30F at 8.30am and overcast. 55F at 1pm, brighter and with less cloud.
Tag Archives: Country Living
Daily Catskills: 03/06/16
27 at 8.30am with clear skies and warm in the sun, rising to 38F by mid-afternoon.
Daily Catskills: 03/05/16
30F by 10am and overcast. Bitterly cold and dreary for the rest of the day.
Daily Catskills: 03/04/16
30F by 10am and cloudy with a slight breeze. 34F by mid-afternoon.
Daily Catskills: 03/03/16
24F at 8.30am with a light layer of overnight snow and low cloud cover quickly clearing in the sunrise.
The Catskill 35 (W): Hunter Mountain
I’ve written about my summer ascent to Hunter Mountain here and it was a memorable hike. Last weekend, it was even more memorable owing to the presence of a team of Asian hikers at the summit, huddled in the cabin porch, chatting effusively in their native tongue, crouched around a hissing hibachi grill. This is the second time I’ve seen such a spectacle and it couldn’t be any more delightful, but I’m not entirely certain its legal above 3500ft.
In the Catskills hiking world, there’s such a thing as “The Grid”: the ascent of every one of the peaks in the Catskills 35 over 3500ft accomplished in every month of the year. If you hike a couple of peaks a day, it’s possible to get The Grid done in a year by hiking the all 35 Catskills peaks every month for a year but, at a whopping 420 hikes, for most hikers who have a job, it’s something to accomplish over a lifetime. In addition to this, there’s the Winter 35 where the hiker must ascend every peak between the December 21st and March 21st. The Upstate Dispatch Grid is filling in at a snail’s pace, but the Winter 35 may be completed by the end of the year.
Daily Catskills: 03/01/16
21F at 8.30am and mostly clear with hazy sunshine. 42F by mid-afternoon.
The Catskill 35: Vly Mountain
There’s something magical about the valley through which Vly Creek runs and possibly it’s the wealth of great people who live there. Downstream from the Vly headwaters that originate alongside the trail to Vly Mountain, you’ll find Morse’s maple syrup, Vly bottled water and delicious, cream line milk from the DiBenedetto farm where the product is sold on the age-old, country honor system. As you drive along Route 37 crossing from Delaware County to Greene County, to get to the trailhead on Route 3, you’ll pass house after beautiful house in vibrant colors in a cozy, well-lived valley and photo opportunities galore with classic cars hidden behind barns, registered landmarks, and ancient houses. It looks like a movie set; Route 3 would make a riveting long walk in itself for this reason.
A Local Guide to Catskills Products: Local Sugar
We published a piece about local sugar that you’ll find here in September 2014. Below is a more comprehensive list of the Catskills maple syrup producers. Tree tapping began much earlier this year, with tapping beginning in the southern Catskills as far back as Christmas. New York State’s Maple Weekend takes place on March 19th and 20th, and again on April 2nd and 3rd, 2016. There’s no reason not to get local sugar. At last count, for every dollar spent locally, the community benefits to the value of five to seven times that dollar, and all that money stays in the community. If you spend $20 on a bottle of maple sugar, it is the equivalent of putting $140 back into your community.
Maple syrup also has many health benefits:
Daily Catskills: 02/29/16
47F at 8.30am, overcast, raining and breezy.
Daily Catskills: 02/26/16
21F at 8.30am, lightly snowing, a fresh layer of powder and beautifully overcast with a shimmering sky.
Daily Catskills: 02/25/16
50F at 8.30am and mistily overcast with the ground squelching underfoot from last night’s heavy rain. Continual rain in the afternoon contributes to the raging tributaries.
Daily Catskills: 02/24/16
34F at 7.30am and wet with rain melting two inches of overnight snow into slush. Heavy afternoon rain. Update: heavy rain, thunder and lightning storms throughout the evening.
Daily Catskills: 02/23/16
31F by 1.30pm and overcast with light afternoon snow having laid an inch by dusk.
Daily Catskills: 02/22/16
32F by 8.30am and bright with clear skies and warm in the sun.
A Local Guide to Catskills Products
The New York Times recently published a “guide to Delaware County’s thriving craft culture” and although a few of our friends and neighbours were included, a significant portion of our wares was omitted. Here in Delaware County and in the wider area of the Catskills, you can’t throw a stone without hitting a local producer of the highest quality. We have a vast array of everything artisanal, handmade and locally produced. The Catskill Mountains are home to a huge community of entrepreneurs, craftspeople and artists but the aforementioned article only included ten local purveyors. This post is the first part of a guide to all things made in the Catskills.
Daily Catskills: 02/21/16
43F by 11am, overcast, but still bright. 45F by 2pm.
Daily Catskills: 02/20/16
50F by 11am, clear and sunny except for a few lonely clouds.
Daily Catskills: 02/19/16
14F at 8.30am with the sun rising through a veil of cloud. 32F and overcast by mid-afternoon.
Daily Catskills: 02/18/16
17F by 8.15am and still, with clear skies apart from dashes of cotton wool cloud.
Daily Catskills: 02/17/16
25F at 8.30am and overcast with a crunchy layer of frosted snow. Large chunks of ice flowing downstream and thick snow dumped on the mountain peaks only.
Daily Catskills: 02/16/16
48F by 10.30am with the extra blanket of overnight snow having been completely blown away in an overnight storm and replaced with ice. 52F, humid with torrential rain and strong winds for most of the day. A 24-hour smorgasbord of weather.
Daily Catskills: 02/15/16
0F at 8.30am, thickly overcast and lightly snowing, rising to 12F by noon.
Daily Catskills: 02/14/16
-7F at 8.30am with still air and clear skies, but nostril hair-freezing cold, rising to 2F by noon.
Daily Catskills: 02/13/16
Still only 8F by 11am with high winds, a few more inches of overnight snow, fast-moving snow squalls and a shimmering sky. Down to 2F by noon.
Daily Catskills: 02/12/16
7F at 8.30am and very bright sunshine through the hazy cloud, rising to 20F by 10.30am.
Daily Catskills: 02/11/16
A bitter 14F and overcast at 8.30am with face-gnawing wind.
The Catskill 35 (W): Sugarloaf Mountain
The Pecoy Notch trail must be magical in the summer because even in the winter, when it’s bare and cold, it’s charming in a way that other gaps and passes are not. The first 0.25 miles is a gentle incline and before you have time to be surprised at how quickly you arrived at it, you’re upon Dibble’s Quarry, a defunct quarry that runs down the side of the incline, on which someone has built a large stone stage and several over-sized stone chairs in which to relax. Behind the stone stage there’s a small room that looks like it’s on its way to becoming a small stone cabin equipped with stone picnic tables inside and out. Downhill, there are various lookout notches and seating built in the side of the hill from stone. The entire landmark is essentially a bluestone auditorium with a stunning view of Kaaterskill High Peak. Before you come to Pecoy Notch itself, which is a notch between Twin Mountain and Sugarloaf, you pass a frozen lake and then a frozen swamp, which adds an unexpected air of mystery. From the frozen swamp, you can clearly see the two mountains. The Notch from there to the next mile markers is a dense thicket of spruces with a soft forest floor covered in gnarly tree roots and fir needles. After the quarry, but well before the Notch, there’s a half-frozen, roaring waterfall that cascades across the trail and over the edge of the mountain. This stream is is a little tricky to cross, but shallow enough, and there are just enough boulders to help you pass.
Daily Catskills: 02/10/16
27F at 8.30am and mostly sunny.
Daily Catskills: 02/09/16
19F at 8.30am, overcast and bitter rising to 25F and some snow.
Daily Catskills: 02/08/16
30F at 8.30am and overcast with a biting wind on the peaks.
Daily Catskills: 02/07/16
31F at 8.30 with hazy sunshine, rising to 43F by 3pm.
Daily Catskills: 02/06/16
22F at 8.30am with a layer of frost sparkling under a hazy sunrise.
Daily Catskills: 02/05/16
32F by 11am, with shimmering cloud and a bone-chilling, gusty wind, warming up to 36F by 1pm and more sunny. Update: 36F with clear skies by 3pm.
Daily Catskills: 02/04/16
39F at 8.30am and mostly cloudy with some sun expected later.
Daily Catskills: 02/03/16
37F at 8.30am, overcast and raining.
The Catskill 35 (W): Wittenberg
A couple of accidents on the peaks – Kaaterskill and Sherrill – this past week remind us how treacherous winter hiking can be. It’s not only the cold, icy terrain that’s a threat; if you’re tired or hungry, circumstances can quickly go from uncomfortable to dangerous. Once fatigue sets in, an ordinarily innocent stumble on a boulder can easily turn into a fall or disable a knee or ankle. In addition, if your under layers are soaked in sweat a rest break could allow them to freeze. These are potentially fatal conditions. Listen to your instinct when it says you’re really too tired to attempt to climb up that 50-feet-high vertical pile of jagged rocks. Except, I didn’t.
Daily Catskills: 02/02/16
37F at 10am and mostly sunny.
Daily Catskills: 02/01/16
48F at 8.30am, overcast and gloomy with most of the snow and ice melted. Muddy.
Daily Catskills: 01/31/16
28F at 8.30am, rising to 45F by mid-afternoon. Ice and snow melting quickly off the peaks and 53F reported in some areas.
The Catskill 35 (W): Westkill
Westkill is not one of the peaks you are required to ascend in winter, but it is one of the most beautiful during this time. Diamond Notch Falls’ rumbling cascade is a gorgeous place to sit and meditate in the summer. Go here to read our account of Westkill during the summer. It’s a difficult hike, with two miles that are a challenging, thigh-busting uphill battle, but the views from the summit make it all worthwhile. Yesterday’s light was utterly extraordinary. Plus, the drive on Spruceton Road, on which you’ll find a motel, farms and a church with a small graveyard, is just as beautiful as the hike up the mountain itself. At about 3pm, the sun came out, which pleased the horse (pictured bottom) no end.
Daily Catskills: 01/30/16
32F by 11am and overcast with periods of brightness. 40F by 2.30pm with snow rapidly melting on the peaks.
Daily Catskills: 01/29/16
28F at 10am with light but persistent snow throughout the morning: a white out on the peaks. 34F by 2pm.
Daily Catskills: 01/28/16
32F at 8.30am with clear skies: bright and sunny. 35F by 3pm and densely overcast.
Daily Catskills: 01/27/16
35F at 8.30am and overcast with a chilly wind blowing the odd snowflake. Scattered snowstorms by mid-afternoon.
Daily Catskills: 01/26/16
36F at 8.30am, calm, humid and overcast rising to 46F by 2pm with high winds.
The Catskill 35: Slide Mountain
A return to the stunning Slide Mountain for the second time this year, ascending into the seductive clutches of a dense forest of snow-laden conifers, with a copy of John Burroughs’ In The Catskills. A commemorative plaque to Burroughs is affixed to a large rock at the summit under which the writer frequently camped. Slide is so named because of a landslide that occurred in the early nineteenth century on its north face where the scar is still apparent after having been refreshed by another landslide in 1992 and the entire area was thoroughly traversed by the writer.
Daily Catskills: 01/25/16
20F at 8.30am with hazy sunshine, rising to 30F by 11am.
Daily Catskills: 01/24/16
A hair under 16F at 8.30am. Clear and sunny, rising to 28F by 2pm. Thick snow on the peaks.
The Catskill 35: Big Indian
Winter hiking in the Catskills is mostly magical, tranquil beauty but uncomfortable if you’re ill prepared and occasionally terrifying. I’ve been conveying my winter hiking experiences here under the Outdoors section on Upstate Dispatch. Or, rather, I’ve been writing about what could possibly go wrong should you decide to attempt a Catskills high peak when it’s 10˚F and weather conditions are a fickle master. True to my British nature, I seem to have created A Pessimist’s Guide to Winter Hiking or a Pessimist’s Guide to Conquering Winter Summits. Last year, I decided to attempt to hike all 35 Catskills peaks over 3500ft in order to join the Catskills 3500 Club and there are four extra peaks required in the winter. What I discovered after having hiked those four is that you can see a lot more of the landscape when it has lost most of its foliage. You literally get the lay of the land. So I’ve been continuing down the list instead of doing the sensible thing and waiting for the spring thaw. However, winter hiking is not for the uncertain.
Daily Catskills: 01/23/16
18F at 9.30am, as cold as a stone wall and overcast, rising to 27F by noon. Snow remains on the peaks.
Daily Catskills: 01/22/16
21F by 11am, with hazy sunshine, shimmering cloud cover and snow remaining on the peaks.
Daily Catskills: 01/21/16
21F at 9am and mostly sunny.
Daily Catskills: 01/20/16
25F by 10am with a mixture of sun and clouds.
Daily Catskills: 01/19/16
10F at 9am with a mix of bright sun and clouds.