Episode 244 - The Catstail Marathon with Matthew Kleinknecht

[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 244, tonight Matthew Kleinknecht? Kleinknecht. Kleinknecht? So close. Do you want Matthew or Matt? Matt is fine.

[00:01:21] Matt. So Matt joins us tonight. Recent finisher of the Cat's Tail Marathon, 26.5 mile marathon in the Catskills. Not as popular as the Escarpment and not as popular as the Manitou's Revenge. Yeah, I don't know popularity wise. I did do the Escarpment earlier in July. So I did do both. Not as popular. So Matt's going to join us tonight to talk about that.

[00:01:46] We're going to talk about the Cat's Tail and what it entices and stuff like that. And how he did and what he did along in that run to complete it and finish. Because I probably wouldn't even do half of that. 13 miles is a big day. So welcome, welcome Matt. Anyway, welcome Matt. Thank you for having me. Yeah, yeah. So I mean, when this gets released, it's going to be the day before Halloween. So happy Halloween everyone.

[00:02:16] Hopefully everybody's putting on their suits or suits their costumes and going out and trick or treating. And Tad will be giving out free stickers and pens and stuff at his house. So stop by. Yeah. Excellent. It's interesting because where my wife and family lived before where we live now, we would literally get hundreds. And I'm not exaggerating. Hundreds.

[00:02:43] If I said a thousand, that would be a slight exaggeration. But hundreds of trick or treaters. Here, not a single person comes to that house. I saved so much money. Before I used to take like a little equity loan out to buy truckloads of candy. And now I don't have to buy anything. And, and the real problem with that is, you know, if you bought all that candy, you would arguably have some leftover to snack on. But now we don't have, we don't have any candy in the house.

[00:03:11] So yeah, that's my, my bitch about Halloween these days. Hey, I mean, but what, oh, Stosh, no, I need another thing. We need to, we need to understand what the rules are. I know F bombs you said are no longer permitted, and I'm going to lose my seat on the show. If I drop the F bomb, you made it pretty clear. What about bitch? Am I allowed to say bitch? That's okay. That's acceptable. F bomb is acceptable. I'm going to say we're trying to make it a family show.

[00:03:40] No bombs, but okay. So, but that's going to stir up some controversy. Yeah. So this is a free for all show. Just to let you know, before you let your kids listen to this, it'll be once in a while, once in a while. It's, it's life. You know, there's a movie that has it and stuff like that. It's life. So this, it happens naturally. It doesn't happen. Like I don't say, oh, I'm going to insert the F bomb here happens naturally.

[00:04:07] I say, I don't know how many times on a hike, I say the F word. Okay. That's like, that's like one of the measurements we go, we do mileage, vertical ascent peaks, and number of F bombs dropped. So a lot of why the F am I out here doing this right now? Yeah. Right. Why the fuck am I out here? Like, sorry, but, but it's, it's, it's true. It's life. That's what this podcast is. It's real. I'm not going to do, do that. So that's hiker talk.

[00:04:37] Yeah, exactly. Mike, Mike, we judge it or Matt judging. How many times did you say that on the cat's tail? Uh, I lost count, especially with the weather, when the weather went to shit and it's it, but it's, it's part of it. Right. And it's not, it's not there as a negative, a negative, uh, impact. It's there to, you just, it's something you work through. That's the way I look at it. You know, I, I, I kind of drop F bombs.

[00:05:05] Like some people put parsley on their dinner. Right. True. Just adds a little spice to things. So, uh, Stosh, do we need to make Matt take a solemn oath not to unnecessarily drop F bombs during the show? Okay. We don't have, we're not going to be that formal. Okay. No, but all right. So now that we have the rules out there. Yeah. So the rules have been laid out and not really it's, it's just, there's no rules. Uh, what was that in? That was in a movie talking about rules. There's no rules, man.

[00:05:35] Um, but anyways, a huge, no, exactly. There's no rules in, uh, inside the line. So there, there is. But anyway, a huge shout out to Serena, uh, Lafayette, Mike, Sudi and Tracy pink pony 18 for finishing last week's show. I was very curious who would respond to that and said they actually finished the show. Uh, you, I mean, it was only two hours long. So that's, that's one of the shorter kinds of ours, but still, uh, just me and you chatting. Uh, really appreciate it.

[00:06:05] You guys get a big high five virtual high five. Awesome. And awesome. Yeah. Right. I mean, it's, it's just funny. And I want to, uh, are you Tad? I know you're a 3,500 club member, Matthew. Are you, I. I, I've never officially submitted. I, I was never a list guy. I just hiked mountains when I wanted to hike mountains. Um, I did calculate at one point, probably a year ago.

[00:06:30] I'm probably three or four short of my second round of 35. Wow. But no formal submission or anything like that. Okay. Have you ever seen their patch or logo? Like, uh, hold on. Let me see if I can share this. Uh, Ted, have you ever seen it and noticed how weird it is? Well, I've seen it. I'm not going to say it's weird. I mean, that's isn't weird on the band list.

[00:06:59] I mean, not be right up there calling things weird. I know it's not weird, but it's, if you ever looked at it, it's, it's different. Not bad. It doesn't say Catskill 3500 club. It says Catskill club 3500. So I'm sharing the screen right now and hopefully it'll go through. See Catskill club 3500, not cats. 3500 club.

[00:07:29] But that's, I think that's just spacing. I was going to say it's if you read Catskill and then 3500 and then club. It would be weird, but I just, I always say I was somebody pointed that out to me like a while back. It was years ago. And I'm like, what the, what the bleep? And then like, I was just like, okay, this is, this is different.

[00:07:52] I mean, it's not like I'm looking at the club differently, but it's just, I've never noticed that when I got my patch years after I got my patch that it said Catskill club 3500. So check out your, yeah. So check out your patch. Yeah. And then, and then let us know, not really let us know what you think. Just check it out and, and tell us what you think somewhat. All right. So wanted to bring this up because it's kind of funny.

[00:08:19] We always like to bring up these good instances in New York state. And then kind of like any, any instance in the United States on this, this happened up in the good old Adirondacks. So I'm guessing that this is received kind of national news because it's, it's pretty interesting. So on October 10th, 1239 PM, Raybrook dispatch received a call from a hiker's family member reporting a hiking group loss in Seward mountain in the Adirondacks.

[00:08:48] The hiker sent a satellite text to the family member asking them to call forest Rangers for help. Unbeknownst to the family, the hiker also sent a satellite messages directly to the Rangers. Rangers, Jeffrey and Lewis conducted a ground search and Ranger Martin searched the air with New York state police aviation at 3 44 PM. Rangers, Jeffrey and Lewis located the hikers from Staten Island packing up their camp near Ward Brook. Now they were not lost.

[00:09:16] It turns out the previous day, Lewis fielded two satellite messages from the same hiker and both times Ranger Lewis guided them back to the trail. So this is the third instance of meeting the Rangers again. It is likely that the satellite message to the family member was delayed in sending until they had better cell service. So these guys up in the Adirondacks get lost twice, get rerouted back. We'll get lost once, get rerouted back to trail, get lost again, rerouted back to trail.

[00:09:45] And now the third time they hear something from the forest where they see the forest Rangers and they're like, Hey, do you guys need help? They're like, not really. You've already guided us twice. And then they're like, Oh, why, why did you contact us? And apparently it was a better wrong self-service. So three times, third time is a charm, I guess, up in the Adirondacks. That's crazy. Interesting stuff. Very. It just Adirondacks have been crazy.

[00:10:13] I mean, I've, I've, I posted something earlier about the trap dyke of where somebody was rescued again in the trap dyke. And this is, I don't even know how many times within the past, like three or four months that someone has been rescued out of the trap dyke in the cat in the Catskills in the Adirondacks. Now this is going with the Avalanche Lake. You're looking up Mount Colden. There's this massive gash in the mountain.

[00:10:38] Uh, and people find it because I don't know, it's Instagram crazy or, you know, tick tock crazy or people like, Hey, you know, check this out. And all of a sudden they're like, Hey, I could climb this yet. The route is a climbers route and it should be taken with extreme costs in it. And you should have extreme expertise in this kind of stuff.

[00:10:59] Uh, I don't know if I would even do that, you know, without hiring a guide because I mean, I've done some sketchy shit before, but, uh, the, this, this is a little bit beyond the side. You got to know your conditions and stuff. And it's October. Yeah. Well, and that's, that's nonstop sketch, you know, doing 20 yards.

[00:11:20] Or even a hundred feet of sketchiness is one thing, but this is, this goes on for hundreds and hundreds of my, uh, feet. You know, it's not like just a short sketch segment, but what I want to know about, about this double or triple satellite call is they, they had, uh, New York state police aviation. And presumably that's a helicopter looking for these guys.

[00:11:50] Um, they were out twice looking for them and then they find out that they were in camp the whole time. Right. Is that what happens?

[00:12:27] Yep. For sure. Yeah. Nobody's going to throw like a, a, a foul flag. Give them a penalty. I mean, you're, you're, but dialing SOS at that point, more or less. Right. And it's like, unbeknownst to them, they're sending these messages out, not to their family, not only their family, but to Rangers who have to go out and, and, and search. But it's the, not, I want to say it's the callousness, but it's the carelessness of, of the technology. Now it's, it's useful, right?

[00:12:56] The iPhones all have the SOS, but you, you still need to know how to use it properly. Yeah. I think, I think, uh, Matt hit the nail on the head when he said, people are now butt dialing for a rescue. I have a story about that. To be honest. All right. Let's do a little side quest here. So in Massachusetts, I was hiking, um, on the shoulder of Greylock. It's a ragged mountain.

[00:13:20] There's about four or five like, uh, cliffs that, um, are like offset and they give you a nice big grand view of, uh, Greylock and in the surrounding valley. I think it's one of the better views in that area. And I, it's a trail I'd never hiked before. I had my, my, uh, GPS going in. I got to one of the cliff areas and I went to go take pictures and my phone was locked in the SOS mode somehow. I don't know if water spilt on it.

[00:13:49] So I swiped to get out of the SOS mode in it kept dialing 911 and I would stop it and it kept out. So it was repeatedly, I, I actually, when I talked to the state police and it was a different dispatcher every single time, I'm just like, I'm not in an emergency. My phone keeps obviously doing this. It's not, you know, totally by malfunction. I had to break my phone. I literally broke my phone. Cause I couldn't shut it off like power. I couldn't power it down.

[00:14:17] It was just locked on the screen of constantly dialing 911. And now I'm on trails. Yeah. And I'd never been on the trails before. So I did, I kind of had a good sense of direction, how to get back to where I was going, but yeah, it was, uh, so I can see if it's a, if it's a malfunction and it happens, it happens. Right. There's nothing you can do about that, but this doesn't seem like it was a malfunction case. I mean, yeah. Except for the third part. Like, I mean, the, the first two parts, you know, Lewis is probably like, Hey guys, good to see you again.

[00:14:47] Trails over this way. Right. Exactly. It's just, and you know, the, the, the, the other thing, Ted, uh, that you kind of, you know, kind of made me started thinking about is they involve aviation. Like, like that's like, that's for me in New York state, that's serious inquiries only. Like that's a serious situation. Yeah. I, I, I wonder who these people were and what they said to get like a helicopter search going so fast.

[00:15:17] It's not like it was winter time and they're going to die overnight. These people presumably were prepared to camp overnight. Right. Cause that's where they met him the second day. So how was it? They got, uh, a helicopter out there so quickly for them. I don't know. Right. Yeah. I was just thinking, I was just like, wow, that's a, that's a pretty crazy. Like, like let's go search for them. And then, then somebody was up there already found them. So I don't know if Seward, I know Seward's one of the, a little bit more difficult, a little

[00:15:47] bit more, uh, out there than the other Adirondack parts, but I don't think that, you know, I mean, three 44 years, still three hours away from sunset, uh, somewhat at that time. So, well, that's crazy. It's just crazy to think about just a, yeah, just another one of these, like half of the details relevant to the story press releases by the DEC leaves a lot to the imagination. Like, like I said, Matthew, I think he nailed it.

[00:16:16] There was a little butt dialing activity here and that's what got them out the second day. You know, Ted, how about we do a complete FOIL request on every one of these rescues? Yeah. Well, I did that about the, I did that on the, uh, mountain lion sightings and I got like five gigabytes of data, which was basically the neighbor's cat begging at the neighbor's house for treats or something like that.

[00:16:43] There was no mountain lion sightings, just a lot of, you know, uh, peach colored orange colored cats running around. Arrow cats running around. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like just, I, I, I am very curious about the difference when we, we, we see New Hampshire rescued like reports and then here and then Vermont and stuff. I wonder if New Hampshire, like they make them put this goddamn story out.

[00:17:09] They make the Rangers and the forest people put a whole story, like write me a book. Yeah. And then New York state, just like, just get the bare minimum. You found them, put them back to the trail. They were rescued. They're from this area. We're good. Well, maybe it's because there's better lawyers in New York state than New Hampshire and the state is afraid of getting sued by disclosing too much information. So. Interesting. I'm going to keep quiet about it, but this is a reminder that maybe we can get a couple

[00:17:36] of Rangers on here, uh, to talk about the year and rescues. Like we did two years ago. I think it was a good episode. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. I'll reach out. Definitely reach out. So. Well, that was a quick shoot in the shit. Anybody got anybody else? Anything else? When you, when, when, when you like constrain us when we're censored and we can't drop bombs. I mean, what, what's the point of shooting the shit?

[00:18:00] What I was going to suggest is find out who these people are and have like a, a big episode of all these people that have had. Are you going to shame them? Not shame on, but just. Yeah. What happened? Tell us what happened in your. Sure. Well, yeah. So if, if anyone who's listening to us was ever involved in a, a DEC Ranger rescuer, you

[00:18:24] know, somebody who was, uh, we have a 25 or $50 Stewart's gift card in the waiting for you. If you come on the show or if you get your friend to come on the show and tell us about their hiking adventures that entailed a call out, whether voluntarily or via butt dial to the New York state, uh, DEC for a rescue. So. Worth it. Everybody will have fun.

[00:18:52] And if you want, you can come on and use like a, you know, a made up stage name. No robot voice though. I'm not, I'm not dealing with a robot voice for two hours. Yeah. We'll do like, we'll do like that fuzzy, like they do on that crime TV stuff. When they interview somebody, you know how you stosh, you do those little posts about the show with the, the interviewee talking, we can do like something with them, but we can like block out their eyes or put an avatar in front of them. There's like a, I'll have to do.

[00:19:22] I remember there was a movie a long time ago. Well, not a long time ago. I don't know if eighties or early nineties had a, it was called loaded weapon one. They, they spoofed lethal weapon and they had a guy walking down the, the hallway. You know how they always like in, in the TV shows or something, they blurred out his face when he had something over his face that was actually strapped to his face. So maybe we should do that here. You gotta wear this. We're low. Low tech. Yeah.

[00:19:51] Like put a cardboard piece of cardboard over your face. So like maybe Dave Oliver, instead of sending his sponsorship money in next month, maybe Dave can go out in the woods. Cause I know he's listening. So maybe Dave can go out in the woods, get lost calling for a rescue and then we'll get Dave on the show. And then he can get the gift card. Yeah. Right. I guarantee he goes to stewards all the time. He's high on, on coffee all the time. So, all right. All right.

[00:20:19] So big, big shout out to the monthly supporters, Chris Garby and Eric Rosario, Scott Nichols, John Comiskey, Mike ES, Desert City Radio, Henry Burmeister, Vicki Ferreira, Jeff Jotz, David Oliver, John Dunn, Betsy A., Vanessa and Jim C. Thank you guys so much for supporting you in the show. Love you guys. And it really means a lot. And also, a major shout out to the sponsors of the show, like Outdoor Chronicles Photography.

[00:20:48] Molly specializes in adventure couple photography and she'll immortalize your moments amidst the stunning landscapes of the Catskills, Adirondacks and White Mountains. She'll craft timeless images that reflect unique bond in nature's grandeur. Embark on an unburgetable photographic journey with Outdoor Chronicles Photography. Don't hesitate to get a hold of Molly on all platforms. Also, discover the Wilderness with Trailbound Project.

[00:21:15] Our expert-led hiking and backpacking education programs offer unparalleled outdoor experiences. Whether you're a beginner, seasoned adventurer, join us to learn essential skills, explore stunning trails, ooh, excuse me, and connect with nature. Start your journey today with Trailbound Project and unlock the wonders of the great outdoors. Speaking of that, I might be attending their Wilderness First Aids session down December 12th and 13th, I think. I think that's what it is.

[00:21:46] So, Ted, I might be looking for a place to crash, buddy. Okay. Just let me know, where is that going to be held? Ah, that's down in, oh, what's Ramapo. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, that's still quite a drive from the house. Okay. All right. You're more than welcome. I'll come our camp. Yeah. Just understand every room comes with a cat. Oh, that's fine. I've had a cat a long time. And I'll throw one a hard cider on top of that. Nice. Yeah. Or four or five. Yeah.

[00:22:16] Well, if you want more than one, you're going to have to supply yourself. All right. And my wife has a strict no F-bomb policy in the house. Oh, yes. Yes. I can't throw the F-bomb. Not that I'm hung up on that. I've moved on, but I just want you to know before you come here, you can't drop no F-bombs in the house. I think this is the theme of the episode, to be honest with you. It definitely. I would drop an F-bomb on that, but I know I can't. Not yet.

[00:22:45] I'm going to get a bad review again for this. I've got to defend myself somehow. Well, I'll put something out before this goes out, so to get everybody prepared. Have you gotten bad reviews for language? I have. Wow. It said something about that. I don't know the person, but they said something about their kids were listening to it, and then we threw the F-bomb, and it feels like we've actually, what do they say? That we forced it? Yeah. It was something about we're doing it on purpose.

[00:23:14] Like intentionally doing it. Yeah. Yeah. They made it sound like we're constipated, that we have all these F-bombs in us that are just, we're aching to get them out, but we're straining. Just, it's so unnatural for Stosh to throw down an F-bomb. Because probably Stosh, I mean, you go all day long without throwing it down. I mean, somebody can cut you off in traffic, no F-bomb. The car in front of you when the light turns green doesn't move, no F-bomb, right?

[00:23:44] Somebody knocks over your garbage cans on garbage day, garbage all over your front yard, no F-bombs. I mean, you just have all these pent up F-bombs and you get on the show and you just like have diarrhea, the F-bomb cavity. Right. So maybe that's, I don't know. I need to move on from the F-bomb stuff. Correct. All right. Is anybody having anything to drink tonight? Oh, we're already there. Yeah. Let's start with Matthew.

[00:24:12] I don't drink alcohol, but I do have a Reeds real ginger ale. Hmm. Oh, Reeds. I love ginger beer, like actual gin with the actual gin, not like schwapps or some, you know, off the shelf stuff. But this is like, it's, I like it. It's really good. It's got that like zing, that burn to it. It's authentic. Authentic. Yes. That's the word I'm looking for. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. All right.

[00:24:42] I'm going to go Ted. I beat you. Beat you. Celebrating. Oh, that sounds weird. Celebrating. Um, Halloween awestruck hometown homicider. Hmm. I had that last time or something. Yeah. I remember. It's good. I got, I got to finish this up before Halloween. Sorry. So I'm just, I'm just cruising with the seltzer tonight, plain old seltzer and was

[00:25:11] out earlier today hooked up with Danny Davis. We, uh, celebrated his being in town by pulling down an IPA. Nice. That's my, my limit. Tell him I said hi. Yeah. He's doing good. He's in town for a few days, visiting friends and family caught up on his 88 day, uh, travel from just outside of Rosendale up to Alaska.

[00:25:36] Uh, when he retired from his job and moved up there to be with his daughter and the family that live up there. Nice. Well, back on the show, we got to get him back on the show. Yeah. Well, we started talking about some. Meetups that he and I are going to try to do in the coming years as we both become old men. I feel that. I feel that I'm there with you, man. Yeah. So, uh, before we go on to math, Matt, uh, are you going to be going to the black Dahlia

[00:26:06] murder show that I tried to do about Syracuse when when, uh, Syracuse is like where, where are you? Oh yeah. You're Connecticut, Connecticut. Oh yeah. That's tomorrow. Oh, it's tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good show though. Who are they playing with? Uh, it's three bands. I have no clue about, so I'll probably just show up for black Dahlia murder and then call it. I think if you go for some of the early stuff, that's the first time I ever heard Lame of God. We walked in, I forgot who they were opening up for, but I'd never heard them before.

[00:26:36] And we walked into the tail end of their set and I was just like awestruck. Like Tad's Tad's probably just like, God damn. I should have, I should have got something to drink. Lamb of God. Is this like choir music? A religious band? Yes. That's it. No, they're, they're far from there. They're not, they're not an anti-religious band, but it's funny. Cause I remember the episode where you were trying to explain to Tad, what mosh pits were, you would go into the some 41 show.

[00:27:03] I think Stash and you were explaining to Tad, what a mosh pit is. And I was, that was a mild mosh pit. This black Dahlia murder will be a whole different show. So it'll be crazy. That's why I took the next day off. I took Friday off because I'm like, don't want to. Plus it's a two hour drive. So, but, but anyway, ah, let's, am I supposed to open this? I'm supposed to open this. Oh yeah. Did you hear it? I didn't. It didn't hear it a little bit.

[00:27:32] It's tough to get it. You got to change all the settings and stuff. Oh, geez. Yeah. If I change, start changing settings, my phone will probably disconnect. Probably. That's what we don't want that. We don't want that. So Matthew's enjoying a red ginger ale. So that's great. Um, so the next session, are you really outdoors? So mention the podcast or one of your hikes on social media and we'll chat about it on the show. Tag us by typing at itl catskill MTM podcast on your post.

[00:28:02] So Kendrick P I'm going to say P because I don't want to mispronounce her last name. Did Panther mountain on a beautiful day for number nine of 3500 club hikes. So congratulations Kendrick. She's on her way to doing some more peaks. Good to hear. Yeah. I think it might be a Pfeiffer. Pfeiffer. I thought it was Pfeiffer. Yeah. Yeah. So, so she's done nine, nine of the 33. Yes. Good. Or 30, maybe 33 or 37. I thought it was 37.

[00:28:32] On a beautiful day for number nine of 35. Okay. So I'm going to take it as your ninth one. And that's, that's a great mountain to get done early. Yes. Yeah. It's a good one. I love. Yeah. You get views. You get a nice hike. You get, you know, giants ledge. And you get, what was that Todd? You get the rock gardens. You know, what'd you call it before? Oh, giants, giants, giant, giant, giant.

[00:29:02] I feel like a young kid that I should be standing and pointing it giant ledge. There you go. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. So congratulations Kendrick. Thank you for tagging the show. Yeah. And then we got good old Sean who has been out and about for. Yeah, exactly. So he day 16 did the Mohonk preserve with beautiful colors and views. Day 17 did the off swing. How do you say that again? Dad? Oh, a washing. A washing.

[00:29:30] I got reserve passing dome camps. Are you familiar with the dome camps? Oh, I know more about the dome camps than you want me to talk about the dome camps. A quick review of what this dome camp is. Is this on like private property and they're right near the trail or something? Uh, yes, they're on the other side of a ravine, a very, uh, substantial and, uh, significant ravine.

[00:29:58] That's like a scar on the, uh, the ridgeline itself. And so as you're heading uphill on the right side or the north are is private land where these camping domes are. And that property is now owned by the daughter of this guy, Jack Bradley, who used to own all of what is now a washing reserve. Wow.

[00:30:25] And yeah, he was going to develop it with others into a few hundred residential units. They built a network of great. They graded, they cut and graded a network of roads there. They're one of those roads is what we call the power climb. You get up to Lake Awassing. There's wells up there. There's drainage, you know, I mean, they were, they had made substantial progress towards their, uh, site design and they were trying to get municipal approvals to develop that.

[00:30:55] They got delayed. And then the partners started fighting and eventually open space Institute came along and bought the land from the developers and then sold it to the state. So that all that whole lossing, uh, preserve area, uh, could basically be, um, if you will, the Wyndham club of the gunks without the ski area.

[00:31:20] So is that like, like super glamping where people like are looking, you're looking at your, you're hiking. So, I mean, yeah, so like I told you, I know more about this than probably most people care to know. So, um, Jack's daughter, uh, the, so that back in the, through the fifties until Jack bought this, this was a girl scout camp and he bought it.

[00:31:42] And decades later, um, his daughter puts up these clamping sites, which are like these dome rooms on a platform overlooking the ravine. And they're, they're quite substantial. I don't know what they're like inside, but they, they have a lot of amenities and whatnot. So she builds all of these. And then the local town, the town of Schwangom sues her to stop the rental operation because she did all of this without zoning.

[00:32:12] And then the town of Schwangom sues her to have an approval to have it done. And last I knew the town, um, won the lawsuit over this and that she was not allowed to rent these units out. And then I, I stopped following it. I don't know if she found a workaround or if she won on appeal or whatnot, but yeah, you know, you bring that up with the local crowd around here. And some people are very aware of it and they're opposed to it. Other people know about it and don't care.

[00:32:39] Uh, but probably four out of five people don't even know about it over there. Cause it, for all intents and purposes, it's really a low intensity use. I mean, she, the tree cutting that she did, she could have done without putting anything there. So. So he took the less, like the lesser known route to get up there. Yeah. Yes. Okay. Okay. I was going to say like, it seems like what you're saying is. Yeah.

[00:33:05] There's, there's a lot of ways to get into, um, Minnewasca park other than through the, the paved parking areas. This happens to be one of them, but there's, there's a bunch of them around here. And that's part of the benefit of living around here is you, you just kind of ride your bike down the road and pull off, park your bike in the woods. And you had uphill. And next thing you know, you're climbing up Kirk rude's nose.

[00:33:35] Hmm. Interesting. People are looking at you and they're like, where did you come from? You're like, you're like here. I, you know, I've, I've done it with my daughter many times where people will be on, you know, one of the, the ledges, one of the cliffs overlooking the Hudson Valley. And, you know, in the old days I'd be pushing her from behind. So she wouldn't fall back and hurt herself. But next thing you know, there's this little 14 year old kid hopping her head over the edge of some cliff up there.

[00:34:05] Nice. Yeah. And Minnewasca, is that Bontacues and, and Table Rocks or is that? Yeah. So they're all part of the same geological feature, the Schwangump Ridge, which is conglomerate rock, but they're, they're in different ownerships. So when you get up to Bontacue and Table Rock, you're now in the Mohonk Preserve. Okay. Yeah. That's what I remember. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:34:29] And then, um, you go from there through the Mohonk Mountain House property, which is private owned by the Smiley family, but it's a huge old resort area and it's really spectacular. There's like a view every 10 feet up there. Um, and then you go from there back to the Mohonk Preserve property, um, or you can cut around the Mohonk Mountain House property and stay on preserve property.

[00:34:56] And eventually you make your way into, uh, Minnewasca state park proper. And then there's different state properties as you head further south along the ridge, but you can actually hike from High Point, New Jersey, all the way past, um, table rocks on the Schwangunk Ridge trail. And I think it's, I forget the exact mileage. My daughter did it in, I think she camped out three nights to finish it. Oh, wow.

[00:35:26] Yeah. Nice. Yeah. So he, he was over there. It's Sean is over there and he was also over in the area as well on day 18 doing the gunks and checking out Sam's point and for Keeter kill. Mm-hmm. Yes. Good job with that. Yeah. Nice. And, and, and for Keeter kill, there's also another area where open space recently.

[00:35:47] Um, and I think Kevin Posner was involved in making this happen, but they bought the private land that makes getting to the bottom of Verkeeter kill falls more accessible. Yeah. No, he's, uh, we, we, we've been in discussion to having him on the show with, uh, with the New York, New Jersey trail conference. So that'll be, that'll be fun. Mm-hmm. Um, day 19, Sean was out to a mountain beacon fire tower day 20.

[00:36:16] He did pond lakes and forest at fan stock. And day 21 was a bull Hill and little stony point. Uh, that hike is a little stony point is probably one of my, it's hard to interrupt, but it's like this little tiny hike across the street from bull Hill. So that the view of the Hudson, you have a storm King across, and then you have the breakneck Ridge that, that kind of just like silhouettes the, the right side of the river.

[00:36:45] It's one of my favorite views in, in this general area. It's absolutely stunning. Beautiful view. How far are you away from that? Uh, it takes you about an hour and 15 minutes to get there. Nice. So it's like the halfway point before I get, that's like my point of no return where I decide if I'm going to go to the Catskills or not. Sometimes. Nice. Nice. He didn't tag us in the next coming days, but I have it right here. So day 22 storm King mountain.

[00:37:13] Uh, I did the popular trail on nine W. Um, and then day 23, he did Shunamunk mountain. So he's doing part of the 28 right there. So down say 28. And I think that's it. Day 22, 23. Right. Is that it? Yeah. Good for him, man. Yeah. Got a lot of days in. Yeah. It is definitely. So he's got a lot of this awesome stuff and it's great to hear from him.

[00:37:41] Um, also Sam cruise outside the, the six with the trail sisters, Catskills with Rachel, Jean, the gypsy queen. She was out with them. So it was really cool to see that. Uh, if you want to hook up with the trail sister, Catskills, get ahold of Christie. She was on the show before or get ahold of Sam, Sam, uh, as well as, uh, one of the trail leaders on there too. Um, James, John O'Boyle did Bramley and mountain Siantha for number six and seven of this fire tower challenge.

[00:38:07] Uh, Jim C was out again, tagging Hunter from Becker hollow. Uh, Northern Catskills athletics was up on Wyndham high peak running into somebody. Uh, I think his name was. Rad. Rad Tad. Yeah. I, I, I don't want to say running into them cause they, they were the ones running and I was kind of like schlepping along. So they were, I guess it is right. They ran into me.

[00:38:34] Um, and they were on their way down Wyndham high peak at the time. Nice. Group of three. Looks like they were having fun. Good. I mean, it was beautiful. It's been beautiful week. So everybody was out enjoying. So how could you not be enjoying this? So Tracy Pinkerton. Pony 18 was up on storm King and she picked up some garbage. So thank you so much. Tracy Pink Pony 18. She's always been one of those. Leave no trace advocates.

[00:39:03] Um, speaking of that as well, Todd bold T bold outdoors was up on Mount beacon before the crowds and then did some trail maintenance on the long path, which included maintaining the trails and refreshing the blazes and clean up trash. So once again, thank you, Todd for volunteering as well. That's awesome. We love to hear about volunteering. Please. Uh, Samantha, AKA the broke trail hiker was up in the Adirondack brewery, open up a cold one for the podcast. That's fine with us.

[00:39:31] You don't have to be on the trail to tag us. And that was great. And it sounded good, but she sounded like she was, she was like in a library or something. She's just like, yeah, it's like, hi. Well, I think there was a sign behind her that said no F bomb. There we go. I love it. Matthew's like, I've been waiting for this. This is great. Fuck that. What? I'm sorry. Um, off in the woods. Sean did Wittenberg and Cornell and then did fly and bear pen. So awesome. Sean.

[00:40:00] Probably working on his grid. Oh, Skana catskill ever after the plateau from Warner Creek. And to me, that is one of the best trails in the catskills. I find that to be very secluded, very different forest, different climbs, different, uh, viewpoints and stuff. So I find that a very, very beautiful trail. So. Yeah. And, and just to echo that I was hanging out with, uh, Danny Davis, uh, before signing on tonight, he's in town.

[00:40:30] And one of the things he did, um, earlier today, he was up the, uh, or yesterday, he was up the Warner Creek itself, uh, with a group of people giving a onsite presentation for them. And, you know, he was recounting to me cause he'd spent 88 days the summer going cross country and in his travels are from one river basin to another exploring the different tributaries and headwaters of these, uh, noteworthy rivers.

[00:40:58] But he says Warner Creek is one of the most beautiful rivers he's or creeks he's been to. So it is a really nice place. So get on the Warner Creek trail and, and explore. Where is that near? So, so you can go ahead. Okay. Uh, if you go on two 14, you know, that goes up a devil's path. I was gonna say it's near like the, the, that notch between plateau and Hunter or correct. A little bit further down. There is kind of like a, it's not a private road.

[00:41:28] It's a public road. And there's some pull-offs on that road. It's called, what is it? Silver Hill. Yes. Yeah. Not chill road. And then it leads to, I've been there before. Yeah. Part of the long path. Yes. And you can go up a plateau to Dutchers knots from there. Uh, not Dutchers. Notch. You can go from plateau. It's just, it's called, uh, um, what's it called? Uh, Warner Creek. Notch. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

[00:41:57] I, yeah. So, so if you, if you hike, uh, from Phoenicia up to Mount tremper and then from Mount tremper all the way over to the trail on plateau, that's the Warner Creek trail. Okay. Okay. It's like 12, it's like 12 miles. Mm-hmm. I, I did a bushwhack there. I did, um, from that road, I did, uh, older bark, right. That sounds familiar. And then to Rocky. Mm-hmm.

[00:42:27] And then we crossed over from Rocky up to plateau and then turned around and came back down to the road and got in our garden. Left. It was a miserable day. It was sleeping, snowing, like. Yeah. Oh, that's usually what people don't complain about. They complain about the thickness. Yeah. Oh, when we got to plateau, it was like the pines were so dense that that was when you read about when you. It's claustrophobic. Yeah.

[00:42:56] And you should wear eye protection and any bushwhack I've been on up there. I'm like, yeah, you don't really need it. That one was like, if you turned the wrong way too fast, you were going to get a stick right in the eye. Yeah. So, and I, I've bushwhacked, um, plateau many times and I'll say it's one of the only areas that I've bushwhacked in the Catskills, whereas you're going through the balsam fir. When you think about it, are your feet really touching the ground or is it all the broken branches and tree fall?

[00:43:24] You can, you can walk a hundred feet without your feet ever actually hitting the ground because it's just that, just that way there. And it's the only time I've ever felt claustrophobic in the Catskills because they're just branches everywhere. Um, but I'll also say when you got to the summit of that Rocky mountain, what'd you think? So if I remember correctly, there's a ledge that overlooks it's a, there's an open ledge

[00:43:53] of viewpoint and it was miserable weather drizzly. I see. So we had zero views. Okay. I do remember going over older bark though. And it felt prehistoric. Like it felt like nobody had been there in 150, 200. Like it was just like wild in there. I loved older bark. Yeah. I older bark. Well, the, the notch between Rocky and older bark, I think is very unique, but what I

[00:44:21] think is particularly unique is the summit of Rocky is surrounded by fir trees, but the summit itself is a grassy area with a rock pile in the center with some trees growing in it. Do you remember that? Yeah. A human made rock pile or I, I, I, I'm going to say, I'm going to say no group of humans could have moved these rocks. Okay. That pie.

[00:44:51] Really? Yeah. And so, yeah. So I've, I've liked many of those lower summits. I remember going back to Danny Davis, bringing him, uh, there. Cause we, we, we whacked up Warner Creek to plateau then over older bark to Rocky and then back down to, uh, Warner Creek. And he had never been to the summit of that Rocky. I forget how many Rockies there are in the Catskills. Um, but that he commented on how unique that summit is.

[00:45:18] So it's very interesting and there's some very easy ways to get to it. And then there's some rather challenging ways to get to it, but of the, the mountains below 3,500 feet, I think it's one of the more unique ones. Hmm. I do. I do remember you had a skirt, like a private property line going up it as well. There's a going up, up, uh, up Rocky. I, I am trying to, I am kind of remembering that now. It was very steep going up, I think on the side. Yeah.

[00:45:47] So if you're coming up from Warner Creek and going around that, there's a, like a square piece of, uh, a corner of private property that cuts into Warner Creek that you need to side hill on plateau to get around that private property and then get back into Warner Creek. And then the one, the first time I hiked Rocky, I went around that private property and then had basically south, southwest up Rocky, then over to older bark and then out to plateau.

[00:46:17] Um, but the summit is always the same. And the summit is this very, in my view, again, just this really unique area. Cause you, you look around and what's other summits in the Catskills are all grass cleared. I mean, it's, there's, it's got that perimeter of balsam first. So you really don't get a view from the summit proper of anything other than the balsam forest around it.

[00:46:41] Um, and then it's got of all things, just a rock pile, a big rock pile in the center of that summit area. So it's a very interesting. So it's cool that Matthew's been on here or is on here and he's been to where few of us has been. Yeah. I can't say that. I remember Rocky, uh, going up older bark. Maybe I missed, uh, I'm not saying I missed Rocky, but I missed that summit point. So did you, yeah. Did you go to older bark via Minkalo or Warner Creek? Minkalo. Okay.

[00:47:11] So then you necessarily would not have gone over Rocky to get to older park. Ah, right. I just went straight up Rocky, like the steep shit. Well, no, you went straight up older bark. Yeah. Older bark. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. Yeah. Coming out of Minkalo, uh, the ascent up older bark is noteworthy. I mean, it's pretty significant to do that. Correct. It's intimidating. It is.

[00:47:40] And if you're going to do it, you should do it as your first climb of the day. Yeah. Right. Get it out of the way. You're going to be tired after that, but yeah, that's a, that's a cool climb. Crazy. All right. Uh, so as we move on, so let's go into, we're going off thing. Uh, cat or a Scott Catskill mountain brew changed things up and did the Huckleberry loop. Didn't do a summit high peak. So yeah. Well, that's worth it. Huckleberry loop. Absolutely. Uh, Danny mild mischievous went up the, uh, enjoying the view on Mount Cheryl.

[00:48:10] Uh, Jeff Johnson orla spent the day checking out the Palisades above the Hudson. Uh, Rob, the sloth tramps did their first hike of their new bushwhacking project to hike the summits of named mountains in Harriman state park. They have no main train trails leading to the top. And they did Hasson clever, Nat house, flaggy mountain, meadow mountains. And they stopped at Arthur falls in the way and then crapped, cracked a captain Lawrence classic

[00:48:39] loggers on the top of flaggy mountain meadow to celebrate interesting names in Harriman. Yeah. Very handsome, clever, Nat house and flaggy meadow. Interesting. We'll have to have, uh, the Rob on there to explain what those means. So Andy from the double chair podcast had another grade day on Plattacill mountain doing his stuff, clearing out the stuff for the ski season.

[00:49:07] Uh, Katie Henderson hikes did peek a moose and table on a stunning day. Chrissy G tackled another downstate 28er with Jamie and hiked and jog Candlewood Hill and a fan stock state park. Serena Marie did Phelps one day, then was down in the Catskills doing sugar loaf with the trail sister Catskills, and then did a full moon hike up overlook.

[00:49:32] And definitely I would check out Serena Marie 46 around Instagram to check out those, uh, overlook pictures going up with the full moon. Very awesome with the ruins and the full moon. Yeah, it was, it was Halloween ish. Let's just say that.

[00:49:50] Good old Sean scion 72 was up at good now mountain grazing the pastures and trim it trimming away the tree lines and stuff like that to make way for new grass that he can mow. Mike red hand adventure guys was up in Yellowstone and then right outside of New York city showing off the beautiful New York city city skyline that I need to see sometime soon. So beautiful stuff.

[00:50:17] And last but not least Nicholas golden money cat was at Catterskill falls super early to enjoy temporary solitude that you get when you go super early to Catterskill falls. And he would made, made a good point that, uh, having restrictions on those areas is he's not with it, but it might come in handy. Who knows? He hasn't been there during the busy times and hasn't seen how crazy it is, but we'll see. We'll see what happens.

[00:50:46] I am 50 50 on the restrictions, uh, especially when people get in fights in front of your car, when you're trying to leave, that's crazy as Tad is known. Yeah. Happened to me. My, my first time there. First time. And somebody gets in a fight in front of his car. Yeah. I'm, I'm with, with Tad. I've only been there one time. Catterskill falls. And it was like, of all the years I've been hiking in the Catterskills, I think from since 17,

[00:51:17] but like, and the, that level of crowds is, and listen, I don't blame people for going at all. It is what it is, but it's just not, I I'm not like, I don't want to say I'm not into it, but it's not my, my thing, that part of it, but it is a beautiful area. Yeah. I, you know, you can see the magnetism and why people go there. A hundred percent. And, but one of my overriding concerns is not to necessarily do the deep dive into the,

[00:51:47] the solitude and becoming one with nature and how having all those people around really inhibits your head. As you hear it. And it's not that you're having that experience. Whether you're there by yourself or with a hundred people, what you're not going to get going forward is that intimate sense of a wild forest around you, because the more and more people that you put in there, the less and less undergrowth there's going to be because it's all going to get trampled on.

[00:52:15] and then also you're going to find as time goes on the state is going to come in and keep improving that trail because they can justify it because there's so much traffic so we need to put this down we need to put that down you're going to have non-native you know a rock like item four coming in and spreading that down so it's not even stone that's you know native to the catskills coming in and then they're going to say oh you know we need paved areas now we need drainage and maybe

[00:52:45] to minimize on the trash we should have trash cans and you know we got three heat stroke calls last summer so maybe a vending machine you know i'm one of these slippery slope guys where you know before you know it you know they're going to have like uh you know uh hot dog vendors down there like a thing and guy renting uh floaties so they had that once down there don't don't remember that you don't

[00:53:11] forget that what don't they had vendors yeah but that's when it was private and they could control how many people went down there you know uh so i i think there does there there should be a cap on it uh there needs to be some level of restraint because there becomes a level of use where the the overall experience to in my view is so diminished of course yeah right but it it does

[00:53:38] need to remain accessible though right because it is a very it's i wouldn't say it's an easy hike in the sense where anybody can get out of the car and go do it because the stairs are steep it's not an easy climb for for for not everybody but it's it's accessible in the sense where it's a very short walk to get to probably one of the the most iconic waterfalls and at least in the northeast anyway

[00:54:02] right so it's it is yeah yeah so i mean i i've been there during the the where there's been no absolutely no person there at all and it's been personal to me but and i've been there to when there was people in pajamas doing stuff and it's just oh whoa whoa whoa whoa people in pajamas doing stuff i thought we were trying to have the family show here oh my no it was just

[00:54:29] it was it was awkward to be you know someone who to be there when people are in their pajamas doing stuff i get that i understand that that that would be awkward but uh we'll see we'll see where it goes where it goes we'll see what happens but thank you to everyone who tagged the show yeah thanks what do we got 22 is that what you said that's yeah that's i think i counted 22 i'm also taking note of who was who posted catskill hikes that i know were listeners that didn't tag us and i'm

[00:54:58] going to send one of my pet mountain lions over to visit you next time you're up here nice say not that i'm threatening you but i would take that as a threat nice nice so also if you think we're doing a good job and you didn't tag the show you need to buy us a hard cider we're trying to look up on that uh that 4.1 million dollar house over on the moon hall that needs to be purchased you know you

[00:55:23] know what you know what's also for sale uh you're you're turning off of 28 to go up 42 towards lexington okay and westkill and as you're driving through that area there's the house on the right the hoarder's house with all the stuff on the porch okay you know the house that's not us that that's not something i want but it's for sale it's for sale we could buy that we could have like a

[00:55:52] cleanup weekend we could have all the listeners come one weekend we could clean that place up yeah make it our new hang we'll call it snyder's north snyder's north all right is that the that's the one in shandaken hawk it yeah i think it's called what is it bush nil uh bush nil yes yes bush no false like kind of area yeah okay yeah yeah moving on uh rate the show five stars is the

[00:56:18] only thing accepted so if you say one stars uh we will talk about you on the show and we continually bash you on the show especially if you say we say the the f bomb too much so uh also so previous hikes matt what have you been up to in the past week or so past week or so i mean after cat's tail i did uh two weeks after i did another trail marathon um

[00:56:44] so i've been kind of low-key two to four or five mile runs uh i do run every day so nothing crazy like this morning i had uh right before i had to go do a clinical um like a four mile like five or 300 feet of gain just out pretty much out out my back door and uh it's really about it for me

[00:57:07] what was the marathon uh it was the mohawk mountain marathon in connecticut uh west cornwall steep endurance they run a really good uh racing circuit here in connecticut um they put on great races so it was uh kind of ill-advised to be honest but i went and did it anyway and uh so i'm not i'm not

[00:57:32] necessarily feeling the effects of it still but it's like i'm trying not to over just burn myself out right so it's uh i i do listen to my body per se um so yeah just keeping it keeping it mellow for now you're like in that that doldrum where you you go out you can put out a decent effort but you don't

[00:57:56] feel like you're recovering in between i i feel like i'm recovering full disclosure i have another probably trail marathon coming up in two weeks in november so it's like kind of this is like the the balancing act of trying to be able to to continue on and and do this stuff um but yeah that's you're trying to stay at you're trying to stay at peak right i'm trying to blow myself up basically

[00:58:24] after the next one yes until next time 100 nice nice well good good i mean uh at least you're still still getting out and stuff like that um ted uh you know i'll go first i'll do do mine because i was danny davis or danny davis uh danny mild mischievous mildly mischievous reached out to me

[00:58:48] and said that they were doing uh two or the three blackheads in the blackhead range later on in the day on sunday so i was just like oh that would be nice i could sleep in and then i could summit a mountain fantastic so i was just like what's your projected time of being there and they're like 12 30 to 1 30 i'm like that might be a little late but let's try it i was like cool meet up with

[00:59:18] them so we were like uh doing all these uh scenarios and stuff like that of what would happen and stuff like if we didn't meet them but uh eventually i went to down to big hollow had significant amount of parking down there there was still a good amount of cars probably like 20 cars there and met joanne and danny out in the trail and we went up and hiked blackhead just going up to

[00:59:44] lockwood gap summiting the mountain going to that new viewpoint that is a little bit off trail that's beautiful off of camp steel that should be a trail now because they're limiting our viewpoint so i suggest anybody and everybody to look for that uh little side trail to check that out because screw but anyway uh well but let me just i'm going to stop you there oh and i'm going to you know

[01:00:10] some some viewpoint shouldn't be disclosed because getting to them you're going really through a sensitive area and you're going to be trampling on like alpine vegetation and true to the extent that we have it in the catskills but this one um no it's once you once you get through the little balsam fir strip it's it's more open mountain grass area and it's it's a nice view turricaine ledge number

[01:00:37] two hmm yeah it's probably better to see in the late afternoon than it is in the morning yeah and we okay we we went out there and we we had a nice little snack i dropped my pack probably like two feet away from some bear shit like right there i'm just like and i told them when we were out there i'm just like i last time i was here i saw at least four or five piles of bear scat and they were

[01:01:03] like oh okay like i didn't know joanne been there danny had never been there so he was enjoying it first first time i i hit that viewpoint i was bushwhacking down um to the lake and there was easily three feet of snow oh nice and yeah and so you know how steep that is i was basically right after that yep yeah i was just basically skiing down because the snow was so deep it was

[01:01:30] steep and i i really made good time yeah that is the best thing about snowshoes when you're going downhill and it's fresh snow you literally just can ski on the back on the tails of them and just cruise down yeah and you're doing that like like it's like i was i'm not weird like you i was i was very oh come on you're not acting like a wannabe rock star or metalhead on my way down so no i gotta

[01:01:55] admit that that one part that goes up from the lockwood gap up to the summit to blackhead that newly trail is it's starting to be one of my favorite spots only because of the view and because it's a nice switchback you really don't feel any like the way the punishment we used to have to take going up straight up free through freaking blackhead to get to that was insane so you say that and i can

[01:02:21] now my first time going up blackhead that's the way i came up and it was one of those days in april where you had a really thick inches thick hard firm layer of frozen concrete snow on top of a foot and a half two feet of really loose sugar snow that type of snow that doesn't bind together

[01:02:48] won't pack down doesn't give you any traction it's like hiking on mini marbles and i had to go up that steep section and it's it's literally you're almost like swimming with your hands like breast strokes because your body's so far deep in it you're not getting any traction you're trying to do anything to get uphill and you just keep sliding downhill so i probably that first time up a blackhead that one

[01:03:13] section functionally i probably climbed it 10 times because i kept going up a foot sliding two feet up yeah that was that was a that was one of the it was just a straight up typical northeast kind of thing of just straight up the thing yeah yeah now you don't even know that it was there yeah exactly it's it's they did that so well there's so much view there's it's so enjoyable you

[01:03:36] know you can we were chatting so much i had such a great time with uh joanne and danny we we summed up with them you were able to keep up with them oh yeah yeah i was leading most of the time oh i don't believe that ask them ask them send them that i call bs nobody keeps up with joanne joanne was moving pretty good she was yeah she aren't sure her nickname is joanimal because joanimal yeah she

[01:04:01] gets through the mountains like uh an animal man just true bolts along yeah but it was all right continue continue you're at the viewpoint you dropped your pack next to a pile of uh bear bear shit no you can't use that and then where and then i had my my peanut butter sandwich that was like two inches thick two inches thick it was it was beautiful it was delicious jar of

[01:04:27] peanut butter on a side i used to bring speaking of i used to bring a jar of peanut butter when i was doing section hiking connecticut massachusetts wow appalachian trail that and a baked potato no a baked potato that's the first that's what would you dip the potato in the jar of peanut butter nor would you pour would you pour the peanut butter on the potato no they were two separate the

[01:04:52] peanut butter the baked potato was for like the tail end and the peanut butter was just for the during but it was just the one thing that that worked for me interesting yeah it was it was fantastic we summited i went to the viewpoint went back down and then at the lockwood gap we separated because i needed to get back home and they were going to do thomas cole and black doll or blackhead black dome um so they

[01:05:19] told me they got out uh before sundown and such so uh it was a great fantastic time a lot of talking just a lot of laughing a lot of smiling a lot of enjoying the views and just just chatting it was a great time on the way back down i cleaned up uh a decent amount of trash i wouldn't say decent amount and a lot of for some reason a lot of tissues i don't understand the tissue thing like i don't i don't understand why

[01:05:49] you just don't while you're out in the wilderness you just don't wipe your shirt yeah exactly and that's but other than that fantastic beautiful phenomenal day uh with joanne and danny just they were there were so much fun and just so much joy they a lot of energy a lot of energy oh yeah so was this was that their first hike of the day or was that their second like of the day i believe it was

[01:06:14] their second uh-huh look at like a tad ants asking questions no but i mean that's i just i find it interesting for a later start and i remember they posted some pictures of another hike oh yeah yeah yeah yeah right so um and then you do one mountain with them and they on their second hike of the day you do one mountain with them and the two of them continue to do uh two more so something something's sticking together right yeah i want to know what joanne was eating for a snack okay was

[01:06:43] it like in an iv bag or was it like food snack is she like on the lance armstrong doping program we need a blood sample true so it was fantastic that was that was my previous hike so what about you tad what'd you do a full day okay yeah so i'm kind of getting back into catskill hiking

[01:07:05] and my last catskill hiking excursion in may uh before i hurt my shoulder or when i hurt my shoulder i was out hiking uh thomas cole black dome blackhead and windham and so i started that hike off with the bushwhack up uh thomas cole i was going to bushwhack down windham but between somewhere in between

[01:07:29] i i fell and and blew out my shoulder and had been out of commission for a while so for whatever reason i decided saturday would be a good day to go up and finish my hike on windham the way i had intended to finish it by bushwhacking it so instead of bushwhacking down i bushwhacked up it and i'll say that it was a like in terms of the weather it was a spectacular day you know i get i woke up that morning my car was

[01:07:58] covered in frost um it's very cold out here and i was driving up i was concerned about icy conditions had my spikes with me um but i knew i was going to be off trail going up so i wasn't as concerned as i otherwise would have been about running into ice and that i'm still somewhat not supposed to be doing these things according to my doctor so at any rate i had a really you know i stopped started a peck road

[01:08:25] right after that private property that's along peck road or the trail leading the elm ridge trail leading out of peck road once i got past the private property i banked to the right uh made my way over towards the summit i kind of explored that area um there's really no cliff activity in there uh which is what i was expecting is not to run into cliffs i had taken it to be old farmland which it was but i

[01:08:51] was surprised that i did not run into as many stone walls and remnants of farming activity uh that i would have expected you know like old foundations and maybe well sites and things like that but i did find some trees that look like they were trees that you would have found in like a farmer's front yard um but i

[01:09:13] hunted around didn't see any remnants of you know old farm life there so at any rate i made it up to the summer along the way is when i ran into the uh what is it the catskill athletic folks yes uh cash and and company yeah so i ran into them when i hit the trail i i didn't bushwhack directly to the summit because i didn't want to hit anything steep but i got up there it was a great

[01:09:41] day up there um made my way down on the way down i had probably one of the weirdest experiences on trail ever and it's not because i ran into like an animal um it's not that i ran into uh like a naked tiger uh which yeah i have run into naked yeah that's a true story um but i i started coming

[01:10:08] uh across these young teenagers hiking uphill and they're all when they when they see me they're like hello sir hi sir good morning sir everybody's addressing me as sir and it's weird it's really weird they're so polite and there was like one after another after another they were in dispersed groups but it was after the like second or third one it became evident to me that there was a ton of

[01:10:37] kids in this hiking group kids relative to my age and sure enough at the end of the group were three adults uh two women and a fellow this guy carl had a backpack stosh stosh is going to get backpack envy it's about twice the size of yours oh okay yeah and so it turns out that carl uh was with troop 25

[01:11:03] from poughkeepsie and they were hiking up windham for the day they had spent the night at the scout camp somewhere down in the hudson valley and we're doing a day hike and so it's just neat to see all these young kids really enthusiastic and into the hike and a couple adults out there you know taking their time to show these young folks the appreciation of nature i also ran into a younger couple in their

[01:11:33] 30s ash and reed they're in their early 30s from brooklyn and i had a really fun and engaging conversation with them uh they were both interesting people who knows if they'll ever listen to the podcast they probably after i was done talking to them for what seemed like four days they um and don't nod your head yash stosh like i did this all the time but so at any rate um you know we had a great conversation

[01:11:59] and they'll probably not want to listen to me anymore so i don't think they listen to the podcast uh there was some mud on the trails uh and standing water the trail to and from the lean to and peck road was you know wet and muddy as usual so at any rate i finished that hike at about 11 30 and i couldn't go home

[01:12:22] right how can you i got up early i drove up there i did that one mountain and i'm gonna like okay so i'm not going to be out in the woods again for another week so i'm like okay i have my list the grid 2.0 in the car i grabbed it i had west kill at panther slide and hawkett open on the list well panther you can

[01:12:50] rule out from the get-go because you're going to get there at one o'clock there's no place to park okay uh west kill i thought yeah you know in my present state i shouldn't be doing those ledges on west kill um so it was either slide or hawkett slide same parking issue so hawkett when have you ever gone to the hawkett parking area and it's been full of cars right yeah never yeah so i thought i would

[01:13:17] drive through hunter uh make a pit stop at the deli and hunter picked up a egg white and cheese sandwich and something cold to drink broke down through lexington pulled into the hawkett parking lot and i was the only car there it was about one o'clock and so i was happy because i made it up

[01:13:37] hawkett which in my view of hawkett only comes in two grades and that's steep and steeper okay there's nothing really less than that i i haven't been to hawkett since um this winter i think it was actually i maybe hiked it twice last winter um and i didn't notice this when i hiked it last winter but i have been

[01:14:04] avoiding it prior to that but what i did notice on saturday because it was such a uh beautiful day beautiful fall day and when you go through that first hemlock grove on the herd path right you know where i am mm-hmm or this gene off to your left the left yeah narrow hemlock grove and it's got tall

[01:14:29] majestic hemlocks the uh pine needle floor and years ago there was no undergrowth in there it's just the tall majestic hemlock trees that are so dense even juvenile hemlocks don't grow there right but this time going up because everything was in fall colors what was so obvious was all the juvenile beach

[01:14:57] trees that are growing in there now because the canopy from the hemlock tree is about 50 blown out uh i didn't see any significant hemlocks that had been blown over there's that one that the path goes around but other than that the trees are still standing but the the the needles are so um sparse

[01:15:22] that a lot of sunlight is hitting the floor and these beach trees are growing up through there and you're going to see that in other hemlock groves hiking through a hemlock grove in the catskills now is not what it was like 10 years ago so to me i thought that was sad but at any rate i made it to the summit and how long did it take me given that i'm i'm not going to say i'm in shape i liked uh

[01:15:45] three miles up right uh is it three miles up yeah it's a little less yeah it's um it's it's 1642 vert we're talking about hawket right yeah or hellcat or yeah any one of those names uh how long did it take you yeah car to summit i'm gonna say hour and 18 minutes i would say

[01:16:13] you i say you pulled off 30 minute miles maybe a little less so you're saying 90 minutes no i think you did it a little bit less it's a hour and i say yeah about four stashes hour and 15 hours 16 minutes you guys are pretty close i did it in uh 71 minutes wow oh wow nice nice well done yeah for my second you know hike of the day from you know a parking lot sometimes you're like you can do three mountains

[01:16:39] in the catskills but if you're hiking the same ridge you don't have but five six hundred vert in between them so at any rate yeah so i got up to the canister i signed in uh mike had just put a new sign in tablet in there within the you know the month of october i was the only one there that day uh as i was putting my gear on to go down uh another fellow trail runner type if you know what those are like

[01:17:04] matt um came running up looking all fresh after having you know run up sixteen hundred and forty two feet and i think uh five minutes it seemed like but yeah right so i chatted with him and um made my way down stopped at local kill and got a west kill belgium beer to hang out on the front porch

[01:17:26] at local goods poured that down made my way home two more checked off grid 2.0 nice congratulations awesome awesome so once again get out if you can because the weather is beautiful i don't know about this weekend but we will see it's gonna be great it's gonna be great stay tuned to the forecast yeah i listened i listened to it already yeah yeah so uh how about before the forecast we'll get into

[01:17:55] some catskill news like volunteer once again new york new jersey trail conference catskill 3500 club catskill trail crew at the catskill mountains club visitors center jolly rovers trail crew anywhere you can volunteer that would be great uh the catskill 3500 club is doing trail maintenance on november 4th on the peakamoose mountain trail uh they start at the denning trailhead at 9 00 a.m reach out to the

[01:18:23] catskill mountain club if you want to join november 4th all right so let's break it into the inaccurate weather forecast here is your weekend weather forecast it looks like it's going to be a pretty sweet fall hiking weekend with chilly mornings but mild afternoons and very little precipitation is on schedule on friday october 30th it will be sunny and breezy with temperatures starting around the

[01:18:51] upper 30s in the valleys and roughly upper 20s to low 30 on the summits by afternoons valleys should reach low 60s while the higher peaks will be around the upper 40s to low 50s beautiful weather northwest winds will pick up and gusts potentially be around 20 miles per hour so it will be cooler on the summits on saturday october 31st which is halloween it is looking mostly sunny and beautiful valley

[01:19:17] temperatures will start in the mid 30s and climb into the upper 50s during the afternoon up on the summits expect temperatures around the 20s to low 30s in the mornings with the afternoon temperatures reaching to the mid to upper 40s wind should be much lighter than yet friday and there is no significant precipitation expected on sunday november 1st looks to be a sunny to partly cloudy day with a chilly start valleys should be in the low to mid 30s in the morning and warm up to the low 60s in the

[01:19:46] afternoon to evening the summits should start around the upper 20s to low 30s and reach the low 40s to low 50s during the evening winds look light and there is no significant rain expected so it looks to be a great weekend to get out there and hike but just remember to be safe be prepared and don't become tomorrow's rescue story back to you guys thank you for that inaccurate weather forecast hopefully

[01:20:14] everybody is prepared because it is october well we're going to be going in november soon so jesus so let's get on to the last set of sponsors and then we'll get on to matthew he's probably anxiously awaiting for his interview yep so discover camp catskill in tannersville your ultimate hiking store find top quality gear apparel and accessories for all your outdoor adventures our expert staff is here to

[01:20:39] help every hiker from beginners to seasoned pros we carry a unique variety of catskill souvenirs and gifts visit us online at campcatskill.co or in the store to gear up for your next journey adventure starts at camp catskill also embark on a transformative journey with another summit another summit is dedicated to serving veterans and first responders with free outdoor activities activities like walks in nature

[01:21:08] paddling hiking and even backpacking join our supportive community to rejuvenate in nature's embrace experience commodity adventure and healing at no cost taste your next step with another summit and send to new heights of resilience and joy apply today on another summit.org all right so let's get on to the guest of the night let's go so matthew klanek joining us to talk about Cat's Tail Marathon marathon

[01:21:34] he participated in the 2026 cat's tail tail marathon which goes we'll talk about where where it goes and stuff like that on and then and then uh you know we'll see what his experience was and stuff that's our first time talking about it so it's good to have you on man thank you thank you great to be here yeah thank you for joining us in the uh in the shooting the shit that's it's it it gets that like you like

[01:21:59] you said before it gets the flow going it gets you familiar and comfortable i'm here for it it's this is all about hiking and trail running and everything and in between and i've been listening to this podcast for a long time and we'll get to the person i met off of this podcast it's been like a a real big inspiration to my to my trail running nice nice so uh how about a little background about yourself sir

[01:22:23] um sure i am uh emt full-time emt uh in paramedic school um i love being outside i've always loved being outside uh hiking running snowboarding i've been snowboarding for 20 plus years i skateboarded for 20 plus years kind of always into that that uh i don't want to say that lone wolf type stuff but but

[01:22:49] unorganized sports i would say yeah that's that's pretty much it in a nutshell really not a very complicated person what got you into to hiking did you were you exploring like snowboarding that kind of led to hiking and stuff no interestingly i went with a couple of my friends to a local area here in connecticut called sleeping giant and uh i never i never wanted to hike like it never appealed to me

[01:23:17] in a sense where i didn't necessarily like see a point to it um and sleeping giant has this very steep scrambly headwall probably like 500 feet of i wouldn't say four point but you could make it four point if you want and i did that and was just like what was that and why am i not doing this all the

[01:23:39] time where can we find more places like this so it was then really that that got me hooked is that type of elevation gain that type of climbing and that's kind of how i've always centered my hiking around is the more climbing the better um not necessarily scrambling but uh that's kind of how it it kind of evolved right literally from that that single single hike probably in i'm gonna say 2015 ish 2014 maybe

[01:24:10] so we always kind of refer to like pre-covid post-covid stuff like that so yeah yes okay so now that this wasn't so it was kind of like the adrenaline rush instead of like the viewpoints and stuff like that that got you going and then the viewpoints came later so yeah because you don't you didn't you don't really know that right and it's just like it was more like the climbing the exhilaration the endorphins all that good stuff that comes with that and then you have the payoff on a lot of this

[01:24:39] stuff and uh it you just continue to seek it out and and try to find bigger and better yeah so um let's move on to a little bit how did you get into like hiking and then trail running so again hiking for as long as i've been in hiking i've always been i've always moved pretty quick

[01:25:04] on trail not necessarily running but just it's i have like a i hike with a purpose is what i i say and it just kind of uh never wanted to trail run always was in awe of the people that did the trail running like how do you run on this stuff and literally the whole running part of it came from this very podcast when you had ed on um who talked about trail running in a sense where he's just like

[01:25:33] you just kind of move fast on the like the flatter parts and you hike the steep parts and it's like he simplified it in a sense where it's like you're not running absolutely there are people that run everything but you don't have to run everything and it's it's a it's a process like um it's how you feel that day right like you don't if you want to push hard you can push hard if you don't want to push hard

[01:26:01] you don't have to push hard so it's like hiking it's literally like hiking you're just doing it in a faster a faster pace um so i started trying it i literally just went out like probably maybe that day or two days later it was like let me run the flat parts of these trails in hiking boots not trail runners yet you know i was like nah i don't need trail runners and it just slowly evolved it just was like oh if i could run this then i could run this and i could probably move faster on this and then

[01:26:28] it's just an evolution really it's literally what it is so matt before we segue or as we segue into your running marathons you're you get into hiking you're hiking with the purpose you enjoy the uh aerobic component of hiking uphill and then you listen to this what was that podcast again what was it the name it was yes it was ed uh

[01:26:57] yeah cheesecake and uh on instagram yep yeah one of one of the coolest hikers out there um one of the nicest guys yep yeah yeah he nicest guy 100 he's so great yeah great humble guy unassuming gotta love ed and uh even when he comes up and gives you a really wet sweaty bear hug it's still it's still okay that's him yeah yeah yeah that's him so um so and then you say you go out the next day you start uh running on

[01:27:25] segments of the trail um and eventually do you find that the running trail running component takes over the hiking where you're not just going out and walking start to finish that you're doing a trail run and not a hike do you reach that point yeah a thousand percent and it's not literally you're not labeling it as like me for me it's not saying i'm going to do a trail run it's just you just start

[01:27:53] running right and it's not it's not like there's any foresight into it and you know it i live where i live in connecticut there's this like hike i've been doing in beacon falls which is very close to me um it's a in in our area it's a pretty good you can do like a four mile 12 to 1300 feet of gain um i love it it's great training i've been doing this section for a long time and like i know the trail like the back of my hand so i know where i'm going to run i know where i'm going

[01:28:23] to hike so it's almost like automatic um and when i first started doing it it's it's just learning the balance of it yeah so how is it i want to go from you're starting to trail run which entails running and hiking and you start doing that more and more and some point along the way you sign up for some type of trail running event right i did yeah so how long is it that you were a trail runner before you signed

[01:28:52] up for your first event my first trail race was it was a 10k uh mohawk mountain was a steep endurance i want to say this was 24 i'm pretty sure it was 24 if i have to go back and look and i actually had just come off of a i wouldn't say knee injury but a knee aggravation where i had

[01:29:17] some like tibial stuff going on that was just like tightening the knee up uh and it cleared up with with a little bit of rest um and a co-worker of mine who's a paramedic he's a marathon runner road runner and he wanted to do this and i'm just like i don't want to race like i don't do it for racing i do it for the fun and the solitude of just doing it and i just agreed to it and uh it just the atmosphere of

[01:29:46] this deep endurance races mostly is the experience i got from that was just it's not about like racing per se it's just about being out there and and having a good time and and enjoying the the uh the process the activity itself and yeah so that was only two maybe like maybe two and a half years

[01:30:10] ago yeah and and so you liked it you like the vibe yes that was a 10k emphasis on the uphill is what i'm wondering yeah so steep endurance it's in the name he like i say i tell him all the time he just squeezes every last minute of elevation in his courses a lot of them are double or quad loop courses

[01:30:33] depending on the distance you're doing so it the 10k was like 2600 feet of climbing up a lot of ski hill and stuff like that so um but it just grass not not it was no single track on the 10k yeah so you do that and i assume then you sign up for for more trail running events but not necessarily marathons

[01:30:56] is that right yeah so once i did that and i realized like how fun that was in november he does so this race is in october he has a in danbury connecticut it's uh called the terry wild half marathon he does a 10k and a full marathon um terry wild state park it's uh single track nothing like

[01:31:23] elevation wise like peak elevation nothing high but a lot of single track rocky rudy northeast up and down it's constant up and down and i remember driving to that i'm i'm a very indecisive person in the sense with some things i hadn't decided which one i wanted to do the 10k or the half marathon in driving up there i'm just like why not just do the half like i know i can do the 10k so

[01:31:48] not even in an arrogant way right it's just i've done the 10k i want to push myself i've done 13 mile hikes i've done 15 mile hikes so and then yeah i got there and signed up for the half marathon and did that one nice and you're you're trail running in events like that you continue to progress and when is it that you say to yourself because as i understand it you just can't sign up for the cat's tail you

[01:32:14] have to qualify for it is that true you have to qualify yes so when is it that you decide you want to run the cat's tail marathon and as of that time had you already run something that qualifies for it or did you have to go out and do a qualifying event to get into the cat's tail after you wanted to do it

[01:32:38] so i i did i was always doing in the hiking i was always doing big days i've hiked into whites a lot i've done a lot of 16 17 18 mile days i've done some big cat scale uh cats i almost called it cat's tail days cat's tail days so i've always wanted to do devil's path in a day and when i completed my first round of 35

[01:33:02] i hiked the devil's path as a through hike with a friend of mine um who introduced me to the cat's skills as an overnight we got kind of hemmed up around southwest hunter it was the last day of summer and of course up there it was like 25 degree wind show with 50 mile an hour winds and we were trying to figure out where we can camp and i knew of a spot off of southwest hunter that's below 34 3500 that

[01:33:29] it's kind of like a um a primitive spot right so we were considering a bailout on diamond notch and just doing it in a day just stashing our packs at diamond notch finishing the hike and going back driving up the road and grabbing our packs but we didn't and ever since that day i was always re not regretted not pushing it for the day but always had it in my mind like like we had it right we could have done

[01:33:59] it in that that was like our opportunity so fast forward to last year uh that same friend and another friend of mine who's done a lot of through hiking uh at most of the continental uh divide trail um we went up to the whites and uh they were going to do it overnight and i wanted to do uh we were do bonds uh zealand and i wanted to do that as a as a quote unquote run i wanted to see if i could do it

[01:34:27] as a day and uh i remember you know you get the five mile flat rail trail all the way through the pebbigwasset and you start to head up yeah it's brutal and i've ran that whole thing and it just it's the only way i was going to be able to do it anyway and then you have like the four and a half mile climb up up to bond and uh now my friends are hiking it right so they're they're behind me and i get to the

[01:34:52] top of bond and i see the traverse i'm going over in this the the expanse of range that i have to complete and i'm just like what did i get myself into like this is crazy because now i have no i don't have anything to stay overnight right i'm i'm gonna push this in a day so it just i just kept going um there wasn't anything wrong with me it was just a mental thing and i just needed to say i've done stuff like this before i've hiked out here before like i know what i'm getting into so

[01:35:21] just keep pushing got through that finished that uh i don't know how long it took me it was seven and change i think um seven fucking hours for the pebbigwasset no no no for bond zealand traverse oh okay i was like jesus yeah it's a it's a 19 miler um but a lot of a lot of in the whites when you get up on the ridge it's a lot of traversing and not once the big climb is is is the upfront climb right

[01:35:49] and once you get to the top of these mountains you're kind of just rolling riding a ridge um not to say it's easy or not steep it's just the bulk of the elevation is just getting up to the ridge um so finishing that i i kind of had the confidence in uh talk to my the same friends um i met them the next day they were coming down and uh we talked about doing i wanted to do i've always wanted to

[01:36:14] do the devil's path in a day so that bond zealand was in in july i believe we did the devil's path in september the end of september last weekend of uh of summer again and uh did that one in a day um and i i love the devil's path it's just i love the cat skills there's just something about them i don't know what it is it's yeah you get the views and the whites it's great i love the whites too but

[01:36:44] there's something just very primitive primitive about about the cat skills i agree so what do you have to do to qualify for the uh for the cat's tail so yeah that that was my long-winded response to sorry to do that no you're good so spoken like a true marathon runner yeah never running out of breath

[01:37:03] right basically um you needed to have uh something of of that style distance oh under a certain amount of time so you basically have to finish something uh like a marathon or more in less than double the time it took the winner to finish so if the winner took four and a half hours to finish you had to finish

[01:37:30] your your marathon in nine hours okay right so there's a there's a threshold there so i submitted that the devil's path uh that was 9 38 i think um and then we did the escarpment trail after that as another run same friends did that thing in in in a day um submitted that but i what i really was focusing on was the escarpment channel i hadn't even thought about the cat's tail at this

[01:38:00] point so i was doing all this to get into the escarpment and the escarpment was the same process now he he's kind of not limited or reduced the uh threshold to get in but he's made it easier in a sense where you don't have to run specific races to get in you can you can have big efforts under a certain time that will qualify you now so that those ended up calling me for qualifying for me qualifying me for

[01:38:28] that but the ultimately the cat's tail i qualified for because i did a 50k in may um that was at bear mountain state park uh in in new york that i had finished in less than double the time of the winner of the cat's tail last year so they that that got me into the cat's tail wow no nice long-winded but we

[01:38:52] got there right yeah we got so we'll go over quickly this the stats of the cat's tail marathon so you start at the end of fox hollow it's 26.5 miles start at the end of fox hollow you don't even start at the trailhead you start at the end of fox end of the road yeah then you go up fox hollow summit panther giant ledge take a left on the easement to slide mountain trail uh go over the winnie sook

[01:39:18] area summit slide cornell wittenberg take a right on cross mountain road and hit lane street you go cross mountain road goes down these switchbacks all the way down into phoenicia uh you hit lane street take a right on high street take a left on bridge street take a right on main street and then you end in parish hall 26.5 miles almost 7 000 feet of gain uh what do you have to say about your your experience

[01:39:45] on the cat's tail well i'm glad you know where you're going because i had i just i was just going on this trail and just going well i looked i looked it up i researched it today for sure um i've hiked every step of that in separate hikes i've been on all that those trails before um so i knew what i was

[01:40:09] getting into i knew going up panther that side is just a long just not brutal climb but it's just a long four or four and change uphill um to get to the summit and uh it's um yeah starting from fox hollow it's just you get that added and maybe it's like a quarter mile till you actually get to the trail but uh

[01:40:35] yeah it's uh you know you guys have been there you guys have hiked all those mountains before you know you've gone up panther every which way it's uh what was the original question what's it was it what was your experience on that like do you feel did you feel like like like like you liked it was it uh i love it no i for me what it is is about when you're just starting to do those climbs especially

[01:41:03] at panther is you just really have to pace yourself especially at the beginning um i blew myself up in the escarpment going up windham it's so that kind of set my race in a really negative way so maintaining just really a solid hiking pace up panther now there's spots that you can run because it does flatten out you know you climb climb climb then you got that like half mile of kind of flat and then

[01:41:27] it climb climb climbs a little half mile flat until you get to the summit um and then uh you know obviously traversing over over panther and down down giants ledge was uh again i've been on all that stuff before so knowing what i'm getting into i think definitely helped obviously um and just trying to block the distance that you're doing out not really focusing on mileage not really focusing on

[01:41:53] how much you're climbing not really focusing on time just kind of going with the day in in in how you're feeling because you don't yeah you can get through eight miles of it and say wow we're eight miles in but you still have you know quite a ways to go is that is that kind of what you did you do and we're checking your pace at every time you know like i see a lot of people when they're running when they're doing their stuff checking their pace on their watch and then for some reason doing

[01:42:22] their pulse i don't know understand why yeah i don't understand why the pulse thing i mean i i guess because the watches aren't the most accurate uh uh um accurate tool to measure your pulse um but for me it's 99 of what i do is just based on feeling it's based on on how i feel um i don't generally look at my watch at all i i i when i the aid station i knew i was going to stop at is when i looked at my watch to

[01:42:51] see where i was at as far as time goes other than that it's especially that day because of how crappy it was it was under a sleeve so it's it's i just make it i try to make it is not difficult but annoying for me to have to look at versus having it wide open on your seat you can look at it all the time you know what i mean it's like your phone if you put it away and put it in your pocket you don't look at it but if you have it out in your hand you're going to look at it all the time yeah um true true so like uh

[01:43:20] wanna just um matt how's your battery doing do you want to get a like a portable battery or do you have one we're good we're at like 20 oh i'll let you guys know if i need to plug so so i guess that's very timely when you talk about looking at your your phone your wristwatch for your your heart pace and now we're checking out matt's phone to see how much longer we can talk about this so did you did

[01:43:43] you in preparation for the cat's tail change up your training regimen to get better prepared for it or you just keep training as you you normally go out and run every day i it's literally for me training when when people like at work that i've gotten into running and stuff like that ask me how i train i i don't train in this in a way where you know people want to train for for for pacing um as far as like

[01:44:11] the zone two zone three zone four i've i don't even know what those mean same it's yeah it's literally in if that's what people do that's that's awesome too right it's there's 1900 different ways to do one thing so basing everything off feeling is is for me the best way um so even after these big days i'll

[01:44:36] go out and get at least two miles and it's is it gonna be a hard run no is it gonna be a fast run no is it just gonna be moving your legs and getting your body moving that's that's entirely what it's the purpose of that is it's just movement um but coming up to the the cat's tail the training was there i'd done the 50k in may i did the escarpment in july i was sprinkling sprinkling in some like nine

[01:45:03] ten milers with elevation you know with 16 18 2200 feet like nothing too crazy but just stuff to just keep that stimulus going without over overworking yourself um and i'm also not go ahead yeah so where did my question is going to be is where did that get you you you you did the training you did the

[01:45:26] events that you did the escarpment the 50k and now it's the cat's tail and did you that day have an objective to finish under a certain time did you make that objective tell us about what your expectations were and how it turned out for you so i try not to put time like times on stuff for myself

[01:45:54] because in a way i think that sometimes takes away like not necessarily like the meaning of why i'm doing it but why i'm doing it in the first place right it is nice to to be efficient i want to just be efficient so i felt confident that i could do this in sub nine hours i was really hoping to get closer to eight to finish closer to eight i don't want to use weather as an excuse because i've been hiking in

[01:46:22] miserable miserable conditions before and it's part of it so that's part of the day right it's it's a stimulus that affected the the pace sure but that's the day i had so i don't use it as excuse it's just the day we ran it 833 is what i finished in uh or 834 something in that in that range so i was happy with that yeah that's probably that's probably faster than what stash and i could do dude i did i do

[01:46:51] like like balsam i wouldn't say balsam lake but like in like six hours like jesus so that's pretty close for stash um pretty close right so so what what factor was the rain then that day so i got through the first aid station i stopped that was nine and a half in and it was like that easement before uh slide that connector trail which to be honest i never knew that was the only part of the trail i'd

[01:47:18] never hiked and i never knew that that connector trail existed i always knew when you came down slide and then you bang that sharp left to go back towards the parking lot that trail kept going i was always like i wonder where that goes but now i know so nine and a half miles in i got to that first aid station it hadn't really started raining it was misting and drizzly about halfway up slide was when the really heavy rain started um you're starting to feel the wind but you're kind of you're kind of buffered because

[01:47:47] of the trees i'd say that once you got on top of slide it was it was pretty miserable it was it was 30s wind chill it was pouring rain um just we've all been in those days right it's just one of those days where it's just you got to keep going though right you guys got one foot in front of the other keep pushing forward so did you have like a windbreaker with you layers to put on or you just

[01:48:11] keep running and and hope not to get chilled like i did i had and this is just me this is just how i am it's i had a windbreaker on and by the time i thought to myself i should probably stop and put this on it was pointless i was soaked by that point uh i didn't say i wouldn't say i got extremely cold

[01:48:40] while i was moving but on witten but prior to wittenberg coming down cornell and you're in that little coal there and you're starting to do those like slabby ledges going up to wittenberg and the wind was just ripping through because wittenberg's an open face and it's you know getting into the trees at that point i uh i was not concerned that it was it was this bad

[01:49:05] but i'm just like i need to get get just get off wittenberg right and once i got down off of the elevation the the weather was considerably better it was still raining and still crappy but that's i think we're the worst that was the worst part of of the day for me in that sense where not questioning if i should keep going now obviously you have no choice right there but just like this is this is

[01:49:30] this can turn really crappy yeah and it's it's just is this kind of like uh the common thing with the cat's tail as far as just rain yeah well the race director i uh interestingly after the race i asked him if this was the worst he said this was probably the second worst he said the first time he did it was was the ass and it was like i think he said it was snow and ice the first time he did it up on the

[01:49:55] up at elevation i mean we're we're late to september so like we're getting into up at the higher elevation especially slide slide sees uh more precipitation than any other peak in the catskills it's actually considered a rainforest correct i remember hearing about this subtropical i think yeah and yeah and you know just when we're talking about you know september you know up higher you know

[01:50:22] we're sitting in the sub 30s mid 30s there's gonna be sleet and shit so you get expectations are just you're like oh shit like did you ever when you were running along this like when you're hitting giant ledge and you look up a slide you're like damn that's covered in clouds i'm gonna be hitting some shit soon i never looked i just head down and just kept going and it's doesn't look at his watch doesn't look at his phone doesn't look at the mountains he just keeps on the trail no and you know

[01:50:52] what's funny is that the climb up slide on a normal day if that's your hike right if you pull up the slide and you go up that the jeep road it's not oh i mean if you've been hiking in the caskills for a long time or you have you're in decent shape it's not an overly difficult climb to get up to slide right it's kind of like a mellow there's like one pretty decent steep part but it's not it's a cheap road it's a fire road so it's kind of straightforward yeah i was crawling up that oh for whatever reason

[01:51:20] and it just it's one of those i think because of it's such a long two and a half miles up where it's just one foot in front of the other that it just starts to it starts to beat you down a little bit in a sense like you just want to get to the top and you know that it's only quote two and a half miles up but it's just a yeah it's just a long long gradual gradual climb up that was that the hardest

[01:51:49] part of the race for you um the hardest part of the race i'm gonna say yeah i'm gonna say just with weather conditions and just the way that climb kind of like wore me out a little bit mm-hmm yeah it was not in a sense where i ever wanted to quit or or anything like that but it was

[01:52:13] mentally it was the hardest i'd also started using some gels um never used gels before i always took my hiking food when i went on these trail runs but it's starting to become a little bit too heavy to bring with me not a jar of peanut butter though but i mean that kind of that kind of interludes into the next question how was your like what did you carry on with you at the start of the race and stuff to to carry on i know there's eight stations with the four eight stations correct

[01:52:41] uh one two three four yes there's but there's so interesting there's two there's one at seven and a half and one at nine and a half so you really just stop at one or the other that was my mentality i don't need to stop at both of those so i chose the nine and a half mile one but i had my my 10 liter vest um i had uh two 750 uh mls bottles i use gatorade electrolytes with actual

[01:53:08] sugar in it because the the element and all those ones like my stomach just does not like those um the the uh fake sugars and all that just they don't work for me um gels this was the first time i'd use gels uh the honey stinger ones um they weren't bad but i will say after like four or five of them the

[01:53:33] consistency is enough to make you like like dry heave and that's what was happening to me going up to uh wittenberg when i came off of cornell i will start like i it was another honey one i took put it in my mouth i'm just like oh this is disgusting this is so i got this like massive hot flash like quick bout of nausea that i tried to throw up like twice so i just wow felt it was gonna be better and then

[01:54:00] kept moving by the time i got to wittenberg that feeling was gone and i didn't eat any more gels for the rest of it so it was uh oreos and whatever else i could scavenge from the last aid station to get me through the end that was shit wow oreos the uh cereal oh cookies cookies yeah yeah that's just that so now well i just i just said like are they all the same gel like like flavors like if do you think

[01:54:26] if you had different gel flavors you would have been okay yes so i am a massive massive chocoholic like i absolutely need chocolate when i'm doing these things and i couldn't find chocolate gels i don't drink caffeine either so i couldn't find um chocolate gels without caffeine so wow yeah but i bought honey stinger they're honey stinger's pretty they're they're not i'm like trying to like make them out

[01:54:55] to be a bad gel but it's just the honey is super sweet and then the other one was like a fruit punch which is like another very super sweet uh gel they're all natural they're real sugar they're no artificial flavor so um but i did find some and ordered some uh chocolate non-caffeinated gels i forgot who makes them hammer or something but i have like 200 of them i haven't tried them yet i hope i like them

[01:55:22] 200 of them yeah so from hammer nutrition yeah i think so yeah back back in my bicycle racing days i was a big fan of hammer nutrition products and you can actually buy their gels in bulk like in a big bottle and then okay and fill up a gel flask so oh wow yes you don't have to peel open one of those every time you want to use them and then you don't have the waste that's associated with

[01:55:52] that and then buying the bulk jug of gel um it's just more economical oh 100 yeah to buy it in bulk and so actually this this past weekend i did before i went up hawket in record time i think i mentioned that earlier i broke records going up that that ascent of uh hawket was

[01:56:14] sponsored by hammer nutrition's uh espresso excellent yeah but they they did have caffeine in them so yeah a little an artificial enhancement uh to that so but while we're on the gear or on the like the technical end of the uh conversation what were you wearing for footwear and how did that work out in

[01:56:35] the wet conditions so i'm pretty uh i'm married to to brooks cascadius uh specifically the 17s for whatever reason they just they work with me especially on the the rugged stuff catskills white mountain stuff um grip wise they're phenomenal i have zero slipping um i i i can't lie i did take

[01:57:02] one fall like maybe two miles coming down rober right almost at the end uh but knew i was gonna fall the way i was stepping but did it anyway um it wasn't the shoes fault but yeah they're they're extremely durable they're not the most comfortable to wear a long distance stuff because they're not i don't not really big ultra cushion guy um especially on the technical stuff for me i need to have my foot

[01:57:26] feel like it's planted and not gonna tip on either side of a rock um so they're not super wide either yeah i've used them for for everything and and they they do the job for me so i'm sure there's quote unquote better out there but when you find something that works like yeah that works for you 100 yeah so you told us um that going up slide mountain was a crawl fest for you and that was

[01:57:55] where your you were at your worst where was it after your slide mountain experience that you you felt your best in the second half of the race and you felt that you were you know you were going to finish this um so came down wittenberg and then you have that that really long and it's not a highly trafficked area going over and down to cross um mountain it's very overgrown and it's very rocky so

[01:58:26] uh slow going through there um you get over cross you come down uh and it gets pretty runnable in those sections but it's on the east side so you're getting pummeled by the rain and wind at that point it was like torrential downpouring but for whatever reason at about eight miles left maybe seven and a

[01:58:47] half miles left and it happens to be a lot in longer races i just like all the pain and all the just the tiredness kind of just like goes and it's not like i'm running seven minute miles but i'm just moving very efficiently um seven minute miles no no no no i said it's not like i'm running oh okay no no what

[01:59:10] the no just you become more efficient right it's just or me i i just it is what it is i don't know why i don't try to figure out why i just i know what's coming at some point later in these races and i just can cruise but i felt like it happened a little bit too early on this race because i know going down roamer is just a switchback after switchback after switchback after switchback and it gets pretty

[01:59:37] steep in sections and it was an absolute mud fest um yeah so probably about a mile and a half coming down roamer is is like when i started to go back into that like just get me out of the woods and get me to the road section at this point um but for a good six and a half miles uh about like a 10k on the

[02:00:00] back half of that i was i was moving really really well any now we're going to break into this any what the kind of moments that you had oh ted's eyebrows raised ted's just like oh god did we have to go to hear it we're going to hear it now yeah when when i was when i was on that windberg section and it's

[02:00:25] you know not that it's not a hard section it's just where i was mentally and physically so i calorie wise i was not my stomach was like it felt like a brick so i couldn't really nothing was like oh i can't wait to eat this um normally in races i can't wait to get pizza after or cheeseburger or something all that was making me nauseous the more i thought about that and then getting to the top of

[02:00:51] wittenberg and then just realizing how bad the weather really was was just like yeah this is this is crazy like this is nuts right now um and then you had that is are you talking about that steep little descent you have before you get towards the the uh trail and the intersection yeah so you have that that down climb from from wittenberg that i mean maybe it's a mile if that i don't know that it's

[02:01:17] a mile but it's very steep and chunky it's not like chunky that's a good way to describe it chunky i like that yeah all the catskill stuff to me i tell people it's just chunky blocky and like that so to move officially when it's wet and the problem was if there wasn't a lot of if it wasn't a race it would probably not be as slippery but you had to be really careful because there's a lot of mud and dirt being tracked over these rocks right now at that point because there's so many people

[02:01:44] had gone over them already so it's really not the rock that's slippery it's the mud and dirt that's actually on the rock that just like has that that frictionless surface that just makes your foot just slide out from under you so i i just i wanted to eliminate that because any fall in that section at that time you know at that point could have ended your day and that's a that's a whole ordeal to get somebody out of there at that point

[02:02:09] that is definitely not the place you want to freaking fall 100 there's no quick way in at that point is there was there any part of the this marathon that you decided to question that you did this no oh nice oh that's there's i mean i love that if if i had to say maybe a couple seconds of not questioning why i did it but just like saying this is like really really shitty out here right now

[02:02:39] a hundred percent but never once did i just say i actually it's the opposite because i actually really beat myself up into like not thinking i should i can do it or should do it and then when i'm like towards the end of it i'm like why why do i why do i keep doubting myself on these things you know and that's why i've ed ed is just like the if you can see our text messages back and forth he's just the

[02:03:06] ultimate cheerleader he's just he's so great he's so awesome cool did did ed run the cat's tail he did yep oh yeah yeah yeah right how'd he do did you beat him or did he no no he didn't he was having a rough day um i did pass him going up slide and he slap your ass and say good job buddy more or less he was still his self like go get him like this is your race you got this and then here i am in my fast section

[02:03:35] going over rober or the one what's the one before rober i forgot the name of that little mountain i think that's the one you're talking about there's there's two hills there there's rober and there's one other one yeah i don't remember the name off hand yeah either way he he ends up it's we're probably just cresting roamer and i hear him yelling behind me he's he catches me and then we're kind of running side not side by side but he's in front of me we're kind of cruising down

[02:04:02] rober and i just i couldn't keep up with him anymore i said see i'll see it's finished like i i just he was moving so well at that point of the race and uh and i think he uh no that's hannah bark god damn what is it it's sorry you gotta keep going no you're good so you you finish an 8 33 what was ed's time uh i he's hold on hold on hold on i'm i have it right in front of me eight and change

[02:04:27] it's 805 i think awesome um so how hard were you going at the end that to stay on ed's tail were you 19 were you 19 okay were you giving it full gas or i was trying to keep up with him and i just realized at a certain point like he's just moving better than me right now and i just yeah he had the hammer

[02:04:55] he had the hammer nutrition and you were still on the honey he must have right he must have yep yeah that's what did it why don't you break like a hard cider in the middle of this and be like listen guys i got this shit i mean listen if i if i drank i probably would be just barely how many calories are these things these things push probably like 300 something calories man really that's what you need

[02:05:18] exactly so sorry sorry ted uh liquid fuel so how'd you feel the next day how are your legs how are the joints beat up right you're gonna feel sore you're gonna feel like you ran in the catskills it's not like you don't wake up and you feel like great but i still swear by i eat a cheeseburger after all these

[02:05:44] red meat i think it's the the profile the amino acids and protein it's a little bit different than a chicken or you don't really get the protein and stuff in pizza you know pizza's great right but i think to for me there's definitely something in in the red meat factor after this um

[02:06:05] not that i've obviously felt like i could go run 15 20 miles but i felt well enough to get up and walk and well nice just just kind of like go about my day i got i drove home i stayed overnight that night in uh and drove home and i went out for a quick like two miles when i got home just easy easy pace just move

[02:06:30] the legs and get that that lactic acid and those uh all those toxins pushed out of the muscles and flushed out it's nice so you felt you felt decent you felt comfortable and such like it's just that's i mean that's what it's really good especially after 26 goddamn miles jesus that's a little that's pushing it so it's up for me mentally it's all about not letting that soreness really set in right it's

[02:06:56] if you kind of hang out and not do much the next day i think that the the doms that sets in a delayed onset the following day is worse than it you're still going to get it there's no way to avoid it because your muscles are damaged so it's the repair and all that but it makes it tolerable really okay so now um if if if someone like your ed your ed and someone like that in in your you you know you

[02:07:26] know you have this kind of mindset do you like how do you somebody be like hey man i'm gonna do the cat's tail what is your advice i if i give people advice on anything as far as trail riding period it's don't think you have to just sit there and go run every single step of every single mile that you're on it is a at your own pace not specifically cat's tail because there are there are cutoffs right you

[02:07:56] have to finish these in in certain times but if you get to that point where you're considering something like that then you're probably within the in the in the caliber to to complete it because you've you've done something that big but i think in general just in trail running i think people are intimidated in the sense that and i thought it too at the very beginning that you have to run everything and sure you there are people that that can do it and and do do it but that's just everything else

[02:08:23] like you can do stuff at your own pace and that's what that's what i think trail running and hiking has over i'm not gonna i don't want to say road running is a bit more time oriented and pace oriented but it is it's it's very pace oriented and how fast are we going um you're monitoring stuff and stuff like that with with the 100 with mountain with mountain running stuff like that trail running you're just

[02:08:51] like i'm gonna finish this you're just going for it exactly and now during this this time with like trail running and stuff like that we have hike your own hike do you think you're you it's now going to become trail run your own trail run is that how you run your own run run your own run is that is that the motto have you heard that i have not um but i still consider myself a hiker i don't really call

[02:09:19] myself a trail runner in that sense um so if if you me tad and ed were to go on a hike would you hike or would you be like i can't i can't do this i gotta i would have to run a little bit it's just it's it's i'm not gonna lie at least you're honest yeah i i've i have and i still continue to hike but when

[02:09:43] i go and i see a runnable section of trail i'm just like oh i got i gotta run this i have to i have to run this and you know not like i have to run the entire thing but it's just there's just something in me that's it's it's i don't know i don't know what it is i don't try to figure out what it is i just do what my body wants me to do yeah i you know there are certain times of when i can once i get on the descent

[02:10:11] i can kind of like coast and run but there are times of when i i think my body is too far in front of my mind and i get going too fast and then i'm like oh shit this can turn into a serious situation am i going to fall and crash so like i i i try to kind of like jog and stuff like that but i don't try to

[02:10:35] push myself too far because i'm going to get injured like but that's exactly what trail running is okay that is literally the advice that ed gave on your podcast and it's in you just make it what you want to make it right it's not it doesn't have it doesn't follow i don't want to make it into a rescue though well you know i don't want to be on this guy

[02:11:02] a hike can turn into a rescue right it's it's just that one that one bad step that can happen with anything but i think especially with trail running and moving fast you know with me especially like obviously having years of experience in the woods and on on trail injury can happen in any second but you're more cognizant of where you're putting where you're putting your feet like when i run now in the fall it's hard because of the leaves but i'm never stepping hard on anything i'm

[02:11:32] always i have that like a light a light pressure before i really push off to make sure i'm planted on something that that my foot is really gonna get a good grip on does that make your pace slower of course it does does that does some people not want to run like that because it makes them slower yeah but i want to continue to do this i'm not competing at a level where i'm trying to win races right i'm a mid to backpacker so i know where i am and i don't need to push myself

[02:12:01] beyond that and you're comfortable with that i'm comfortable i think you're happy with that and i i i think finishing these and just being part of the experience is is more than than for me like that this obviously comes from somebody that's not winning these races so if i was winning these races would i have a different mindset of course right you're you're competitive in that sense but it's it's all in the experience that you want to get out of it and in in how you feel like how it makes

[02:12:31] you feel and if you're pushing yourself to a point where you're not enjoying it then what's the point it's like snowboarding being in the park i used to ride in the park all that kind of stuff i get to an age now where it's like yeah it looks fun and i really want to be doing that but i don't i want to enjoy snowboarding i don't want to be hurt and not snowboarding correct yeah and that's a good way to think about it once again you want to keep enjoying it instead of you know i see you know pushing

[02:12:59] yourself to the limit of where you can enjoy it and where it becomes kind of competitive and you know it seems like a lot of these people that you know finish within the top 10 be like i can do better i can do better and then they push themselves to where i'm not enjoying this true and that's not to say that i don't want to do have better times like i know i said i don't really look at my watch but i do look at the finishing time and i like to say oh wow look at this this is actually paying off like i'm

[02:13:29] actually getting better at this so when i when i run cat's tail next year or when i run the escarpment next year i want to be faster than i was last year does it is it going to make me mad or or disappointed if i'm not absolutely not but it's like why not try to progress on it to a level where you're comfortable with but just to say hey look i did this 30 minutes faster right and it's it's already

[02:13:56] happened on some of the connecticut the steep endurance races where you know my half marathon times have improved like pretty like pretty significant numbers not because i'm necessarily faster but because i've learned to run more efficiently and and run better nice i mean that's that's a great goal once again to do better but not win the race to push yourself to extreme limit

[02:14:22] where you're gonna like not have a good time 100 nice nice i like your style man i like it i like your style so you're as you said you're competing on this you're gonna do this again next year oh 100 nice yeah and if edit ed has been really pushing me to sign up for manitou's it's and you know i laugh because when i ran the 10k i said that's the distance i'm not gonna go up i'm not

[02:14:50] gonna run a race farther than that and then a month later i'm doing a half and i'm like i don't want to do anything farther than that and then a year later i'm doing this kind of stuff so it's relative to where you're at as far as like physically right so a half marathon when you're not used to doing it or 10k or even a 5k sounds crazy to run you run three miles every single morning but if you do it every

[02:15:15] single morning then you know you could run six miles right it's like that at least that's the way my brain works so i don't i look at the 5k or the 10k as two 5ks i can run a 5k i know i can run two 5k so why not just do a 10k so it's like nice if you break things up like that i think it it it can help

[02:15:39] nice now uh you have any plans on doing anything else like there's the the new cat skill 100 not a god what is manichu's revenge that's like 52 something right 54 i think 54 so like that's double that so okay yes so ed let's see if we can get ed and you on to convince people to do the manitou's

[02:16:05] revenge and stuff like that like that would be phenomenal awesome yeah and uh you know uh matt i i really thank you to to join us tonight like it was fantastic uh ted once he got something happened with his internet so he had to drop out uh so he he thanks you for joining us and uh yeah no problem had a great chat just positive influence all around you know you might have not had the greatest

[02:16:29] day weather wise but you know we have you know a positive chat and you had a positive experience about the cat's tail and uh once again you you kicked ass you know you glad you finished glad you you had the time that you you had and uh we're we're looking forward to have you back maybe again next year to talk about the cat's tail and how you beat your time last year yeah that'd be awesome like i said it's it's all about like that experience that i had at the cat's tail is not going to be

[02:16:58] duplicated because of how much harder the weather made it right it's just an added element to being up there if it was a sunny dry day it's the cat's tail on a sunny dry day but this was the cat's tail during the nor'easter which was just wild right and if you think about it if somebody told me oh there's gonna be a nor'easter the day you run it would i still sign up for a hundred percent because that's

[02:17:24] i love being in those conditions i love being out there and experiencing that it's just it makes it more memorable it just it adds an element of like like this is real right and it's i appreciate the beautiful nice days too but that's the kind of the ugly days are the days where it's like it really you you really have to put not only your physical but you have to put your mental your mental strength in there and that's really what's got to push you through more than the

[02:17:49] physical i think i i agree with you 100 on that that just summarizes everything you kind of appreciate what you what you have on the good days and the bad days you're just like god damn this is still pretty cool yeah and then i'm battling 50 degree or 50 mile per hour winds and i can still do it exactly and it's like anything hard there's always something harder but when you do something hard

[02:18:15] you can always look back on the easy stuff you thought was hard and say that's that's really not that hard right and it just you take these or i take these experiences and i can use them in real life to say especially when i'm in paramedic school right now and stuff gets hard i'm like this is nothing like i'm taking tests you know what i mean like i'm taking tests and it's stressful but like you know running 26 miles in the catskills in the nor'eastern port rated mud is is you know it's

[02:18:44] it's a test in its own right but it's a different type of mental stamina so i think ed has gotten to you man no he's ed is the best in in jasmine his his partner too is right yeah it's it's it's positive influence positive vibes stuff like that so um speaking of that what positive vibes

[02:19:08] oh just missed it damn his battery just went out let's we're gonna we're gonna give a good old three three minute leeway to see if he joins back in last question of post hike bruising bites let's see if he sends me a message or not he this is this is a cool as i gotta admit tad dropped out

[02:19:36] matt dropped out i'm all alone this is fantastic i'm gonna chuck my water real quick there he is he's back ah yeah glad you could join us one last question that that was hilarious you know i seriously this is the greatest ending of all time i gotta admit 240 i was gonna say it ended on such a high note too with

[02:20:05] with you were saying the positivity and then my phone just was like no so last question you talked about a cheeseburger and you said that like the the red meat is is substantial what did you have as your post hike bruising bites at the end of the cat's tail um ed in uh in jasmine actually uh they invited me out to the shandakin inn which was uh oh and we had some really really good huge cheeseburger there in

[02:20:34] in french fries and they had ginger beer on tap it was it was such a great way to end and the race and in the weekend to spend it the rest of the time uh a couple hours with with them um again it's just the positivity the the camaraderie the friendships and you know when you asked me to be on the podcast that especially yeah i want to talk about the cats the cat's tail marathon and that stuff but it's more

[02:21:03] like i don't know that if you guys understand that the reach in the in the uh the influence that this podcast does have with with bringing people together in this community whether you're running whether you're hiking whether you're fishing whether you're making patches and creating designs and all that stuff like that's a community and that's just podcasts like this really build that up and and uh

[02:21:27] and do a lot of positive things for that so um i i know i want to thank you and tad for for doing this every week and and and putting this out there and just getting people on from and you don't you don't stay in one lane you guys are doing everybody and having everybody on which is i think is is absolutely incredible for for the whole catskill community yeah i and that's i i always tell people you know we

[02:21:53] see once again with the tags of people connecting and that's that's my goal like i wanted to get people together to be as a community to be tight to be as one and and i'm pretty sure you're you're you're you're still doing it though right it's like you've accomplished it but you're you're building that yes it's getting bigger and it's it's it does a lot of really good things for for uh for the community and

[02:22:22] everything you see on on instagram and in in facebook or whatever social media so much negative stuff out there that people don't pay enough attention to like the good stuff and just block that the negative stuff out and and just focus on what you really enjoy what you really want to be doing and and i think a lot of people would be a lot happier and and in doing better things for themselves instead of uh instead of uh like ruminating on some negative negativity that's out there yeah i agree i agree

[02:22:52] just we we have a great community and that's you know once again i want to thank the monthly supporters and monthly sponsors i usually don't do this at the end of the episode so let me know if you you hear this end of the episode once again we want to thank you for listening through uh thank you to everybody who has donated and thank you to everybody who's still listening matthew joins us tonight to talk about the cats hill marathon that he did and he had an amazing experience and uh we thank you once again

[02:23:19] for joining us here on inside the line matthew you're you're a blast loved it i appreciate it i appreciate the time and uh yeah look forward to chatting again all right man have a good night buddy you too thank you so much yep hi everyone i just want to thank you for listening to the show if you enjoyed the show

[02:23:46] subscribe and throw down a smooth review on spotify apple podcast or any podcast platform that you use you can also check daily updates of the podcast hikes hiking news and local news on facebook instagram twitter and the official website of the show remember this you gotta just keep on living in the

[02:24:13] cat skills man m-i-v-i-n wicked wicked wicked wicked