Last Sunset of 2010

I love sunsets. I currently can barely walk. But, I've got to catch the last sunset of the year, right? So I set out for a little stroll up to the fire tower in Ferncliff Forest. Luckily, it wasn't icy, it was just hard packed snow. As always, the views were great.

Lunar Eclipse Night

There are no photos here of the Lunar Eclipse (the first to fall on the winter solstice in over 300 years). These are photos of the sunset and moonrise which happened within minutes of each other. The shots are taken from the Ferncliff Fire Tower (an absolute treasure) after a short walk.

Circle Manhattan

A local Meetup Group posted a Walk Around Manhattan event. This I thought was a brilliant idea which surprisingly I never thought up myself. The walk would start downtown near the Brooklyn Bridge and 33 miles and 13 hours later would end at the same spot.

Again I didn't prepare myself well, but so what, I'd be in the city so I could pick up whatever necessities I forgot. I almost didn't bring a hat, which would have been costly. Once we hit the bottom of Manhattan the winds were real nasty. It would be well past noon before I warmed up. But, we were afforded with great views of New York harbor which includes the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. The lovely Staten Island was also in view.

We then walked north. Pretty much the entire west side is park land. Many cyclists, rollerbladers, runners and walkers were out to take advantage of the beautiful, but windy day. From here a glimpse of the Freedom Tower could be seen. It's amazing that the Dubai Tower (over 2 thousand feet)even though construction on it did not start until after 2001. Here in NYC almost 10 years after 9/11 there's barely 30 stories.

We took a little detour to walk along the high line. The High Line has to be one of the more unique parks around. This is parkland made from an old rail line that is above the streets which you can check out here. It was pretty cool walking on an old rail bed above the streets with all this vegetation. A great place to take a walk in the morning and chilling while reading the paper. It was just after here that I met up with the infamous Johnny Rocket.

The pace of the walk was pretty quick and Johnny Rocket was man enough for it. Johnny Rocket walked up to near the GW bridge. We stopped for lunch at the Boathouse. I finally was able to warm up a little here.

One of the highlights for me was seeing the Little Red Lighthouse under the GW bridge. As a child we read the book about it at school. It's the only lighthouse left on Manhattan.

We then reached the tip of Manhattan. 217th street was the highest numbered street that I saw. There was a nice little park at the tip. We then started heading south toward lower Manhattan. Walking the streets of Spanish Harlem was interesting. The east side didn't have much for walking. So we then moved inland and out of the wind and we headed south along 3rd avenue. We had dinner around 97th street. After dinner there were only 5 of us and the pace was extremely quick. And at this point I started to feel the miles on my feet. I think next time I do this it will be on bicycle.

Mt Beacon at Night

This was a quick jaunt up and down with the Hudson Valley Hikers. I had my headlamp on the whole time. We made it to the first view point just in time to see what was remaining of the sunset.

Wittenburg-Cornell-Slide Loop

High Point from the Ashokan Resevoir




The Burroughs Range




A closer look at where I'd be shortly.




The long trail up to Big Bad Wittenburg.




The outstanding view from the summit.




Arguably the best views in the Catskills.




Wittenburg from Cornell.




Man's best friend getting some help on one of the trickier sections on Cornell.




Slide from Cornell.




Fir, Big Indian, Eagle and Balsam with Doubletop in the background. Views are from Slide.




Peekamoose and Table




Working their way down the slide.




Devil's Path in the distance.




Peak foliage in Woodland Valley.




Ladders to negotiate the slide.




Cornell and Wittenburg from Slide.




The ridge from Cornell to Friday known as Dink. Don't go there!!!




Friday and Balsam Cap.





More peak foliage.





Giant Ledge and Panther.




Pine needles make for a great trail and happy feet!




Lone and Table




Burroughs Range. Somewhere in there is Rocky




Lake Winnisook. The Source of the Esopus Creek and at 2,660 feet, the highest lake in the Catskills.





Instead of getting married, I thought 10/10/10 would make for a great day to do the Wittenburg-Cornell-Slide loop from Woodland Valley. It was perfect hiking weather. No humidity and clear blue skies and peak foliage in the valleys below.

As usual the climb up Wittenburg was long and winding. Many hikers were out, but I beat much of the crowd up and shared the summit with about 5 others. I stayed up there for about a half hour admiring the views. Almost every time I had been up here in the past, it had either been dark (the last time was a full moon hike) or very near sunset. Today the views seemed to be rather extraordinary.

From here you can see almost the entire Ashokan Resevoir. The Upper portion looked rather muddy, probably due to all the rain. But, the lower section, closest to Kingston was fairly clear and appeared to be below normal levels. To the north the devils path is visible, although its deep cols aren't as recognizable due to mountains in the foreground. To the south and east, Ashokan High Point and the tower on Mohonk are visible.

The stroll over to Cornell is short and sweet. This is a rather tricky section, which makes for some difficulty if you are a dog or are hiking in the winter. The walk from Witt to Cornell is one of my favorites in the Catskills, as is the walk from Cornell to Slide. The Col of Cornell and Slide has some great camping spots, which one of these days I will take full advantage of. It's also the source of the Neversink which flows into the Delaware.

The summit of Slide had many people on it as usual. Also as usual, there were many Asians. I very rarely see Asians in the Catskills, but almost every time I'm on Slide there are quite a few. On previous occasions there were groups burning incense. This leads me to believe that maybe slide is treated as holy mountain and makes for a pilgrimage. Next time I will ask.

On the way down Slide I hiked with Kevin who was from Kingston. We mostly talked about what was going on locally and I helped point out the mountains from the different view points. Much to my surprise, despite him being relatively new to hiking in the area, he pretty much got the layout of the surrounding area.

The last few miles went by pretty quick, with the exception of one last climb before I reached the car. All in all it was a great hike and fortunately for me, it seemed easier this time than when I did this same hike in reverse almost 10 years ago. I'm really becoming a fan and a believer in hiking in trail runners outside the winter season.