The overnight snowstorm continued into this morning: 20F at 9am. Update: the tortoise of snowstorms… it seemed inconsequential, light and slower than the hare, but steathily dumped a foot or two throughout the day, still sprinkling it like glitter at dusk.
© J.N. Urbanski Midday
© J.N. Urbanski 12.30pm
© J.N. Urbanski 11.30am
More overnight snow, a few inches of fresh powder, but a clement 32F at midday. Overcast and gloomy.
© J.N. Urbanski 1.30pm
© J.N. Urbanski 1.30pm
Fresh overnight snow; 22F at 9am rising to 25F by the afternoon. More gloom.
© J.N. Urbanski 1.30pm
8F at 8.30am with an inch of fresh powder and still snowing into mid-morning. 18F by 3pm.
© J.N. Urbanski 1pm
© J.N. Urbanski View From Giant Ledge
The Catskill Center, a non-profit organization formerly known as the Catskill Center for Conservation and Development, has been an advocate for this area since its inception in 1969, instigated by Sherret Chase, Armand Erpf and Kingdon Gould Jr, to tackle preservation issues and “foster harmonious economic development” in the region.
In terms of conservation, this region has an advantage over neighbouring areas because it supplies New York City with its drinking water, which travels unfiltered to the city in huge underground tunnels. Should anything sully the NYC drinking water supply, a billion-dollar filtration system would have to be built, something that New York State is keen to avoid, so the waterways are protected by regulation. This regulation hampers development, a significant disadvantage to the local economy, so the proceeds from year-round tourism – 2.5 million tourists annually – are our biggest benefactor. The people of the Catskills sacrifice the growth of their economy so that New York City can drink pristine water.
16F at 8.30am with a few inches of overnight snow. Granite sky with patches of blue made for a magical morning walk. Update: 12F, partially cloudy and much brighter in the afternoon with high winds.
© J.N. Urbanski 8.30am
18F at 7.30am and lightly snowing with an inch or two of fresh powder. A clear but overcast afternoon.
© J.N. Urbanski 2.30pm
5F at 8am, with a flurry of fine, icy particles glistening in the rising sun like sinking glitter. Update: 20F and bright sunshine for the rest of the day.
© J.N. Urbanski 8am
An overnight snowstorm dumped a foot of snow with two-feet drifts in some parts, burying cars, sheds and outdoor furniture. 18F at 9am with the snowstorm continuing unabated. Two feet of fluffy snow is catnip for the black lab.
© J.N. Urbanski 9am
© Robert E. Block 12.15pm
© J.N. Urbanski 9am
Overcast with early morning flurries and 20F at 8am. Mostly cloudy, brighter and clear by 1.30pm.
© J.N. Urbanski 11.48am
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, a lovely brew from Organic Traveler’s Tea: rooibos (red African herbs), honeybush, roses, fair trade vanilla, hibiscus, ginger, cardamom and vegan chocolate from Girl & Bee. Earthy and warm, delicately subtly spicy.
© J.N. Urbanski
10F at 8am, dropping sharply to 8F mid-morning. Brilliant sunshine and some snow-bathing. Alfie the Upstate Dispatch media lab, a loving, sensitive, protective, deer-chasing outdoorspuppy with the scariest bark I’ve ever heard, has been with us for a year since we rescued him from the Kingston ASPCA this time last year.
© J.N. Urbanski 9am
It’s nice to see what’s going on in the Catskills when you have cabin fever, like a whiteout on Belleayre Mountain and the view from a high window at Spillian. Snowy and 25F, clearing in the afternoon to reveal glorious light and striking colours: simply gorgeous.
© Melissa Zeligman 1.30pm
J.N. Urbanski
In February, for the sheer love of the Catskills, Upstate Dispatch is opening its Daily Catskills project to freelance photographers, and stylish amateurs with a superb eye for color and composition. The Daily Catskills Project was started on September 11th last year on Upstate Dispatch, which publishes one or more images taken on the day at 1pm in the Catskills. Please see today’s post for today’s image which was taken this afternoon.
For the two weeks around Valentine’s Day, UD is inviting photographers to submit their best picture of the Catskills on the day for I ♥ Catskills month. We will pick the best image we receive on the day and publish it and pay a fee to the photographer.
There are only two requirements:
1. The image must be taken on the day that it is published. We’re trusting you.
2. Photographers must give Upstate Dispatch permission to use the image in perpetuity on this website and allow the image to be a part of the UD historical archive for the project. We will not use the work anywhere else without your permission.
There’s more! An exhibition is planned for the Autumn after one year and all photographers published on Upstate Dispatch will have a chance to be part of this exhibition by submitting their own edition of their image(s), getting a chance to offer their work for sale to the public. There is also a proposed book in the works. You will also be invited to be part of that (or not) when the time comes (your choice).
This is a chance to be part of a collaborative project by a young website with a promising future! We are gaining more and more followers every month nationally and internationally. Please feel free to look around the website and see if it looks like an environment in which your work would fit.
Contact [email protected] for details. Please submit images to this email address as a high resolution image for our archive and your exhibition print. We will make a copy and publish at a smaller resolution (roughly 17 x 11 and 72 dpi).
Grey and overcast: a monochromatic but still lustrously beautiful day at 27F by 1pm.
© Erik Johanson/@halcott718 1pm
8F at 7.30am with the rising sun clearing the clouds and a fresh dusting of powder covering the tracks.
© J.N. Urbanski 7.30am
19F mid-morning with a light but persistent flurry. Overnight snow had coated the car in a few inches, but left the branches bare. Update: The flurry turned into a whiteout with 4 inches dropped by 1.30pm.
© J.N. Urbanski 1pm
© J.N. Urbanski 1pm
14F at 8am with the Catskills bracing for a winter “blizzard”. Update: New England’s feverishly anticipated “blizzard”, named Juno, turned out to be only a few inches here in the Catskills and NYC. It was also actually a bit warmer at dusk: 20F. Last year’s snow, in which we suffered a few feet for weeks, and thereafter when it formed an icy crust, was far worse.
© J.N. Urbanski 11am
27F and brilliantly clear skies and warm for most of the day, but not warm enough to melt the stalactites around the Pepacton Reservoir.
© J.N. Urbanski 2pm
Waking up to 24F and a quiet winter morning coated with snow. Almost 3 inches have settled, as we sit patiently, enjoying the view, counting down to spring.
© MGP&D
20F mid-morning with brilliant sunshine and cloudless skies. The pepacton reservoir, with its shoreline collection of row boats, looks frozen over.
22F with half an inch of fresh powder, overcast and gloomy. 30F and just as sombre by mid-afternoon. Update: cloud cover miraculously dissipated late afternoon to reveal blue skies and sunshine.
© J.N. Urbanski 2pm
10F at 8am and bitter, overcast and grey with the sun barely burning through the haze.
© J.N. Urbanski 9am
20F at 8am with the barest of light flurries filling the air with the rising sun clearing the mountain haze. 30F, clear and brilliantly sunny all afternoon.
© J.N. Urbanski 2pm
28F at 8.30am and overcast with a few inches of fresh powder and very icy roads. Very light flurries in the morning continued throughout the afternoon.
© J.N. Urbanski 1.30pm
28F mid-morning, rising to 36F by midday with a blanket of mist. Heavy rain late morning began to turn the snow to mush. Wet, rainy and miserable for the rest of the day with rain turning to snow as the temperature dropped to 32F after dark.
© J.N. Urbanski
© J.N. Urbanski The view from the nook through the trees
It’s about this time of year that cabin fever firmly seizes us in these mountains and we do impulsive things like go hiking up a mountain when there’s only two hours of daylight left. Spring seems like it’s just around the corner and we’re so used to the bitter cold that 20F seems nice and toasty. It’s not until we’re approaching our icy ascent (in our snowboarding boots, stupidly wearing wool and cotton), passing very sensible hikers on their way down using sticks and cramp-ons that we realise what a risk we’ve taken, but there’s a happy ending to this story, and a sandwich. Charles Dickens walked 20 miles a day in his prime, stalking around town in the afternoon after a sturdy lunch, no doubt conjuring up characters en route from his observations of 19th century Londoners. Writers love a good walk. First, the sandwich: corned beef brisket on toasted rye with a dash of mustard from Arkville Bread and Breakfast with a portion of chips (that were meant to go in the Fish and Chips, but that was yesterday’s lunch). Thinly-sliced brisket, lean, delicate and not too fatty on perfectly-toasted rye. This reasonably-sized portion, plus a cup of Twinings Irish Breakfast, got me to Giant Ledge in most unsuitable shoes and down again, occasionally sliding on my bottom because of the ice.
14F at mid-morning rising to 18F by mid-afternoon. Bright sunshine, clear and sunny with scudding clouds late afternoon.
© J.N. Urbanski View from Giant Ledge 3.20pm
© J.N. Urbanski The Caboose
A good hearty plate of Fish and Chips is to the Catskills what the Bald Eagle is. When you spot one, you freeze in wide-eyed disbelief and fumble clumsily for your camera trying not to divert your gaze from the (menu) for a second. As an English ex-patriot from London, I find that fish and chips is as rare in these mountains as a McVitie’s digestive biscuit and actual Cheddar from Cheddar.*
You’ll find the holy grail of British food at Arkville Bread & Breakfast on Route 28 in Arkville, New York on every other Friday. (Daily menus are posted on the Facebook page.) I remember, as a teenager, fetching the family’s Friday night fish and chips, the smell of lard, salt and vinegar and paying about five British pounds for the feast. Here you’ll pay $8.95 for a portion that comes with coleslaw, chips and tarter sauce, a snip if you realise that you’ll pay $20 in NYC.
Today’s fish was cod; perfectly cooked, thinly battered, flaky and flavourful. Although the thin, crispy batter is the ideal coating, I almost prefer a thicker batter so that I have an excuse to pick out the steaming fish and save some calories, but no, not this time. All of it was eaten with the tangy tarter sauce and, now, off for a long walk I go. Today’s chips were not chips but crisps, made from Maris Pipers, sliced into flat wedges and fried with the skins on: like a drier, less floppy, two-dimensional version of my childhood chips. Also present (pictured at bottom): Sarsons Malt Vinegar, HP Sauce, Heinz Baked Beans, Branston Pickle, Tango and Spotted Dick. Tango & Spotted Dick sounds like a British detective drama brought to you by the BBC, but no, it’s a neon-coloured fizzy drink and a pudding respectively.
Proprietor Jack Zamor says that a lot of British people attend the restaurant, made from an actual train car and situated right next to a railway line, on the days when he has an All-British menu, the next one of which is slated for February 7th, 2015. Next week, Upstate Dispatch will forget all about the homesickness and return for the corned beef brisket on rye.
© J.N. Urbanski Arkville Bread & Breakfast Fish and Chips
© J.N. Urbanski
*If you have some actual Cheddar, please feel free to comment in the reply section.
We’re having a warm spell…. 24F at 8.30am with a brisk wind making it feel cooler: a very bleak, overcast morning. Update: continual light flurries and down to 18F by mid-afternoon.
© J.N. Urbanski Antique Trail Markers at the Catskills Center
© J.N. Urbanski 8.30am
A comparatively toasty morning at 22F with brilliant sunshine and mostly cloudless sky making up for the chill. Snow-making on hazy Belleayre Mountain.
© J.N. Urbanski 9.15am
10F at 8am rising to 14F by mid-morning and 24F mid-afternoon with wispy, fleeting cloud cover. The Black Lab is always ready whatever the weather.
© J.N. Urbanski Midday
10F at 9am: brilliant sunshine and bitterly cold, rising to a reasonable 19F by mid-afternoon.
© J.N. Urbanski 1.30pm
A positively balmy 30F at 7am with overnight snow having laid a thick, white blanket. Rain mid-morning with temps rising to 36F. A winter wonderland.
© J.N. Urbanski 7.3am
© J.N. Urbanski 8.30am
10F at 830am, a grey, overcast, gloomy day: perfect weather for breakfast at the diner. 28F and still overcast, but much brighter by 3pm.
© J.N. Urbanski 10am
9F at 9.30am with dazzling sunshine, bitter breeze and a cloudless sky all day.
© J.N. Urbanski 1.30pm
© J.N. Urbanski Arnold Bennet Skillet
Last year, Mike Cioffi, owner of The Phoenicia Diner, and I ruminated on the costs of running a restaurant on my radio show The Economy of the Kitchen. Next week, Monday 12th January at 9am, in our second and final show, The Economy of the Diner, we’ll discuss the diner as American icon. The diner also has a rich cinematic history: Pulp Fiction, Twin Peaks, Superman, Back To The Future, Heat, Thelma & Louise, Diner: the list goes on and on. Who can forget Jack Nicholson trying to get an order of wheat toast in Five Easy Pieces or the tipping scene in Reservoir Dogs? Not to mention Meg Ryan’s glorious turn in Katz’s Deli in When Harry Met Sally and the actual movie called Diner, starring Steven Guttenberg directed by Barry Levinson.
As a foreigner, the diner is the ultimate American experience and my first diner visit was Relish in Williamsburg, sadly now slated for demolition. I’ll never forget my first order of biscuits, sausage and gravy and with whom I shared it.
© J.N. Urbanski Duck & Grits Skillet with poached egg
My new challenge is eating my way through the menu at The Phoenicia Diner and I continued today through the skillet section. I tried the Duck & Grits skillet ($11), House Cured Corned Beef Hash skillet ($11) and the Arnold Bennett Skillet ($10). My first taste of American grits (not a British staple) was back in Brooklyn and had been quite vile experience, like eating cold porridge. PD’s grits are creamy with a hint of cheese; their scrambled eggs are the perfect combination of moist and firm. If Chef Mel uses salt in the dishes, you can’t really taste it and this is how it should be. Salt should be the choice of the customer. The Arnold Bennett Skillet ($10) came out on top in this round: locally smoked trout (delicately tasty), parmesan cheese, crème fraîche and scrambled eggs. PD makes its own bread too, which is thick, slightly chewy and tasty. Portions are generous and the eggs are noteworthy – some of the best I’ve eaten in the Catskills – for their vivid orange color. Most ingredients are sourced locally and when they run out, so does the item on the menu for the day. Eat here before you ski, on your way to Belleayre for the hearty nourishment that lasts all day. You can take sides and leftovers to go in compostable containers.
Tune in to The Economy of the Diner on WIOX at 9am on Monday January 12th, 2015.
© J.N. Urbanski
20F at 10am, the day began cloudy, but brightened significantly when cloud cover broke but strong, gusty winds persisted. Overnight snow drifts had coated the car on only one side and reportedly put five inches of snow on Belleayre.
© J.N. Urbanski Midday
Zero and sunny! Record temps keeping us indoors today, with lunchtime landing the mercury at 10F. Enjoying the Catskill beauty today from the inside looking out. Unless you’re enjoying the skiing on Belleayre.
© MGP&D
The deep freeze has settled on the Catskills, with 9F (feels like -8F) this morning, and temps are only going to drop dangerously lower as the day goes on…so remember: layer, layer, layer if going outside.
© MGP&D
10F at 8am, made bearable by the absence of any wind and insulating cloud cover. A light, steady dusting of snow continued throughout the morning.
© J.N. Urbanski 8.39am
Back to freezing conditions again after overnight sleet, rain and finally, a dusting of fine, icy snow by morning. 20F at 8am and strong, blustery winds moving the trees. Alternately brilliant sunshine and cotton wool cloud cover. One day I’ll pick the Sumac at the end of the road. Update: 10F at dusk and a face-peeling wind.
© J.N. Urbanski 1.40pm Frozen Sumac trees waving in the wind
50F by midday: another soggy day, with every branch sodden. Yesterday’s snow drained away so quickly, as the overnight temperatures rose, that all that remained were map-like traces of the tunnels the mice had dug under the snow the night before. Light rain at dusk as mist rolled into the valleys.
© J.N. Urbanski
Only 24F by midday, windy and snowing a light powder. An enigmatic whiteout for most of the afternoon.
© J.N. Urbanski
© J.N. Urbanski
26F at 8.30am; overnight snow had transformed into a mid-morning whiteout dropping an inch or two of fluffy powder, most of which blew off the branches in the gentle afternoon breeze.
© J.N. Urbanski
Last night’s teen temps turned into a beautiful mostly sunny day at 30F. As Yuletide comes to an end, may your path this new year be clear and light-filled. Happy New Year!
© MGP&D
© Melissa Zeligman
Officially in the teens, the temperature this morning was 17F, with a 4 degree rise to 21F by lunchtime. Fast flowing water is no match for the chill, and the ice is framing even the sides of even the bigger falls.
© MGP&D – Day 7 and Final Day of The Seven Days of Waterfalls: Stratton Falls
Temperatures began at 20F this morn. By 3pm, the temp was…still 20F. Instantly, ice has begun to form in the steams, bordered by a light layer of snow that fell last night.
© Mountain Girl Photography & Design – Day 6 of the Seven Days of Waterfalls: Ice Begins to Form
A plethora of oversized fluffy flakes started falling as this shot was taken. The day started at 28F, up to 34F, and by the end of the day, the tops of the mountains will be white again. The cycle of water falling from the sky and falling over the rocks continues.
© Mountain Girl Photography & Design – Day 5: Name-less Falls Around the Bend
41F at midday and cloudy with the water still acoming. Day 4 of The Seven Days of Waterfalls to acknowledge the rushing water through the Catskills after the snow melt.
© Mountain Girl Photography & Design – Day 4: Minekill State Park, Upper Falls
© Erik Johanson/@halcott718
Beautiful day for a ride in the mountains, keep your eyes peeled for seasonal waterfalls enhanced by the melted snow. 30F this morning, with sunshine and 44F by noon.
© Mountain Girl Photography & Design – Day 3: Falls at Schoharie Creek and Creamery Rd Junction
Temperatures at freezing this morning, but not for long, as the sun decided to lend it’s light to the Catskills today, temperatures warming up to 44 by mid-afternoon.
© Mountain Girl Photography & Design – Day 2 of The Seven Days of Waterfalls: The Falls at Lower Dingle Hill
This Christmas morn dawned with an unusually warm temperature of 40F, only dropping a degree or two as the day went on. Gusty breezes blow, and tumultuous water flows due to recent rains and the snow melt from the high peaks. Merry Christmas!
© Mountain Girl Photography & Design – Day 1 of The Seven Days of Waterfalls: Cape Horn Road Falls
A misty, hazy 42F at 10am and a very soggy start to Christmas Eve with half a foot of snow and overnight rain both replenishing the aquifers and inundating dirt roads, forest areas and fields. The rain began at midday and by 4pm had turned dirt roads into soggy messes. Drive safely and Merry Christmas.
© J.N. Urbanski 2.30pm