cabin and black ash mountain down and, uh, the, uh, what is it? Harriman Parker? Yeah. That's yeah. That's what I think it is. That's what their photos looked like was looked like Harriman

[00:50:37] that looked, uh, I I'm very jealous. Cause that's like, Oh, like you said, you, you've hiked there before just viewpoint after viewpoint. So it's my kind of, it's a completely different forest. Um, and if I remember, if I'm thinking of the right post that the sloth tramps put up, it looked like they were doing some pretty intense grilling activity on their routing. I don't know if it was more of a hike or just a outdoor barbecue.

[00:51:06] It's like an October fest celebration or something. Yeah. They were doing their own. Yeah. It looked pretty fantastic, you know? And I was thinking, thinking of that the other, once again, I am doing the winter winter hiking. I really don't bring my stove and stuff on me, on me, so I can heat up some, some iced tea or something like that, but I'm really considering it this year. So I can heat up some ice tea. Are we going to heat up cider?

[00:51:33] Well, I mean, wouldn't you just make the tea hot as opposed to starting with iced tea? I mean, True, but then you got to wait and everything like that. If I make it at home and stuff like that, and then just have it ready, I'll just boil it up and then we're done. I think it's, it doesn't take any longer than just starting from scratch. Hey, I don't know. Hike your own hike. All right. Yeah. All right. Make your own tea. Drink your own cider. Drink your own. True, true. Drink your own IPA. We have a whole bunch of like,

[00:52:03] like slogans here. This is, this is getting out of control. All right. Uh, Katie Henderson hikes was on Shunnamoak mountain, enjoying the view in all directions. And Tad, you brought up some facts about Shunnamoak. Yeah. So it's, it's interesting where Scunnamoak mountain is it's, it's down in orange County, just to the west of Harriman state park.

[00:52:28] So a lot of people think that it's the same rock formation, the same geology as the Harriman area, but it is not. And it's actually, uh, was formed, uh, through the same Devonian sedimentary system is the Catskills. So the Catskills is, are, were formed as part of an erosional basin from an ancient mountain range. And the same thing for Scunnamoak mountain,

[00:52:58] but the rock, when you go to Scunnamoak, you'll see is significantly coarser material and thicker grained material containing larger rocks and pebbles than what we find in the Catskills. So Stosh, why do you think that is? Why do you think Scunnamoak contains, uh, larger cobbles and pebbles and thicker grained fine material than what we see in the Catskills?

[00:53:28] Uh, it's probably has to do with the Hudson and that the glacier flowed down there that way. No. So it's when, so it's when the, the, the mountain range, uh, Acadian mountains were eroding, you know, 350 million to 400 million years ago when they were undergoing that erosive process. And, uh, to some extent wind, but to a greater extent, melt water was

[00:53:56] conveying away from the mountain range, the eroded material, the rock, the pebbles, the cobble, the sand, the grip material that those, uh, streams and brooks that are acting basically as conveyor belts. The heavier material is going to settle out first. And the finer material that weighs

[00:54:20] less weight, that's less dense than the heavier material is going to be able to be conveyed further away from the mountain range. So the larger stuff settles first, that Scunnamoak. And then when you get to the Catskills, when you hike through the Catskills, you'll notice that the, that bigger material, um, the rocks with the bigger cobbles in it are along the escarpment and on the eastern edge.

[00:54:45] And then as you head west, you start seeing less and less of the cobbles and you're just seeing really the fine sand sedimentary layers. And that shows kind of the sorting process that occurs with the larger, heavier stuff falling out of the water closer to the source than the fine material makes it further away. So there's a little geological history evident there.

[00:55:14] Nice. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Was that, did you learn that from, uh, I learned that from, uh, no, I learned that from looking it up and my past time about reading of geological, the geological history of the Catskills. And if you go out west to these areas that, that erosive process is actively occurring at the present time, you'll see that sorting where

[00:55:39] when you're in the center of the valley, you're just riding over really fine material. And then as you get closer to the toe of the slope of the mountain range, it just gets, the material gets bigger and bigger as you approach the mountain range to the point where it's boulders and such. True. Nice. Nice. That's cool. We need another geological person on there. Maybe Danny will join us back. Danny's retired, right? Yeah. He's well, he's semi-retired. He still does some consulting work.

[00:56:06] Oh, damn. That means he has restrictions, right? Oh, I don't know about that, but... Oh, okay. Good. Uh, reach out, reach out, Ted. This is, I'm asking you to reach out. This is your, this is your time to do your, some, some good, good for the podcast. All right. Besides drinking and chatted. Hey, he's, he's done good. He's done good. He's chatted with a lot of people. So, uh, onto the next Chrissy G was doing the beast maker challenge, 12 mile loop, or you can do an

[00:56:36] extended 15 mile super beast across the Sean Gunk mountains featuring technical rock scrambles, varied terrain and elevation gain. Have you done the beast maker challenge, Ted? Yeah. Well, my daughter and I used to do our own, we had a figure eight loop in the gunks that entailed,

[00:56:57] I think eight of the 10 scrambles that are part of the beast that they're referring to here. And part of our loop, we did not include the labyrinth or the lemon squeeze in part, because you just run into too many people going through there. So we did the, the other ones that are part of this, uh, beast or super beast, which are lesser well-known. And some of them you rarely see people on because they're so

[00:57:28] under the radar screen and the gunks. But are they, they fun and stuff like that? I mean, scrambling is awesome. Yeah. I mean, some of them are the first time you do them, at least for me, you know, especially when my daughter was really young. The first time her and I did them, I was kind of concerned about the safety versus sketch factor. Um, but she did really well. And I remember the first time that she took off and did an unmarked scramble, um, when we were there one day. And I think

[00:57:58] that was kind of like peering into her future to become eventually a rock climber. Cause she really just got into doing that stuff. Nice. Yeah. That seems, it seems pretty freaking cool. Like, I mean, any, anything that involves scrambles and stuff like that, would you compare this to something, let's say like twin West or the fair end of, of Wittenberg to where you have some scrambles or this way sketchier, like longer stuff like that?

[00:58:27] Yeah. Yeah. I would say that all of these are probably more technical and challenging than anything that you're going to run into on marked trails in the Catskills. And these are just marked areas in the gunks in, in the gunks, you can go anywhere you want. You can scramble up anything

[00:58:52] you want to go up. Obviously people go there with technical equipment and go up vertical walls, you know, do technical climbing there. Um, but the scrambles, you know, you can scramble anywhere you want to scramble. And so we've scrambled all over, you know, East and West side of the, the gunks. Um, there's just a lot of talus slope there, and there's a lot of scrambling you can do.

[00:59:15] We used to go into lost city, uh, and I'm not, I want to say climb, but it's really not climbing in there. But when you, when you fall, you can go down pretty far because the voids are huge. I mean, your whole body would easily fill it, you know, fit into these voids between the rocks. So if you slip and fall, you can literally go to where, I mean, when I say go to where you can't be seen, yes, it's dark

[00:59:40] and it's far down. If you're a father there with your young daughter, you're the whole time you're thinking about, oh boy, I, I can't, I can't go home if something bad happens out here. So you'll be dead. Yeah. Right. So cool. But apparently I pulled it off. My, my kid right now is down in Kentucky, uh, for the indefinite future climbing in the red river gorge down there. Nice. Nice.

[01:00:07] Crazy. Crazy. So cool. Check it out. If you want to check out the beast maker challenge, looks pretty fricking cool. Yeah. We'll do it. When you come down to, to hang out with me, we'll go over and do the beast maker. I'll make you, I'll do, there's a 10 scrambles. I'll make you do a cider before each one. Oh, that that's tough to finish it. Like before each one. And then halfway up, I'm just going to like, what are you saying? You're a lightweight? Definitely. Okay. I mean,

[01:00:34] I wouldn't say I'm a lightweight. I mean, everybody's a lightweight when they have to chug a fricking hard cider or a beer. Like, right. I mean, unless we're like 19, 20 years old, we're going back. Like I, nowadays, but yeah, have you ever shotgun a slider? Yes. Not the smartest thing I've ever done in my life, but it's, it's trying to, we have, we have next to us, we have a bunch of college kids and they kind of, they're, they're really cool dudes. They're, they're college coaches

[01:01:02] and they, they have fun. They party and they were over there doing that. And I was just like, I wanted to make a good impression on them. And they're just like, yeah, let's do this course. Like I'm like, ah, I drink cider. Well then like, go get one. And they did it. And that wasn't the smartest decision of my life. Well, there it is. Gotta, gotta mark that again. Damn it. Anyway, Jesus,

[01:01:25] uh, Rachel Jean, the gypsy queen was with the trail sisters, Catskills doing the six. So this is a good thing. So a cool thing, Rachel, um, stepped out of her boundaries of hiking solar with Josh, uh, and went with the trail sisters and see, she said she had a great time. She's very cool. Yeah. Download the app trail sister Catskills. I will post it in the show notes. If you want to get with someone about

[01:01:50] that, um, it's, it's cool. We had Christie on there a couple episodes back about the trail sisters, Catskills. It's great organization. Um, and Kelsey is in that as well. She's a runner and stuff like that. I asked Rachel Jean if she, if she did running and stuff like that, she's like, I'm not freaking crazy. It was a hike. I'm like, that's cool though. Like the six of the challenging is one of the more challenging hikes that you can do. And it's great to do it with other people and stuff. And, uh, Tad

[01:02:20] and I are planning on doing the, the 19, I guess. No, that's a, no, it's Snyder's. Yeah. The 19 one from every row in the cooler. I mean, hell yeah. All right. So two, two out of every row. Cause there's only, there's only nine rows in there. So well, can, can you, I mean, we talked about that before. Ken, you've done the six. Can you do the six again? Uh, even after like when you're

[01:02:46] progressed a little bit more into next year with a shoulder injury? Oh, I would, I would like to do the six in December. Cause that's when it next comes up on my, my grid list. And so all of you listeners jot that down and think of me come December. The limiting factor for me is going to probably be whether I can carry or not carry snowshoes on my pack. Cause that'll put me over my weight limit.

[01:03:11] So if it's a day, you don't need snowshoes or if it's a day that you're going to need them end to end, I'm, I'm down for the six. Okay. I will, I will jot that down. I'll take the day off and do that because I need some of those for my winters as well. So everybody keep that in your, in your back of your head. So we should just, we should just look at the forecast when, you know, the time rolls around, we'll pick a date. We'll put the call out.

[01:03:39] We'll get a group together. I don't know about the sloth tramps. Cause I just, there's something about that name makes me say, I don't want to hype with those guys. I don't know. They have good, good food, man. Yeah. But I'm, I'm not a meat eater. So that's not necessarily a turn on for me, but I'm sure. Yeah. I'm sure we can put together a group of, you know, four, six or eight people, something like that. But the six is a fun time for me. It's, it's just long

[01:04:05] enough to be a great hike that the nine is too far for me. But the six, yeah. But the six I'm down for. Yeah. Um, all right. So cool. So once again, keep that in your mind, Joanne beyond bases was up with Danny doing West kill and Southwest hunter. Sorry, we missed you, Joanne. Yeah. You know, it's, but, but it's interesting to see that Joanne is out doing a crazy hike like

[01:04:31] that. Cause I think she finished her grid. So she must be hoping, yeah, she must be helping, uh, Danny with his. I mean, not all of us are motivated to get grid or some list done. Kind of like me. I just like hiking and I like hiking with, with people sometimes. Yeah. After this weekend, it becomes sometimes. Yeah. I mean, it's funny because when we were on the, when we came back,

[01:04:59] Sean didn't actually thought we'd think we hiked together and I was just like, yeah, we've, we've, like, I mean, it's been three times, but I mean, we've known each other for about a year, a little over two years now. So it's like, yeah, we've, we've hiked three times long distance stuff too. So it's, it's pretty well, you're, you're, you're counting that day with my Kudish long distance. It was a long hike for Mike. I mean, that was, that was, I mean, it took like, it took longer for us to hike

[01:05:25] that little 1.25 mile section than it did hiking freaking Southwest hunter. That was a very cool day. Learned a lot that day. Definitely. Definitely. Uh, Danielle, which in the wilderness did a nice short walk, the Esopus fire tower. She was also before she was down on this Bruce and Valley, I was actually driving by there when she was at the, I thought she might've been at this Bruce and then so I was thinking about her. So, uh, Danielle next time, let us know. Yeah. Apparently that's her,

[01:05:55] her hangout when she comes up to the Catskills is to hang out the Spruce and then. And from what I know, it's a pretty cool place. So if you're looking for a place to stay in the Catskills, that is not a thousand dollars a night. 100%. Yeah. And they have that, that little bar right now down there, right? Like I forgot what it's called, but I was, I think they call it the little bar, the little bar. That's that's for Danielle's place. Danielle's second great place. Um, Nicholas

[01:06:24] golden money cat got his patch and some merch for completing the fire tower challenge. Looked really cool. I liked that little scarf that he got. That was cool. I gotta admit that they did a great job on that. Um, last but not least Serena Marie 46 or well, not, I got another one actually. It just came up. Uh, Serena Marie 46 or did a quick hype of the Zora before work, man. I wish I can do that. And then

[01:06:50] let's see. I just got, Ooh, maybe I, I hold on, hold on, hold on. Oh, maybe I didn't. All right. So sorry. I threw, I threw a, a James O'Boyle in there. So cool. Uh, so once again, how many tags, uh, people wise or, uh, tag wise did we have? We have 22. Wow. Like I came up with consistent

[01:07:18] number of the twenties, which is fantastic. I'm so we're, we're, we're so grateful once again, that people are listening to the, uh, to the podcast, listening to everything and, and tagging us. It's just great community. I can't say any more crazy community. So, uh, it's, it's awesome. So previous hikes Ted, what'd he got buddy? Uh, I didn't get out. Yeah. I had to stay home and do,

[01:07:44] uh, work all weekend. Did you get out? Had to, yeah. The lawn. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I haven't mowed it since May. I've got the bailer out. I had to do, you know, bailing and, uh, all that stuff. Yeah. Nice. Put it in the barn. You, you got it. I have like, I have like those big hay rolls on my front yard now, you know, from cutting the grass and rolling it up into those big balls and then put like plastic on it. So it looks like I have marshmallows in my front yard.

[01:08:12] Nice. And then you can turn them into like, uh, some pumpkins and stuff like that, that they'll do for, for October. Yep. There you go. So I paint them orange, put some black stripes on them or whatever. You can tell, you can tell this story because I got, I went out today. So you can tell. Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, you know, so what's there to say? You and I, we, uh, we hooked up on Sunday. Uh, it was a brisk morning. We drove to the end of Sprucedon road. We parked in

[01:08:37] the, the lot for the start of what I'm going to call the horse trail up to Hunter mountain. It's the, the trail that folks also start off on to go up generally to Ross mountain. So we parked our vehicles there. And then according to Stosh, we did the long slog down to the end of Sprucedon road where we continued on. And just to point out that, that, that lot was okay at the time,

[01:09:04] this was eight o'clock. So it was okay. And we saw a lot of, uh, cars that still had their frost on the windows. So we wonder how many people camped overnight and stuff there. So it's a long sloth. Sorry. Yeah. So, so apparently when we were there unloading, uh, down at the end, we didn't see was, uh, Sean was also kind of like waking up and getting the sand out of his eyes and getting ready to go on his hike. Right. So, but we, we set off, um, uh, down the, the road to, uh, diamond notch

[01:09:33] falls where we, uh, continued on up the devil's path proper to the junction to head out to Southwest Hunter and yeah, made our way over to Southwest Hunter. I don't think we, other than the, the folks that were taking glam shots down by the falls, we didn't see anybody. Um, as I recall, all the way up to the canister on Southwest Hunter on the way back halfway through the rail bed.

[01:10:03] Yeah. So we started, yeah, we ran into the two people from, uh, central Pennsylvania, the couple that had about a four hour drive, uh, from central PA to come over here and do some Catskill hiking. They were going to be here for two days hiking. And then we continued our way on to devil's kitchen, the lean to there where we ran into the three college students who all were, um, I take it they

[01:10:29] were grad students at Albany pharmacy pharmaceutical college and, but they weren't studying to be pharmacists. They were going to other, uh, areas of medicine. And the one woman, if I remember correctly, the one woman was the, was she the national high school champion and high jumping? Yep. Five, five, five, six, six. Yeah. Her name was Amanda, Amanda, Caden, and Josh.

[01:10:54] Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. So Amanda could basically jump over Stasha's head, maybe crouching just a little bit. Right. So they were very cool. They were out, they were out backpacking. Um, they had spent the night before down in devil's tombstone. They were doing the devil's path in two days. Um, but it was fun seeing them out there overall, my assessment, and I hate to say this if you're listening, but my

[01:11:18] assessment for a one nighter was they were carrying about 50% too much gear, right? They, they each looked like they had at least, you know, at least 40 liter packs, if not 50 that were just full of whatever. Um, and this was towards the tail end of the hike. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, but again, you know, they were all young and athletic enough that maybe that might not have been much for them to

[01:11:45] carry, but I've, I felt pain just looking at that. So then we, we continued our way up, um, along the trail that goes from devil's kitchen up to hunter mountain. I think that is probably one of the best trails and the cat skills. And frankly, that whole segment from the end of Sprucedon road up and back to

[01:12:11] Southwest hunter along the rail trail and up to hunter mountain through this, uh, the beach grove. And then the spruce grove. I just think those are two wonderful or three wonderful, if you would, um, areas in the cat skills to hike. And we did check out the viewpoint on our way to the fire tower because Stosh is doing his fire tower survey for the DEC. We figured if they paid what 400,000 for the

[01:12:38] counter skill falls studies, 600,000, six, oh, 600. So Stosh is going to send them a bill when he's done for 300,000 for his viewpoint study where the recommendation, we already know the recommendation is that people need chainsaws to cut down trees at the viewpoints. Right. But we're going to make it sound scientific. We'll have a lot of photos and charts and tables and graphs and all that stuff.

[01:13:03] And tree size. Yeah. We'll, we'll have AI come up with some fake authorities for us to cite. So we look very scientific in our submission. And then, you know, one of the great things about doing that hike is generally speaking, when you take that route going counterclockwise from Sprucedon road, and you finally make your way to the fire tower, one of the most interesting things is, is when you turn that corner to walk out towards the fire tower, what are you going to see?

[01:13:33] Because sometimes I've turned that corner to walk out there and I am the only person and I have the whole place to myself. Or you turn the corner and maybe there's like one or two other people there, but we turn the corner and I'm going to say that was reasonably active. Stosh counted 31 people out there. So there was a lot of people. We walked up to the top, the cab wasn't open,

[01:13:59] but we walked up to the top of the tower, snapped some photos, chatted with some people. Um, and then we hung out there. We, we probably took at least, I'm going to say 20 minutes to a half an hour break here. Yeah. And then the Stosh, uh, forced me to have a summit brew. I really didn't want to, I think it's over promoting alcohol consumption while hiking, which is something I'm adamant and

[01:14:22] I'm against, but he, he pulled out a, uh, an industrial arts, uh, torque wrench IPA. And I said in the name of Brownski, I'm cracking this baby. And I did, it was delicious. It was good. It's kind of like, you know, bread in a can and Stosh had his cider. Um, then we made our way down the horse trail, which in, in certain spots, it looked like it had been

[01:14:46] recently graded. Right. Yeah. And we checked out the, the view and the remnants of the tagging at the John Rob lean to the view is almost the same. I think it's, I think it's one of the better views in the Catskills. And if you're only going to camp out one night ever in the Catskills, that's probably one of the best places to go and camp out one night in the Catskills,

[01:15:12] particularly if you're going to get a clear, uh, sunset. Cause I think that's a great place to watch the sunset. Then we, we continue the hike. We saw that the spring was dry. Um, and then further down from there, that's what, what was the guy's name again? Natsos. Natsos. So Natsos was from Schenectady York has very interesting backstory, um, with music and with life and whatnot.

[01:15:39] And we ran into him. It was, wasn't an afternoon or around 1130 or noon, something like that, or one, I mean, it was late later in the hike and he was, he was on his way up to the fire tower. And I think Natsos had more gear than the overnighters we ran into by Devil's Kitchen, the collegiate, right? Yeah. Well, he had the fanny pack. But it wasn't a fanny pack. It was on his belly. So it was like, what do you call that? The belly pack?

[01:16:09] Belly pack. The belly trunk? I don't know. But yeah, he had, he was, and it was a few liters. It might've been like five liters. Right. And then he had backpack. Both of them were full. He was carrying the bear spray, right? The orange canister. And he had a bear bell. Yeah. So yeah, he was definitely like, he was like the I R E I poster child, uh, in hiking boots going up to the top of Hunter mountain. Uh, but he has a great life story. We enjoyed chatting with

[01:16:37] him. Um, and I think he, I think he forewarned us when we stopped to talk to him that he was a talker. And I initially I was like, yeah, well, wait till you hear me talk buddy. You know, I'm a talker. Right. And no, he, yeah, he definitely out talked me. He was like tad square. Yeah. And I was like a hundred feet down telling you to shut up and let's go. Yeah. No, but I, no, like I said, you know, he had a really heartfelt story. Uh, one of his sons

[01:17:06] died, uh, from a fentanyl overdose. And then he told us, uh, a little bit about his mission afterwards with music and that. Um, so you got to feel for a parent that loses their child. To addiction. Nonetheless, we, we eventually parted ways. We went down to the junction with the old hall road that goes down towards Hunter. Um, whereas there's that thing that they tie their

[01:17:32] horses to, to rest them. I'm sure, uh, Tracy knows what that's called, but that's where we met the fellow that was coming down from East Rusk. What time was it? Like one 30. Yeah. It was, it was pretty late when we ran into him. It was late enough in the day that we were like at max heat and he was, he was, uh, struggling, although he refused to take any electrolytes from us. Um, but he thought he was going to continue to Hunter Southwest Hunter and make it back to the

[01:18:01] parking lot. Um, and per our most recent check of DEC rescues over the weekend, they didn't report anything up on Hunter. So. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And then we did, we did run into, uh, just after we met with not so, uh, we did run into, I think it was three people, two women and one guy. Oh yeah. That had, that had hiked to the fire tower from the ski area where you can take the chairlift to

[01:18:29] the top of the ski area, uh, walk a stub trail out to that main trail, go up to the fire tower and then back down. And they had on the way down, they had missed the turnoff. And so they were, they asked us, you know, where they were, how much further to go, yada, yada, yada. And, uh, hopefully they made it back. So nonetheless, we, we continued on, we made it back to the parking

[01:18:53] block where out of stage left stepped Sean, the long Island hiker. We chatted with him and then we decided it was, uh, you know, the three of us was a good reason to head on over to West kill, take in the afternoon sun, have a cold beverage before we embarked on our trip home. Yeah. I think that was basically the hike. It was. Oh, I should point out. I should point out that just about everybody we ran into, if there were

[01:19:22] is. So, and I, I noticed this, I didn't say this at all to you. And I hope, I hope you don't find this upsetting, but the, uh, social sociologist side of me, uh, interpreted your conduct that day that every person that you encountered, you, if you felt they were cool, you talk to them about the podcast, but if they weren't, you didn't mention it. Uh, yeah. Yeah.

[01:19:52] Come on. You need to agree with someone. Yeah. I was, no, it was like, it was, it was so evident to me that there were the cool people. You were like broadcasting the podcast and the, the not so cool people. It was, uh, it was not so cool people. Oh, there was a few of them. There was a few of them. I, I preached about the podcast the whole time. I know you did. It was like, like I, we, we probably would have finished around if we started at eight 30, we would have been done by nine 15. If it wasn't

[01:20:19] for stash and the podcast promotions. And then one of us, I won't say who it was, but one of us did put a podcast sticker in the canister, the register canister thing. Do not do that. By the way, I, I was, I had like four summit brews, forgive me, but Mike, Jim, very sorry about that. They,

[01:20:45] I know they don't listen to this. Oh, Mike does Mike, Mike, I extreme, I apologize so much, please. Um, but to piggyback on your, uh, thoughts and stuff about the, the hike, you know, it was a fantastic hike once again, started off chilly, but we, we, we started off. I did my heli Hanson and you did your, your, your terics windbreaker. And I, like not even a quarter of the way up

[01:21:10] Southwest. I took mine off because it just, the light was beaming down on us and it was, it was warm, no wind at all. Nothing. It was a warm day and no ice at all had a fantastic, like the whole fricking way we had fan that we, we both didn't shut up. Like it was, it was great. Yeah. I mean, we were, yeah, we weren't even talking to each other. I was talking to myself. Josh was talking to himself. Yeah. It was better than podcast. Yeah. It's, I mean, Ted has so many stories to talk about and it was just, it's great. Once again,

[01:21:40] I'm usually by myself every time. So, you know, I don't get to chat with anybody, but having, you know, Tad to chat with and stuff and to point out some, some history of this and, you know, both of us talking about the Fenwick lumber company and just running into people, those like was, was fantastic. It felt, I had a post about this. It felt like, of course, on the, the devil's path side of Hunter mountain and such, there was the dedicated hikers

[01:22:07] on the other half going down to Sprucing was sweatpants, sweatshirts and a water bottle. And I, I, I relate to that. Cause it's like the lady at the top, we met Adrian and Tyler. Tyler was having a Hudson North and that was cool as heck. And they were coming up for their sixth, sixth or fifth or sixth anniversary of doing this as a mother and son. So that was cool. But they were,

[01:22:32] once again, they were just regular people coming up from October fast, got the ski lift up to Colonel's chair and then did the hike up here. And it was like, we were sitting in the sun and it was blasting. There was no wind whatsoever until you got above tree line. And there was very little, it was still warm as heck. But Tad mentioned that going that the, the beautiful forest going from

[01:22:59] kind of like the devil's acre leading to up to South or to Hunter is beautiful. It definitely is. But there's definitely needs for improvement. There are some mud pits in there that could easily be handled. That triggered me like crazy. And Tad would be talking and then I would be like, mother bleeper like this crap. They just put a new roof and a new steel door on the fricking thing, but they couldn't fix this. That's a quarter of the mile for the thing. And then Geiger Point

[01:23:27] over on Southwest Hunter, Hunter is gone, is basically gone. And then there's another viewpoint that they have an actual trail to that shows a big star on it that people go to that get disappointed because there is no view whatsoever. Everything's blocking it. So there's, they, they did the roof. They allow my, I'm grateful, I guess they did the roof on the cabin. They did a new steel door that has a fricking one of those locks that, that you can, you have to type the number into, but they couldn't

[01:23:57] go down two tenths of a mile and fit fix this absolute mud pick that now we have both sides of new trails going on. And then, yeah. And well, and they basically those, the rocks that they use, the stepping stones they put in there, they're free because they get them from nearby. It's not like they go to the home Depot and, and buy fake rock and bring them up there. They just grab them. They harvest them, you know, from 10, 15, 20 feet away. They drag them over, put them in the center of the

[01:24:27] trail. Uh, they don't have any of that, but so one thing kudos to Stosh. Um, we made it our mission on the way down. We haven't mentioned this, but you did mention how, um, you seem to have the more seasoned hikers coming up the devil's path over to the, the fire tower and the, the more tourist, uh, travelers coming up from the ski area and coming up from Sprucedon. And we noticed that in

[01:24:55] the trail trash we picked up. Oh yeah. Yeah. We had the hall, a hall that probably, you know, came in close to a pound of a big, uh, regular shopping bag. Yeah. Of the whole, yeah. The whole variety from hand warmers to, um, remnants of, uh, snack wrappers, plastic things, tissues.

[01:25:21] Yeah. You, you name it. We found it. It was almost kind of like a treasure hunt on the way down. So, yeah, we cleaned up along a lot of trash along the way. Um, and we did some also, you know, round our cars in the parking area. There was a lot of stuff there. I threw some stuff in my car. Um, so I mean, I, I, I expected that. I mean, but once again, like the hand rumors and stuff, I was very surprised by there was a lot. Yeah. So, and then that's, it's either going up or going down.

[01:25:51] So I'm guessing somebody stayed the night and was too cold, but you know, Tad, Tad had the benefit of the doubt. And he was like, maybe it fell out of somebody's pack or pockets or something. They were keeping it warm. So it, it wasn't, once again, it wasn't a hassle. I mean, it was, I got what, uh, like three quarters of the way I kept taking off my pack, putting into my pack and get up. And I was like, screw this. I'm just going to fricking put my poles away and then carry the bag. And it wasn't

[01:26:18] bad. It wasn't once again, just we're helping out doing our duty as, you know, leave no trace people. That lightning. That was weird. Uh, I guess it was, you heard that? Yeah. I saw, well, I saw in your, your, your background, your thing looked like a flash over in your window. Yeah. I think it was a, uh,

[01:26:44] very hard car, loud car going by. Oh wow. Okay. Yeah. You need to understand. I'm like a few hundred yards from the road. So when you hear a car like that, it's unusual. Yeah. So it was great. Once again, to the re the outreach we had was fantastic, you know, people hopefully like they listened to the podcast and they, you know, get some good information and they started a quest of, you know, whatever they do in the Catskills. And it was, it was a good time. We agree. I had a great time chatting.

[01:27:12] Yeah. And had a brew with Sean afterwards. So it's good. That was fun. And somebody left a banana. Somebody left a banana on my car. Yeah. Somebody left a banana. That was weird. And, but I want to say congrats Ted on kind of your first big hike in the Catskills with a backpack and your hiking poles, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, how did you, how was, yeah. How was your, how'd you feel at the end? How was your, your shoulder? Yeah. Well, I, I felt a little strange. And when I got home,

[01:27:42] you know, I did some like home therapy with the heat and the ice and the yada, yada, the stretching and all that stuff. But, you know, it wasn't so much a test of my shoulder, um, the bigger test. And I know there are listeners out there that have been through a similar experience that will understand this. The, really the biggest experience was getting out of my car in really cold conditions where there could be ice out there. And we did see freezing water at times. And after all,

[01:28:11] I slipped and fell and hurt myself standing on a big rock. That's how I dry my shoulder. Yeah. And so it wasn't like I was doing anything sketchy at the time. I was doing something that us hikers do literally dozens, if not a hundred times during your typical Catskill hike. And so here I was setting out to basically do a 10, 11 mile hike, whatever it was, um, at least on the way up

[01:28:37] over those types of rocks and those types of conditions. And I was, I was happy with the fact that, you know, I didn't have any anxiety or trepidations about slipping on anything during the day. And to me, that was like a, a big win is to be able to go out there and just not even think about wet and slippery rocks. So that was, for me, that was the takeaway other than

[01:29:04] Stosh and his bag of trail trash. And How about what let's, let's start off. We, we totally forgot to start off with you testing my pack in the morning. What'd you, what'd you think? With, with my left hand, by the way. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's ridiculous. Okay. Fucking ridiculous. Even for those college kids that were doing the overnight with like the oversized pack. I mean, that was, they were full, but it wasn't dense.

[01:29:33] It wasn't rookie numbers. Those are rookie numbers. Yeah. Stosh, I think he's got like two cinder blocks at the bottom of his pack. Cause he just wants to say he's carrying 40, 50, maybe 60 pounds. I don't know what it is, but it's, yeah. You never know. It's, it's, it's, it's a first aid kit. I have a first aid kit for. Yeah. Also with, with that kind of pack weight, why did you only pull out one cider? You obviously have like a six pack in there.

[01:29:55] I had, I had my, my electrolyte. I had my cider. I had my, what's it called? My power aid. I had a Arizona iced tea and then I had my water bladder. So, and then I had chips and then I had my, my sandwich. So it's all I, all I had is I had three quarters of a liter in one Nalgene, half a

[01:30:19] liter. Not even that it was the other one wasn't even full. And then I had my 12 ounce industrial arts IPA. That was the most weight. Yeah. That's a fantastic, you know, you, you did it. Um, I, I mean, I hope you had a good time. I hope it was comfortable. I mean, it's, you know, it's a fire tower, blah, blah, blah. There's no view, but, but I mean,

[01:30:43] I, I had a, I had a fantastic time. So that's it. That's all that matters. All right. And, and, and, and truth be told, um, we did the whole hike. We stayed in front of Dan and Joe animal. They never caught us. Yeah. They never caught us. So that's means we're, we're powerful and fast and yeah, it was a good pace. We had a good time. So, um, okay. So what about your hike today?

[01:31:10] Right. So Sunday I come back and then I'm, I'm just like, what the hell am I going to do? Tuesday? It's going to be beautiful day. I had no clue. So I was just like, I got to go up to bear pen and see the viewpoints up there. So I did not want to hike the normal route of bear pen. It's boring. It's, it's blah, blah, blah. You go up fricking gravel and then up to the slaughterhouse

[01:31:36] and then it's just a snowmobile trail. It's blah, blah, blah. So, uh, I go back and I look for my friend, James Hobson, who does absolutely insane hikes will hike from anywhere that there is a DEC parking area, or he can fit his car and we'll do any bushwhack hike. It's phenomenal. So he posted about hiking from the George Lawrence road. You ever hiked from over there, the west side of bear pen,

[01:32:04] George Lawrence. I'd have to look at it. Is that, so is that on the north side? No, it's the west, like Vega Denver area. So it's, it's like two roads over from where route three is. Yeah. I've, I've come in from there. Okay. So you come in on a long dirt road? No, no, this is actually paved. Oh, is it? Yeah. Hold on. Let me see what, uh, streams are over there. It's, it's actually paved all the way to the end until you get to the,

[01:32:34] the George, the George Lawrence road used to go all the way over to like the other side of, of bear pen, like North bear pen somewhat. It's there was a ski, there was a ski area off. Correct. Correct. I know the road. Yep. Okay. So there's a weird parking thing. Like the D there's D P property and there's D C property.

[01:32:59] So I had to figure out where to park. So I, I, I put on my, my car, my car does everything for me. And I put on where the map is and where I should end. And I get to that spot. And then there's fricking massive signs of private road. Do not enter private property. Do not enter.

[01:33:21] And I'm just like, but is it really? So like, and I, my, my car, one of the spot, one of the roads that like splits into one of the roads, I definitely, the, the, the Tesla wouldn't made it too low profile. I couldn't have made it up that road, but it had big, massive signs that said, do not enter the other way. I could have made it down to park on DEP property off of the road a little bit, but I didn't feel comfortable. I was just like, okay, you know, I want to follow

[01:33:51] the rules. So there is a, at the end of the road, somewhat before the private road signs, there's a snowplow turnaround. No signs that say do not park snowplow turnaround or posted or something. So I parked there and then right up at the end of George Lawrence road is an access area to D C D P property. So I was like, fuck yeah, this will be a great, you know, cool thing.

[01:34:15] New area going up bear pen. It's, and dude, I got to admit it was very, very awesome hike. Like, um, I would have to say 98% of the time I was following either old log roads or just old roads that led up onto bear pen. And it was fantastic. These are still groomed, no blow down whatsoever,

[01:34:44] just fantastic trails. If you go on Gaia there, they're kind of marked out there. So I followed mostly Gaia. And then I did my, my white guy look as well. Cause they have them marked. And the first way I went up, I didn't go up to the left. I went to the right a little. So it leads you to the bowl of bear pen. And then you could, it's sort of like kind of just mellows out and such. And then you have

[01:35:14] to climb like, it's still, it's still, it was like, I think the total hike was around 5.8 miles with 1300 feet of gains. So it's, it's pretty good, but there's one part of where you're like looking towards the middle of North bear pen and bear pen. And you got to make decision. Like, do I follow this all the way around to a different part of bear pen and then hike up? Or do I just take a left and fricking bushwhack up this steep crap? And it was crap. Um, I just took a left and

[01:35:43] I was like, what the hell, this will be fun. It was crap. It was the low ash trees that just whacked your face. It was slow, like talus stuff, just slippery rocks. And it was just smacking me all over. So when you say low ash trees, were they more beach whips or hobble bush? Uh, I wouldn't say beach whips. So they were, they were a little bit thicker than, than beach whips.

[01:36:09] So probably like one to two inches in diameter hanging down and just all low, all over the place. Good, good for strong handholds, but whipping you in the face and you kind of kind of, once again, you find the path of least resistance. And I was set all this whole time. I was on all DEC, DEP property. I stayed on everything that I could once again, and I wore bright orange shirt. I had a hunting vest

[01:36:38] on my backpack so they could see me because once again, you know, most of the time I told Jessica, I'm like, these hunters shoot themselves more than they shoot other people. So she's just like, well, that's good to know. And I'm like, yeah, it's, it's pretty weird statistic. So I got up to a certain area, kind of mellowed out and I'm like, okay, I'll hit the ski trail soon. And I did. And I hit the, or the snowmobile trail, I hit the snowmobile trail and then I had

[01:37:03] to take a right. So you're on the ridge, right? Yep. Right. Exactly. In between North bear pen and bear pen, like seriously in the middle. Um, and then I hang a right and hit the snowmobile trail and it's, you know, I thought Hunter was bad. This is worse. Um, the last time I was up here, the pits like eight feet deep. Like it was, I, I seriously was just like, oh wow, this is,

[01:37:31] you know, I went up here a lot. Last time I went up here was during winter and I traversed it in like a foot and a half, two feet of snow. So it wasn't bad, but this was mud pits all over, um, hit the, the pond, you know, the pond that they had up near the top of bear pen, get to the viewpoints, check all the viewpoints out. One of them is kind of fading away. Um,

[01:37:54] the cool thing was, is I was over on the West side of bear pen. There was no wind whatsoever and it was hot. So I stayed over there. But when you go over to the East side of that viewpoint on the East side, right on the edge of bear pen going down, it was freezing and it was windy. So this like brought me to our, uh, episode with Alex talking about the microclimates and then also talking about,

[01:38:23] um, when rush came on the show and talked about how bear pen collected more snow than any other place. And I was just like, wow, it's like 10 degrees cooler. And then it has a wind chill. Like this is insane. And I took a video of it. So I'll have to, I'll have to post it sometime, but I seriously was just like, wow, this is pretty crazy. How, how different fricking 50 yards could

[01:38:47] be on, on the top of a summit Ridge. Like it was super cool. And, uh, after that, you know, I had my lunch. Uh, the only thing is, is I, I had to stop at like a Stewart or my Hannaford and get a bag of chips because I didn't have a bag of chips. So I brought a whole fricking bag of chips with me and you can't eat lunch without chips. I can't, I can't. And I'm, I, I, I'm sorry for Rachel Jean.

[01:39:14] I didn't have, I was supposed to bring up my thickness of peanut butter sandwich that I was supposed to have, but I had to finish up some, some rotisserie meat that we had from Saturday. So Rachel Jean has like a minimum thickness in order to call it a PPNJ. She, yes. And, and she wanted to, she wanted to, for me to show because I eat massive amounts of peanut butter. So she

[01:39:42] wanted me to show that. So, um, after that I descended to the same exact, almost the same exact place where I came upon the ski trail and then I started to bushwhack again, but I found a little bit more easier entry point to where it wasn't as thick and it wasn't as steep and it wasn't as like talus field and stuff. And it was just open woods. It was beautiful. And then my, my goal of the day

[01:40:09] was to hit. There is a spot that my friend James showed that is right on the edge of DEP property that has the old Roxbury ski center T bar pulley system. It seriously is the Roxbury ski center, the whole pulley system. I sent you the picture of this. Yeah, I saw it. It's pretty cool. Yeah. It's right on the edge of the DEP property. So like you can see it and you can kind of like touch it,

[01:40:35] but anything beyond that is, is private property. So my, my goal was to find that. And I kind of knew where James was talking about, but I sort of didn't. So I followed this ridgeline and this old road. Once again, these roads are all over the place. They're beautiful roads, well-groomed. And I was just like, I look up and I see the spray paint for the DEP property, the orange spray paint.

[01:41:02] So I'm like, listen, he said it was right on the edge. I'm going to bushwhack up to that, which was only about like 30 feet. And I'll follow that line. And I was following that line. I'm like, I'm not going to find it. I'm not going to find it. And then boom pops up. I'm like, holy shit. There it is. It's super cool. Once again, a little tiny place on the other side of bear pen that was, I think like four runs. And it had this T bar system that is massive,

[01:41:26] that this massive rock that it was drilled into and pulled back upon. It was just super cool to see. And that was my goal of the day. And I found it. And you know, super happy about that beautiful color, on the trails and stuff came back down. And on my way back down, I see some people working on the side driving down. I see some people working on the side of a street. And I was like, Hey,

[01:41:53] what are you guys doing? And a lady comes over and she's like, Hey, we're from Trout Unlimited. We're doing like bank erosion and fixing it with native trees and stuff like that. And I'm like, Oh, well, I do a podcast. Like, let's get you on the podcast. And she was just like, well, Jesse is over there. He's our outreach person. So he comes over. He's like, Oh, I've listened to your podcast a couple of times. Like this is, it's fantastic. So we'll have Trout Unlimited. I'll

[01:42:18] reach out to Jesse, uh, to them. But, um, the one thing that I noted that coming up from this area, man, Roxbury on that side, the Denver Vega area has fricking mega expensive houses, houses, like these houses are top notch shit. Like I've like, I was like, Whoa, like rich people,

[01:42:43] massive 500 windows and stuff like that. Like sitting on the edge of the fricking mountain. I'm just like, Holy shit. These are crazy, but beautiful drive, beautiful day. Only like 5.86 miles. I think it was 1300 feet of gain and at a grand old time, bear pens, viewpoints are still okay. Um, but it was, uh, just a fantastic day. Probably got sunburned. So it was pretty cool.

[01:43:11] And your primary purpose for this hike was to find the ski area. Correct. Correct. And I, I, I, once again, I thank James Hobson, my friend, James Hobson, who does all these exploring, he posts about them on Facebook, but like, he is like, does all mostly off trail shit, like blue lining, uh, finding old, old remnants of things. And he is not afraid to post

[01:43:37] where he started, you know, and the, the, the parking areas and everywhere. He's like, cause this is all public land. He's like, he believes public land, the public should be open to this. And number two, he thinks that like the people that would only do this are the dedicated people like me and you and stuff like that. He's like, no person that sees this from the Hudson Valley area is going to come up here and bushwhack fricking bear pen mountain with no expertise in

[01:44:06] navigation. So I did use guy a lot to navigate and to find my, my way up the ridges and stuff like that. And the old roads and stuff. So it was pretty cool. It was pretty, I didn't rely on map and compass, but I, I relied more on my phone and different, uh, uh, the different app of, of guy. So it's pretty

[01:44:26] cool. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. Uh, cool hike. Uh, I recommend if anybody wants to reach out to me on water park, it definitely, it definitely is sketchy because I was questioning myself and it was, uh, yeah, well, a lot of those, um, easement access points into the cast kills over private property

[01:44:53] are not policed by the DEC. And over time, the landowners that have the private access going over their property, you know, post signs indicating, you know, no trespassing, no this, no that yada, yada, yada. And they, they do create this like in this like wall of intimidation. Yeah. I think that,

[01:45:19] yeah, you think that you don't have any right of access over that land, but you very well may. And you can check with the DEC to verify whether you do or don't. And I've talked to people over the past, people who've reached out to me to, to ask me, you know, what my knowledge is in terms of the status of various points of access. And, you know, I've needed over the time, over the time I've been doing this to confirm this. Um, and I know other people that have, but yeah, it's something to be

[01:45:46] concerned about where you do see all that signage. But generally speaking, my experience has been what you see on Gaia is showing as DEC land is, is accurate. You can also go on the tax maps, which are available online for the county that that property is in. And they all have these clickable tax maps online that will tell you who the owner is. It won't tell you where there are easements,

[01:46:16] but you'll see a lot of these access points on DEP or DEC, where they just have this little sliver of land that goes out to the public road that then serves a point to get in. Yeah. I was going to ask you about that. Cause I know you approach from like a lot of times DEP property and D like it's, it's, it's your thing. Like, so, so, and the one thing is with the DEP,

[01:46:42] I think more so than the DEC, the DEP goes out and flags their property. Typically they mark the corners of their property with three orange bands. And, uh, they also were very good at putting signage up to designate that it's their property because in part, they need to stake out their land to keep other people off of it and, you know, to preserve their rights to that land. But there's, there's a

[01:47:10] certain level of controversy over the DEC or rather the DEP having acquired all this land in the Catskills over the last 25, 30 years, which I can understand to a lot of local people, that is a drag on that land getting developed. It'll never be developed. But on the other hand, if you're a hiker, it's great. So one of the places, yeah. So one of the, one of the, you can compare and contrast, you can drive

[01:47:38] down Sprucedon road as we did this past weekend. And there's a lot of access points to both the ridges on either side of Sprucedon road via DEP land. And, and also in many instances, DEC land, but there's a lot of DEP access points along that road. Then you go over to the beaver kill and you drive down that road and there aren't any. And that's by design of a landowner who had bought

[01:48:07] up a lot of that land over the years in the seventies and the eighties. And then he sold it off, a heavily restricted the buyers from him and what they could do with their land. And in particular, one of the restrictions he put in was to prevent access to the ridges over private landowners properties. So when you drive down through there, there's some great, uh, water features along the

[01:48:33] beaver kill that you, you won't see without trespassing, right? There's the Hardenberg suspension bridge over the beaver kill that you and I, we know of. And a lot of hikers in the Catskills haven't been over it's the only suspension bridge in the Catskills. It's pretty unique. Unique as fuck. Yeah. And that's your, but that's your only access point, um, along the paved

[01:48:57] portion of that road to get to that side of the ridge. Yeah. It goes like 10 or 12 miles without any access. Yeah. And it's, you know, uh, another great resource to kind of map out stuff is, uh, uh, open street map. You ever heard of it? Yes. It it's, you know, coming from Oneonta going over

[01:49:20] like near platyc Hill mountain and stuff. I see DC access all the time, like DEC DEP stuff. And I'm just like, Ooh, I wonder where that goes. Ooh, I wonder where that goes. Like some of the times I kind of, I'm not saying blackout, but I blackout looking at that stuff. And I kind of like, Oh shit, I got to get back on the road. Like I almost, I'm, I'm probably going to go off the road with that fall over an embankment. Hopefully Elon builds you a self-driving car soon.

[01:49:49] I got to get full self-driving for it to do on the back roads with no lines. I mean, if I do that, then, then I could just stare off into eternity, but it's, it's really cool. Like I went on the Buffalo hollow unit, which once again, like, it's just like the, the access area, it shows at the end of one road, there's a, it's right in the middle of the, or right at the beginning

[01:50:14] of the DEP property. But once again, the signs going up there say no access, uh, the, the low profile vehicle couldn't have got it. I guarantee your Jeep could have probably went up there, um, right by a, a, a frame house that looks well established in the recent years. Um, so who knows, you know, maybe past that tad, your, your Jeep could have went fricking three quarters of the way

[01:50:40] up to the bear pet mountain, you know, but I suggest if you're looking to do some exploring to like, like, like Ted and I do like, check it out. Like you never know, just stay on the property, uh, at this time where you're, you're bright colors, because even though they shoot themselves, they, they might shoot you. Um, but it was a good time. And, uh, and you made it home safe.

[01:51:06] Yeah, exactly. You know, uh, on the way home, I did see a RV for sale, but it was like a 1990s RV. So it was really weird. So didn't have somewhere to sleep or something. You had to take out the couch and make it a sleeping area. So it was weird, but you, what you, you checked it out. You went like open the door and walked around inside. No, all the windows were open. They didn't have that. Okay. So I took pictures. Those were the way it was really different.

[01:51:35] So, but anyway, uh, glad we, we both got out and it was fantastic time with you, uh, Ted on Sunday and had a fantastic time ago, bear pet mountain. So let's get together for the future. We'll see. Uh, definitely this, this Sunday, I might be going out to balsam mountain with Jessica and John,

[01:51:56] um, because Jessica has to complete her one time of balsam outside of the winter. And, uh, just, uh, John, my buddy, John might be going. So, oh yeah. So what's, what's that, uh, balsam, um, balsam, balsam, balsam. He's looking at his, yeah, his, his grid, grid 8.0. Yeah. There's not,

[01:52:21] there's not a lot of open spaces in the October column on my grid 2.0. Okay. I remember you saying something. So, but anyway, moving on to volunteer news, 3,500 club. Once again, they have a patch for participating in 3,500 club events of volunteering. You could do, I think it's up to

[01:52:45] seven, uh, uh, events to do like, uh, you know, uh, put in the boot brush stations, going up to trail volunteering and stuff like that. Uh, being a trail steward and you can do all that stuff and get a patch for it. So, uh, also trail to Catskill trail clue. I'm pretty sure they're done with their season, but reach out to them about next year. And to be a volunteer for the Catskill trail crew,

[01:53:09] Catskill mountain club, visitor center, jelly rovers trail crew, and any fire tower you can think of probably, excuse me, my new volunteers. And also if you need stickers, ask me or go to your local canister and you might find some stuff in there. Oh, Mike Sudi is going to kill me for this. All right. Well, maybe, well, maybe they'll get Mike on the, on the show. I know maybe

[01:53:39] he'll, he'll call us out in the middle of the show. I re I gotta, I reach out to him again and be, and tell him so weather forecast, what is it going to be this week? Here is your weekend weather forecast. This weekend looks to be a fantastic weekend to be out, but it's going to be crisp and low in temperature. So don't forget to bring your layers. Friday will be sunny and crisp.

[01:54:05] Valley should start out in the mid thirties and warm up to the mid fifties while the summits will be around the twenties to low thirties in the morning, reaching the upper forties and low fifties in the afternoons. Winds will be light with no precipitation expected. Saturday looks even better than Friday with mostly sunny skies and very light winds. Expect the valley temperatures to reach mid to upper fifties in the afternoons and the summits to be in the low forties in the afternoon. It'll get chilly in the start,

[01:54:34] but there is no rain in the forecast, making it great for a hiking day. On Sunday, October 25th is another beautiful fall day in the looks. Expect mostly sunny skies with valleys starting around the upper to low thirties and warming around to 60 degrees in the afternoon. The summit should start around the upper twenties to low thirties and reach the upper twenties to low fifties. Winds will remain light and precipitation chances are essentially zeros. So it's going to be cold mornings, but yet

[01:55:03] comfortable afternoons, light wind, and basically no rain all weekend. Sounds like a weekend. You should get out and get hiking and tag the podcast. Always remember when you're out there to be safe, be prepared and don't become tomorrow's rescue story. Back to you guys. Last set of sponsors. And then we're going to call it a night. You know, Tad and I are getting old. We're on two hours of just ourselves.

[01:55:31] Jesus. Good Lord. Yeah. Well, there's probably only one listener left listening this, this late into it. I know I should probably look up the statistics of that, of who actually listens through actually the, the, the episodes, but I, I thank everybody who, who goes through the whole thing. So yeah, we call that the ultra ultra ITL. Yeah. Inside the line. Yeah. And if you do like, if you do a whole year of listening to the end, we'll give you a, we'll come up with some patch.

[01:56:01] I will, uh, actually that's a great idea. Yeah. If you can, if you can assure me that you have listened to the whole episode, send me a screenshot or it's gotta be, it's gotta be more than just one. You got to listen to X number of likes. So you gotta like, you know, it's a list, like a grid, you know, you gotta, you gotta complete the grid, uh, send in proof. It might be that like your spouse divorced you, you have no friends and that'll be sufficient proof that you spend too much time listening to

[01:56:30] the podcast. And, and while you're all listening to the podcast to the bitter, bitter, bitter, bitter end, um, we'll get Dave from, um, uh, downstate 28, uh, come up with like some cool patch or sticker. Cause all of his stuff is really cool. Check it out. 25% off to use inside the line, all caps, but yeah, Dave will come up with something good. It'll be the new challenge for you.

[01:56:55] Listening through a whole episode. Yeah. Yeah. That's horrible. Oh my God. Uh, amazing. So let's head ahead. All last set of amazing sponsors and then we'll, we'll call it a night. So is it time for some new gear for hiking in the cats? Definitely say some, no more camp cats. Go in tannersville has all your hiking needs footwear socks, moisture wicking shirts, freeze dried meals, catskill

[01:57:20] merchandise and more. They have all the essentials for your hiking needs located in tannersville and online checkout camp catskill. If you want free stickers stop at camp catskill. Also check out another summit, a nonprofit program that leads outdoor adventures and activities for veterans and first responders for free outdoor adventures like walking, hiking, paddling, and even backpacking.

[01:57:45] We welcome guardians of all ages and ability levels, including those with accessibility needs. Our adventures are located throughout New York and the Northeast, and we organize transit accessible adventures throughout the Hudson Valley and the New York city area. Apply today on another summit. All right, Ted, we're going to call it a night. All right. Good. Thank you so much for joining me,

[01:58:13] us and had a great time with you on Sunday. Let's get together and do this again. 11.5 miles, Ted. Congratulations. You know, you're one of your first like high peaks back with the injury. That's impressive. Yeah. Yeah. It's good. Like I feel good. Good. Good. Uh, talk to you, see you next week or hopefully, you know, maybe see you again and we'll, we'll chat in the future. All right, buddy. Awesome. Have a good night, man. Bye-bye.

[01:58:45] 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. You can also check daily updates of the podcast, hikes, hiking news, and local news on Facebook, Instagram,

[01:59:09] Twitter, and the official website of the show. Remember this, you got to just keep on living in the Catskills, man. L-I-V-I-N. Wicked, wicked, wicked, wicked.