Left: B Taking a Quick Break to Apply Crampons | Right: Babe in the Woods
As this unseasonably warm winter weather continues, so does the hiking content on Jake.News, haha. Superbowl Sunday, we decided to do a quick and easy hike. The weather was couched as “cloudy” by the iPhone app. In reality, there were some high wispy clouds diffusing a very strong sun (A/K/A pretty sunny). The temp was reminiscent of late April.Continue reading
Left: The Author at the Halcott Peak Canister (courtesy of the B. Maschal Private Collection) | Right: Waterfall Near the Parking Area
Okay, yes, there is a lot of hiking content on this rag, as of late. There is a reason for this. B is chasing membership to one of the elite Catskills hiking clubs. In order to gain entry, one must complete a multitude of hikes to the highest peaks in the park. Some of them have established trails to follow. Others do not. Cue the “bushwhack”. Yes, it is exactly what it sounds like.. schlepping straight up a mountain over whatever terrain and accompanying flora stands between you and the canister at the peak.Continue reading
On a recent snowy weekend, B and I hiked West Kill peak. It starts on a trail head that we have hiked many times in the past. Notably, it is the trail on which Diamond Notch Falls (see above photo) is located. The peak was mostly socked in. But the scenery along the trail was worth the effort. Continue reading
The Kelly Hollow trail is a nice little ~4 mile loop that is a fairly quick drive from our spot in the Catskills. I like this trail because it is easy enough that Lola can still make it the whole way on her geriatric little paws. It also has some nice scenery, despite being closed in on all sides by Millbrook Ridge (I think). B and I had never hiked it in the winter until recently, when some friends of ours were upstate for a holiday weekend. This is typically a pretty popular hike because the trail is so mellow. Amazingly, we did not encounter another soul on the trail that day. I launched the drone over the beaver pond located roughly at the halfway point on the trail. The pond was partially frozen over and had a very cool looking gradient from above. Another cool visual element was that the trees were only snowy above a certain elevation line, but not along the trail (see bottom photo). Here are a couple of the images (our party is in the lower right corner of the top photo, for reference).
B Enjoying the Views from Wittenberg
After getting off to a super snowy start, this winter has mellowed out considerably over the past several weeks. Apparently it’s not just the Catskills. I read today in Gothamist that we are in the fourth longest period in history (since they started keeping track) with no measurable snow in NYC. Not good for skiing, but not terrible for hiking, assuming that one chooses to ignore the potential future implications as they relate to the global climate. Or maybe it is just La Nina? But hey, it was a 3 day weekend, the weather was unseasonably warm and we took advantage by going on a very long hike!Continue reading
December 2022 has been one of the snowiest Decembers in the Catskills, in recent memory. As luck would have it, B and I were able to spend the entire second half of the month enjoying said snow. Here is a mega-gallery from some of our adventures in the snowy outdoors the last couple of weeks in 2022.Continue reading
Britt Enjoying Some Autumnal Blue Hour Views at Little Pond
A couple of years back, we scored some very decent camping gear through a Burton promo. Britt decided that it was time to finally actually put it to use. She booked a campsite a the Little Pond Campground, a short drive from our house in the Catskills. We opted for one of the “primitive” sites (means that you can’t just pull up and camp next to the car) mainly because it was the only option available on the last weekend of its operating season. The campground was a good way to ease back into “real” camping. It was only a half-mile walk to the camp site from the parking lot. So it was very easy to bring a wheeled cooler, bundle of fire wood, etc.. The campground also had hot showers and flushing toilets. We didn’t take advantage of the showers, since we only stayed one night. But the plumbed bathrooms were a nice amenity.
In the morning, we broke camp, sat in the truck for 30 minutes to let a rain squall blow through, then hiked the Little Pond trail with Lola. The leaves were intense. The rest of this post is a mix of photos from camping, hiking and fishing over the course of that weekend. The handheld shots were this (for camping) or this (for fishing). The aerial shots were with a DJI Mini drone. Enjoy!Continue reading
My commute upstate from NYC took about an hour longer that usual last night. I couldn’t figure out why until Britt reminded me that there was a three day weekend for a lot of people. Separately, it is getting darn close to peak leaf peeping season in our part of the Catskills. I woke up to this on Friday morning. Wild how much it has changed even from last weekend. I feel spoiled to be right in the middle of it all!Continue reading
Our local ski mountain closed their lifts for the season about two weeks ago. Between then and now, we experienced few days where the temps peaked in the 70s. It was definitely feeling like spring. Then last Monday night it started flurrying and we woke up the next morning to about a foot of snow. At first I was super annoyed. But looking back though IG history, I realized that this photo was taken on April 18, 2020. It was a nice reminder that anything can happen during the shoulder seasons in the Catskills, and I should have seen it coming. After all, can’t get too annoyed at something so pretty. After shoveling the deck, I walked around the yard with my knock-around rig and snapped a couple of shots (below). In the afternoon when the snow died down a bit, I launched the drone (obv) and got the above snap.
The Author Moments After an Icy Baptism [IMG courtesy of Belleayre]
Growing up watching snowboarding videos (on VHS), one recurring theme I noticed was in the crash reel during the closing credits. Almost without fail, there would be a clip or two of someone going down like a mouse trap, face first in a glacial pond. I had never actually participated in a pond skim, but the idea certainly intrigued me. The first weekend of April I finally had my chance to be that guy from the crash reel. Belleayre, our local mountain in the Catskills was throwing a big end-of-season bash, including a pond skimming contest aptly dubbed ‘The Slush Cup’.
There was definitely a bit of trepidation on my part, since I had never attempted such a feat in all of my years of snowboarding. PS, that is a lot of years. When I arrived on the scene and discovered a very short/flat runway, I knew there was no way I was going to make it across. But I was committed to the skim, so I enjoyed the weather, threw back a few brews and resigned to the fact that I would be taking a bath in some yellow tinged water. The setting was slightly less pristine than those emerald colored lagoons at the base of giant glaciers I had seen in those snowboarding videos as a kid. But hey man, gotta start somewhere, right? Thank you to Belleayre for hosting the event. Thanks to Britt and to our friends who came to spectate (and contribute footage). Enjoy the cut below for a good laugh-
2022 Slush Cup at Belleayre NY from Jacob Breinholt on Vimeo.