Catamount Mountain (3173') - Taylor Pond Wild Forest - 12/26/14

Today my morning peak was Wilmington Peak.  That hike took me 3 hours and I was back at my car at noon.  I decided to pay Catamount Mountain a revisit, since it was only several miles away.  It had been 3 years since my previous visit.

My first observation was that there is now a trailhead sign and a new parking lot, along with a kiosk and trail register.  All these things are new.  The parking lot is large and can hold at least a dozen cars.  When I last visited, I had to park alongside the road and the only indication of a trail was an orange ribbon beside the road.  The trail itself is still unmarked.  I don't know if there are plans to mark it or not.  For the most part, it's not hard to follow.

There is a great view of Catamount from the road.  It was still cloudy at the start. 

I believe the elevation gain is 1,362', not 2,362'!  This may scare away some folks...

The new parking lot...

The trail is almost totally flat for the first .7 miles, gaining only 100 feet.  This is followed by an abrupt change and the trail is steep the rest of the way, gaining about 1250' in just over a mile.  At about the 1.25 mile mark is a rock chimney and a cleft in the rock that you have to squeeze through (although Rev had no problem).  I had to take my pack off to get through. 

Rev on top of the rock cleft... waiting for me!

I had worn snowshoes until the base of the chimney but the sun exposure had melted most of the snow at that point, so I switched to microspikes.  I stayed in them the rest of the way up.  I had Rev's flexi leash on my hip belt and I hookd her to me once we were above the chimney.  There was a lot of sloping rock the was still covered in ice.  I didn't want her to go into a slide on the ice.

I unhooked Rev again as we neared the top

Above the chimney is the only spot on the unmarked trail that I find to be somewhat hard to follow. If you stay far left as you climb there are small cairns marking the way (of course they'll often be snow covered in the winter    I had perfect timing.  About 5 minutes from the top, blue skies suddenly appeared and the gray clouds were mostly gone for the rest of the day.

  

One of several Geodetic Markers on the summit 

Most of the snow on the summit was gone in areas exposed to the sun.  The shady areas still had a foot or so. 

I stayed on the summit for about 30 minutes and took a whole bunch of pictures.  Catamount is one of my favorite smaller mountains and the view from the top is fantastic on a clear day.  I was lucky to have the skies change just while I was on top.

Below are some of the shots...

The summit

Looking into the sun...

The clouds were blowing away, being replaced by blue sky! 

Lots of lakes visible to the north

It was windy on top and Rev got impatient with me taking so many pictures.  Finally I gave in to her wimpering and we headed down.  I leashed her up again while on the ice.  Even though it was steep, we were able to get down in about an hour.  We still had some daylight, but it was time to head for home.

A last left at the chimney in the afternoon sun

A nice sunset on the drive home.

Hike Stats:

Hike Distance:  3.7 miles

Hike Time:  3 hours (including summit time)

Total Vertical Gain:  ~1370'

The route (click image to enlarge)

The two routes of the day

Wilmington Peak (3458') - Taylor Pond Wild Forest - 12/26/14

Four days ago, I did this hike but was stopped 0.3 miles from the summit due to the depth of the snow.  My dog Rev was having a difficult time climbing a 45 degree slope in 2 feet of powder.  That trip report is here.  With all the rain we received on Christmas Eve, I knew the conditions today would be ripe to reach the summit now.  I grabbed Rev and we paid another visit.

This time, the stream was actually visible in the slide.  The snow pack was now greatly reduced and it was also consolidated so the snowshoeing was easy.

Visible water in the slide today

The summit is in site

On the first trip here, we turned around at the bottom of the headwall of the slide.  This was .3 miles shy of the summit.  Today, it only took us 15 minutes to finish the hike.  We went right of the headwall and hugged the edge of a cliff band until we reached the summit ridge. 

We climbed along the edge of this rock face

This cloudy morning didn't give way until I was back near the bottom

The headwall of the slide

On the ridge we turned left and stayed on the right side as we climbed.  It was an easy walk in an open pine forest.  5 minutes and we were on the summit.  It was really a pretty spot, even though there were no far reaching views.  Some of the pines had hanging moss.  It felt very peaceful.  The weather probably contributed to that feeling.

Anorange ribbon marked the true summit

In these snow conditions, it was a fast walk downhill.  We went from top to bottom in about 50 minutes.  Since 4 days ago, A large birch tree has fallen across the trail, about 1.5 miles from the car. Unfortunately it is in a spot that is great for skiing.  I'm sure someone will cut it up in the near future.   

Note the open woods

Hike Stats:

Hike Distance:  5.3 miles

Hike Time:  3 hours

Total Vertical Gain:  ~ 1700'

The the image of the route to enlarge 

Wilmington Peak was the morning hike; Catamount Mountain was the afternoon hike.  See both here. 

Cooper Kiln Slide - Taylor Pond Wild Forest, Wilmington, NY - 12/22/14

I had today off from work so I ventured north to Wilmington, NY to hike the eastern half of the Cooper Kiln Pond trail in the Taylor Pond Wild Forest.  I had done the western half on a previous trip. 

I turned out to be a sunny day, much to my surprise.  I parked on the corner of John Bliss Road and Bonnie View Road and my dog Rev and I got started.  The first thing I noticed is that the trail for the first 1.75 miles is on an old jeep road.  It provides a great place to XC ski.  The trail climbs 850' in the 1.75 miles and would be a great run back to the car.

The eastern trailhead for the Cooper Kiln Pond trail

At the 1.75 mile mark, the trail makes a 90 degree turn to the left and becomes almost flat for .5 miles.  If you want to visit the slide, don't make the left hand turn, but rather continue to follow the old jeep road straight ahead and you will soon see the slide.

  

What an ideal ski run

This is just after the 90 degree turn left where the trail levels out

I followed the trail and at the 2 mile mark, the ski tracks I was following ended.  I got to break trail for the last 1.2 miles (actually Rev broke trail).  She was fun to watch in this process.  The trail gets steeper in the final mile and is somewhat in a shallow trough that would make skiing more difficult.

Almost to Cooper Kiln Pond

When I arrived at the pond, everything was frost covered, except for the summit of Wilmington Peak which had been exposed to the sun, thereby melting the frost. 

No frost on Wilmington Peak, due to the sun 

Cooper Kiln Pond

Very pretty...

The trail as it neared the pond

At the pond is the Cooper Kiln lean-to.  It is located at the waters edge and at some point will probably be moved away from the water.  Current practice is to locate lean-tos at least 150' from the water.

On this day, the interesting thing about the lean-to was an ice wall that a recent occupant had built to protect the lean-to from the west wind.  It worked pretty well.    

Cooper Pond lean-to

Look at that nice wind block!

I had thought about climbing Wilmington Peak from the lean-to, but that would have been some deep snow bushwhacking.  Instead, I returned to where the trail split from the jeep road and I headed for the slide.  I could tell there were fresh tracks from skiers who were skinning up the slide.  As I got partway up the slide, I could see to skiers higher on the slide up ahead of me.

Looking up the slide from near my entry point

The skiers reached the bottom of the headwall and I could see them preparing for their descent. Soon I head a dog barking and saw that they had a small herding dog.  After a few minutes I reached their location.  Rev and their dog exchanged plesantries and then they headed down.  I turned out that they had splitboards.  They skinned up with skins on their splitboards, then put their boards together to be snowboards.  I wanted them go down, with their dog running close behind.  They had no difficulty going down.   

Once again, I thought about heading for Wilmington Peak.  I was only about .3 miles from the true summit.  The headwall was too steep to climb, and the snow in the woods to the right would have been really tough for Rev.  I'll go back on another day.  I'll climb it from the slide route.  It was quite nice.       

Nice view from the bottom of the headwall

The summit of Wilmington Peak is just left of center

When I come back, I'll ascend from the woods on the right

It was very easy going down.  I got back to the car in 45 minutes from the bottom of the slide headwall. 

The lower part of the slide

Hike Stats:

Hike Distance: 7.4 miles

Hike Time:  4 hours

Total Vertical Gain:  ~ 2400' 

Click image to enlarge the map of  the route 

The route on the National Geographic Map