My Windham High Peak Covid Challenge

Virginia, February 2021

The idea of hiking Windham High Peak in the northern Catskills every month of the year was not my initial intention. In early March 2020, I had scheduled an Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK) hike to the Tongue Mountain Range overlooking Lake George in the Adirondacks.  I was excited to have a full group of 12 participants but, as the date approached, news of the Coronavirus reaching the United States, then the east coast, and eventually New York City suddenly raised concern.

Carpooling no longer seemed safe. Participants began emailing me that they planned to drive alone to the trailhead.  When I remembered that the parking area for the Tongue Mountain hike would only hold about five vehicles, I realized that I needed to come up with a different location.

 

The Three Jims socially distanced, March 2020

The large parking lot at Windham High Peak fit the bill.  In addition, this mountain is not far from the Albany area and seemed an environmentally conscious option if each car would only include the driver. I knew that many of my participants would decide not to join in such a dramatic change of plans and was not surprised that, of my original group of twelve, just three chose to attend the revised hike.

Spring Beauties, May 2020

 

Jim C., Jim G., and Jim O., all men with whom I had hiked many times, were enthusiastic about the new plan. The four of us enjoyed the trail, the camaraderie and the views.  We agreed that Windham High Peak had been an excellent alternate hike on a beautiful late-winter day.

Looking east towards Albany, June 2020

 

Lush forest green, June 2020

By April, the Governor encouraged people to stay close to home, which, for me, did not include the Adirondacks.  I returned to Windham High Peak because I wanted to hike, knew it had a pretty trail and nice views, and because I wanted to stay in shape for an eventual return to the Adirondacks.  

This time I hiked by myself, the safest choice given the spread of the virus. I saw no one on my way up the mountain, but, on my descent, I passed a few small groups making their ascent.  I put on my mask and stepped off the trail to let others go by.  Most of the other hikers did the same.

 

Mountain Ash, July 2020

Stinging Nettles, July 2020

Warm, sultry, and no view, July 2020

 

By June, now my 4th consecutive month on Windham High Peak, I came up with the idea of repeating this hike every month of the year from March 2020 through to February 2021.  I dubbed this My Windham High Peak Covid Challenge.  I looked forward to watching the seasons change in this particular location. Not only that, the drive from my home was very pleasant as it meandered through beautiful familiar countryside. 

Sue, August 2020

July came and I fought with the weather.  Summer, with its heat and humidity, is not my time of year.  And there were other annoyances. Where spring beauties had lined the path in May, stinging nettles became a plague in July.  I had focused on the presence of ticks but hadn't given nettles a thought when I wore shorts and carefully covered my bare legs with tick spray.  My skin was virgin flesh for the nettles.

The sting of stinging nettles lasts 20 or 30 minutes at the most, in my experience, just long enough to be annoying on a warm day during the hike's ascent and back on the descent.  In addition, the view was completely socked in and I was getting bored.  I decided that I would ask a friend to join me in August, reasoning that two of us driving in two cars and staying socially distant would be safe from the virus and not too environmentally negligent.

My favorite hiking companion, daughter Meredith, September 2020

 

South-facing view of Blackhead Range, September 2020

I delayed my August hike long enough to find a cool day.  Barely squeaking the trip in, one of my ADK friends, Sue, joined me on the 31st.  Sharing the adventure felt great. To top off the day, as we descended, we saw two other ADK friends heading up. We put our masks on and stopped for a short visit.  

 

Deb, October 2020

Looking north, mixed autumn color, October 2020

 

Windham High Peak boasts three summit overlooks.  The south-facing view faces the Blackhead Range of the Northern Catskills.  Another rocky outcropping offers a north-facing scene across hills and a valley of farms and small towns to the Adirondacks in the distance.  Finally, continuing on the summit trail and after a slight descent, the Hudson Valley and Empire State Plaza in downtown Albany are visible on a clear day to the east.  Any of these is a perfect location for a lunch stop.

 

Trisha, November 2020

 

My daughter, Meredith, came up from New Jersey for my September hike.  At the mountain summit, her Garman Watch told us that we had hiked the equivalent of 81 flights of stairs!

In October, my friend, Deb, displayed the resilience of the lifelong athlete that she is by hiking with me not long after her meniscus surgery.  Trisha, one of the women with whom I camp in the Adirondacks, joined me in November.  Karen ended 2020 with me in December and brought Dove chocolates to share...just to keep us going, of course! Having someone with me was fun and just the change I needed.

 

Karen, December 2020

Other friends asked if they could accompany me as I began to close in on my year-long challenge, but the virus raged into a double-digit infection rate. I chose to hike alone in January. I basked in the quiet and solitude of winter, saw only three other hikers, and felt far away from the stress and anxiety of life in the valley.

I was thrilled to see a distant cloud inversion or "undercast."  Although many people I knew had witnessed far more dramatic undercasts this season while hiking in the Adirondacks and in New Hampshire's White Mountains, I felt fortunate to see one just before the clouds rose and covered the distant mountains. 

 

Beautiful snow, southern view, January 2021

The "bones" of the terrain, January 2021

Cloud inversion or undercast, January 2021

I was excited to complete my "challenge" in February!  Even better, Windham had had 25 inches of new snow just the previous week and intermittent lesser storms in the ensuing days.  Linda, my friend of more than 40 years, joined me for this very snowy snowshoe outing.

With so much snow, Linda and I were glad to find that other hikers had broken the trail and made a nice track in recent days. Additional powder snow fell gently during our entire ascent, adding a fluffy coating to already perfect conditions. While Linda and I both agreed that snowshoeing is harder for us than hiking on a dirt path, we were grateful for the reprieve from dodging roots and rocks that the depth of the snow provided.

 

A deep and nicely broken snowshoe trail, February 2021

 

Linda, February 2021

 

We were taken with the pristine beauty and silence of deep winter.  Boulders appeared nearly submerged by feet of snow, trail markers seemed low on their posts, white mounds blanketed stone walls, and mountain views shown through the leafless forest.  What a fabulous ending to my year spent hiking this Catskill peak.

Light snow to the south in this iconic view, February 2021

What have I learned during My Windham High Peak Covid Challenge?  I loved knowing that I had a pre-determined place to hike, whenever I could get there at some point each month.  I learned that, even if I began the hike with a sluggish pace, I always became energized in the process. While I like to hike alone, I discovered that my own company gets tiresome.  I became familiar with specific trees, rocks, roots underfoot and the ever-changing trail from its beginning crossing the Batavia Kill to the summit plateau. Windham High Peak now holds a special place in my hiking history.

In the Catskills with Mr. Map-man

Some of my regular readers will remember my post "Catskill Ramblings," from June 2011,when Bill and I attempted to hike the paths of the Hudson River School painters, places we had been to decades before.  That day the fog had been so thick that we could barely see the edge of the rock.  A couple of weeks ago, we decided to make a return trip.

Parking at the trailhead on Schutt Road, near North Lake in Haines Falls, we had a perfect, clear, mid-Spring day. As we signed in at the kiosk, we were confronted by a nice couple who were vacationing in the Catskills for a few days.  They were confused about where they were and where they wanted to be, pulling out directions that they had printed off their computer before they left their Pennsylvania home. Map in hand, Bill did the best he could to point them in the right direction for the hike they hoped to do.

(Bill checks the map in front of the Layman monument)

Even though we had been to this area before, and Bill grew up very near here, he had researched every road and trail before we came and had his map collection with him.  Studying the maps is part of the fun.

We were headed for the famous Escarpment Trail and some of its most picturesque locations.  Our first stop was the Layman monument, built to honor Frank Layman who died in 1900 fighting a forest fire here. Frank could have been one of Bill's family members, Layman was his grandmother's maiden name. When I first met Bill, it seemed like everyone, alive or dead, was related to us in some way.

(one of many views along the Escarpment above Palenville Pass)

Rock cliffs abound along the Escarpment and offer 180 degree views.  No wonder many wealthy resorts were built here such as the Laurel House, Kaaterskill House, and the huge Catskill Mountain House.  Most of them succumbed to fire long ago, but evidence that people enjoyed this area at that time is still here.

We could still read some of the names etched into the rock.  C.W. Morris did a good job of giving his name a permanent place when he came in 1916, and then again in 1917 and 1923.  Was C.W. a young man, who, between 1917 and 1923, went off to France during World War I?  Perhaps, in 1923,  he returned to this overlook with his sweetheart.

(C.W. Morris, 1916-17-23)

As we hiked along the narrow path, passing wild blueberry bushes in bloom, I suddenly smelled spices, and heard a sizzling sound.  In minutes, we arrived at the point where the narrow path opened to the wide ledge of Inspiration Point.  So close to the path that we literally had to step around them, about a dozen Chinese people were crouched on the rock cooking a full course meal!

One man stirred a wok over a flame, quickly tossing meat, the source of the sizzling sound and the smell.  A woman took noodles out of a large container.  Each participant sat on a short collapsible stool with containers of food, plates, glasses, and utensils laid out on a large blanket.  This was one luxurious, albeit highly illegal, picnic. We continued walking along the rock as they delved into their feast.

(A multi-generational family having a feast on the ridge)

Farther along, Bill and I found a spot to sit and eat our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and apples.  Inspiration Point is large enough for all of us.

(Bill on Inspiration Point)

As we continued on, I couldn't help but compare this area to the Adirondacks. Whereas northern trails consist of black dirt from decayed hemlock and balsam needles, and the rocky paths seem not much different from stream beds, the Catskills have red earth with flat shale rock. Walking on this trail of naturally crushed stone between hardwood trees just coming into leaf, I could imagine Thomas Cole, the founder of the Hudson River School of painting, hiking here with his flute and his sketch pad.

(parts of the Escarpment trail are very inviting)

I got ahead of Bill for a while, as we became mixed in with two couples and three dogs.  One man stepped back to ask Bill, "Do you have a map? We're hoping we can find a trail to the parking area without having to walk all the way to North Lake."  Bill pulled out his map and they discussed options. I heard one of the women ahead of me, say, "Oh yeah, Pete doesn't know where we are, Mr. I-know-everything-about-the-Catskills!  It's good he found that man with the map."  Apparently, Pete's guidance had worn a little thin.

(Eventually, we reached views to the Hudson Valley in the East)

I kept hiking, dodging the dogs, ages 15, 11, and 5.  The 15-year-old kept his head down but trudged on.  At the intersection, posted with a nice array of DEC trail signs, we stopped to wait for Bill and Pete.  "I hope Pete is learning something from Mr. Map-man," the woman said.

When Pete and "Mr. Map-man" arrived, the signs gave them new fodder for map study.  Bill told the others which trail they should take, and then he and I continued on our way.  This group was from New Jersey, and they did not even have internet directions like the Pennsylvania couple we had met earlier in the day.  I was surprised that so many people would hike without maps.

(Mr. Map-man saves the day)

Our final destination before heading back was Boulder Rock, left by long ago glaciers.  Once again the ridge offered views across the valley.  We returned on a different trail making a nice loop of about 6.5 miles total.

(Boulder Rock)

As we neared the parking lot, we saw the Chinese family just ahead, jovial and chatty after their feast. The men carried full-sized backpacks with their kitchen gear and whatever food was left, as well as all of the individual stools they had sat on.  The women carried nothing.  Both men and women appeared to be experienced hikers, equipped with proper clothes, boots, and trekking poles.  At the parking lot, they climbed into a 15-person van and drove off.

Before completely leaving the area, we decided to walk to the top of Kaaterskill Falls.  Kaaterskill Falls is generally seen from its base, a half-mile walk in from Route 23A in Palenville Pass. Here at the top, a short trail leads to its rocky ledge where water drops 260 feet. This is not for the faint of heart; in the course of a summer, it is not unusual to read about someone falling to their death on one of the trail-less areas alongside this cataract.

( Water tumbles over Kaaterskill Falls, with tiny people on the path below)

A group of Asian students offered me a spot on the rock where they were sitting. Bill, a bit leery of heights, stayed back. Not only was it fascinating to watch the water cascade over the rocks, but I loved seeing people far below who were hiking into the base from the road. After I took a couple of pictures, Bill and I walked upstream along the creek and past the foundation of the Laurel House, within sight of the top of the falls.

We ended our afternoon, with a stop at the nearby camp store for a Perry's ice cream cone. At home, Bill perused his maps, comparing them to the book description.  Then Mr. Map-man put the book and maps away.  We probably wouldn't hike in the Catskills again until later in the year, when the tourists left and chilly weather returned.