Trip Report: Southern Catskills (NY) 6-13,14,15-97

Being from the White Mountains of NH, I've always been skeptical of other east coast mountains, but I was pleasantly surprised to find the trails in the south-central Catskills of NY to be quite rough, very scenic, and, despite the popularity of the area, almost brimming with wildlife.

Day 1, Friday After purchasing some local maps and reconoitering a bit, Courtenay and I set out from the Woodland Valley Campground at about 4 pm. Despite the late start, we made good time up the Phonecia-EastBranch trail past some exotic rock formations in the failing heat of the afternoon.

Descending from Slide Mountain, we were presented with this vista of Cornell and Wittenberg Mountains. Photo Courtenay Dunn

At 2.75 miles, we had reached the plateau and turned up the Giant Panther trail for .8 miles (the last bit of which was very steep) up to the campsites at Giant Ledges. Spectacular view out to the east and south. Just as the tent came out, a thunderstorm started. Just as we had finished cooking dinner (couscous with carrots and potted chicken), the rain stopped and we were able to wolf down our chow perched 200 feet above the trees below enjoying the coming dark and the clouds rising from the treetops. Pure heaven!

Day 2, Saturday: After stopping off at the spring just below Giant Ledges, we made our way back to the trail junction. Here we were presented with two options. Either we could hike down the new trail about 500' down to the parking lot and road, then regain that elevation walking along the road, or we could use the abandoned ("unmarked") trail present in the old guide-books and still pretty easy to follow which would let us out at the top of the pass at Winisook Lake. Opting for the latter, we made our way through gorgeous hardwood forest to the road and lake. The lake and all the land around it belongs to the Winisook Club and they have peppered the area, including all access to the lake with various dire No Tresspassing signage and chainlink fence. Feeling that this was rather poor sportsmanship on their parts, we cast several dirty looks in their directions.

The ascent to Slide Mountain, only 4000'er in the Catskills, was beautiful and green.

There was quite a lot of traffic on the Wittenburg-Cornell Slide trail up Slide Mountain, possibly because it is the tallest mountain in the park at 4200'. Unfortunate, really because, while the hike is pleasent and unchallenging, the view is really not as good as several other nearby peaks. It is a large rocky summit with limitted views in a few directions. There is a plaque to John Burroughs on the summit and several places which have obviously been used as campsites. Despite this fact, NY law prohibits camping or fires above 3500' between March and December.
The descent from Slide was quite a contrast from the western ascent. The trafic of dayhikers rapidly dropped to almost nothing as the trail became quite steep and buggy. A lovely spring with fantastic views was found a few hundred feet down from the summit (isn't it interesting how we begin to measure travel by elevation change?). Over a set of ladders, all with excellant vistas of Cornell Mt., the trail rapidly descends to the blackfly ridden col (el. 3400') where there are a few official campsites.
As the sun was lowering, we scaled Cornell (3860') and saw the exceptional views from some rocks on the way up, and a fairly limitted view of the Ashokan res. from the summit. Since the summit campsite was occupied, we pushed on down the sharp ridge between Cornell and Wittenburg (3760'). As is typical of the the whole trail thusfar, it was an easy descent punctuated by the occasional 20' cliff. These presented brief navigational problems. Eventually we managed to find a beautiful clearing invisible from the trail with a steep drop off on one side and fields of ferns and large boulders on the other. Beautiful sunset.

Day 3, Sunday: Yet another perfect hiking day. We quickly ascended the ~.5 miles of trail to the summit of Wittenburg for another spectacular view to the south and another diurnal porcupine. Then the arduous part began. Four miles of fairly steep unrelenting descent back down to the Woodland Valley. There were the typical steep drops but for the most part it was just an unrelenting descent. The high points were the wealth of interesting rock formations, mostly sculpted, fractured sedimentary stuff repleat with lichens and ferns. We passed occasional day hikers coming up from the valley. After finally reaching the bottom, we enjoyed a particularly hedonistic swim in the creek and lay about on a hot rock for a little while.

A good hike with surprising pleasures along the way. Definitely recommended. Total milage ~17 miles.

The Wilderness Journal

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