© J.N. Urbanski
We’ve taken one of the last batches of our 2015 organic blueberry and golden raspberry crops out of the freezer, have thawed them out, and now soaking them in Union Grove Distillery’s local Vly Creek Vodka to make a fruity, alcoholic mixer. See you in six weeks.
© J.N. Urbanski 4/1/15
Daily Catskills is taking a break for a month while we edit and print for the exhibition. It’s been a long, arduous project but it’s time to go back and review literally thousands and thousands of pictures taken over 18 months. We’ve slid down icy mountain passes and crashed into trees; wandered into a sudden low lightning storms; suffered hail, fog, snow and sub-zero temperatures atop mountain peaks. We’ve also got enigmatic pictures of writing desks and afternoon tea to balance it out and many, many pictures of the absolute best Catskills sandwiches. On many days, I personally took over a hundred pictures, but the editing process has been richly rewarding. Today’s lightbox pictures were taken in the Catskills on April 1st, the first day of fly fishing season.
Daily Catskills will start up again on May 1st. We still have eleven bushwhacks to go to complete our Catskills 35, which I started last August, so the photographs from the trail will still keeping coming. The Catskills 3500 Club membership requires that members have hiked all the Catskills’ 35 peaks over 3500ft. We have three regular peaks (with trails) and eleven bushwhacks to complete on our list. Plus, we will resume Catskills Conversations next week with a local artist.
Thanks for reading!
J.N. Urbanski
© J.N. Urbanski 4/1/15
© J.N. Urbanski
Upstate Dispatch’s Daily Catskills Project goes to print next week and an edited selection of photographic works by J.N. Urbanski will be shown in a spring exhibition at a location to be determined in the next few weeks. Watch this space for details.
At least 50 images picked from Urbanski’s contributions to Daily Catskills will be available for sale, framed and unframed.
It’s been a long, demanding project. With the help of contributing photographers Chase Kruppo, Erik Johanson, Fernando Delgado, Melissa Zeligman, Margaret Helthaler, Lydia Brunt, Gavin DuBois, Lori Robin, Jeff Vincent, Niva Dorell-Smith and Mountain Girl Photography & Design, Upstate Dispatch posted an image a day, shot on the day it was published, every day for 18 months. Special thanks go to Margaret Helthaler for her help over the past year.
After a short break in April, the project will resume online again. In April, we’ll begin Daily Catskills Lightbox, a selection of photographic work that did not make the cut on the day.
Stay tuned!
The Roxbury Arts Group is partnering with Fleischmanns First on this year’s Fleischmanns First Maple Festival 2016. They have curated an exhibit, Maple on Main, which will be located at 1053 Main Street in Fleischmanns. The Opening Reception for this exhibit is this Saturday, April 2nd from 4-6pm. The exhibit will be open throughout this two-day festival, April 2nd and 3rd.
This multi-media exhibit, celebrating everything Maple, includes work by Sharon Suess, Alix Travis, Jenny Neal, Dan Williams, Nancy McShane, Emilie Rigby, Solveig Comer, Laura Sue King, Miguel Martinez-Riddle, John Virga, Michelle Sidrane, Joseph Muehl, Dora Chambers, Robin White, and Andes Central School students Emily Andersen, Katie Edelson, Rylee Burton, Hunter Collins, Destiny Weaver, Stephanie Gaydos, Christian Bauer, Rachel Masterson, and Lila Green.
The exhibition will be a short stroll from The Painters Gallery on Main Street, featuring Project Topoi, “an experiment in using images rather than words to discuss ideas” that includes a 26 minute video from contributors. The Gallery will be open from 12pm to 4pm.
© J.N. Urbanski
52F by 8.30am with a veil of hazy cloud. 63F and humid by noon.
© J.N. Urbanski 9.30am
© J.N. Urbanski
There are a handful of naturally made trails on and near the summit of Fir Mountain, which oddly make you feel like you’re back in civilization once you’ve reached the summit, a feeling that’s short-lived. Fir was our first bushwhack and it’s less of a bushwhack than a sapling-whack and they’re not being whacked, you are. At this time of the year, the saplings are bare but you have to push on through them and continually get whipped in the face. Catskills bushwhacks are climbs to the summit that have no trail at all and no signage. The saplings are a reminder of how much work goes into trail maintenance of all the marked trails by volunteers from wonderful organizations like the New York New Jersey Trail Conference.
41F at 8.30am with clear skies and warm in the sun. Update: 55F by 1pm.
© J.N. Urbanski 12.30pm
© J.N. Urbanski
Published on New York Upstate out of Syracuse today was the news that Kelsey Grammar is to open a farm brewery in Margaretville, a town here in the Central Catskills. After a long discussion on our Facebook page, however, local sources say it’s actually New Kingston, which is one town over. The brewery is allegedly only in the planning stages, but the news has caused quite a bit of excitement.
The New York State brewery revival started a few years ago with the advent of the new Farm Brewery Law as reported in the Watershed Post by your humble correspondent. Since then breweries have been springing up like wild-fire. Local historians have said that New York State was the largest hop growing state in the country one hundred years ago. Here’s to retrieving that status from the annals of history. Like the hops plant itself, pictured above, the Catskills craft beer industry is reaching for the sky with some of the tastiest beer in the country.
Cheers!
30F at 8.30am with a chilly wind and an overnight layer of crunchy snow. 40F by 2pm.
© J.N. Urbanski 2.40pm
© J.N. Urbanski 2.40pm
45F at 11am, overcast and raining. 46F and cloudy by 1pm with intermittent rain and cloud for the rest of the afternoon.
© J.N. Urbanski 5.30pm
36F at 8.30am, with hazy skies and mist evaporating off the mountains. 57F by 3pm.
© J.N. Urbanski 9.30am
© J.N. Urbanski
Peekamoose is a strenuous, uphill struggle, a relentlessly steep trail with two or three large boulder formations to climb over. One formation has a precipitously positioned boulder that would tumble down the mountain should the tree on which its leaning collapse. After hiking over half the Catskills 35, I’ve never witnessed a tumbling boulder. Another notable distinction of this trail is the appearance of large boulders dashed with multicolored pebbles, making the rocks look spongy. There’s also a streak of pinkish, light purple rock and dirt about halfway up the trail.
More delightful are the manmade accents: doorways and steps carved in enormous, downed trees.
43F by 11am with clear skies and a hazy horizon, rising to 48F by 1pm.
© J.N. Urbanski 1pm
28F at 8.30am with crunchy layer of overnight snow and a mixture of enigmatic clouds. 43F by 1pm.
© J.N. Urbanski 8.30am
35F at 8.30am, mostly clear, sunny with a biting breeze and a hazy horizon. A hair over 40F by noon.
© J.N. Urbanski 10.30am
36F at noon, lightly overcast and chilly. The Spring (Vernal) Equinox is the time when the sun’s rays are perpendicular to the earth, as the earth’s northern hemisphere begins moving towards the sun, making it warmer here throughout the summer.
© J.N. Urbanski 3pm
30F at 8.30am, and sunny with a hazy horizon. 39F and clear skies at 3pm.
© J.N. Urbanski 4pm
© MAU
Hazelnut bushes in the orchard, planted in 2007, get a chance to properly flourish this spring possibly because they now have a sturdy fence around them. In years past, we’ve only harvested a handful of the nuts that grow in a thick, green, furry casing. The bushes, which can grow into large trees, are self-infertile so it’s necessary to plant at least two together for cross-pollination. The male catkins, pictured above, which produce pollen that they release onto the red female flowers, are a food staple of ruffed grouse throughout the winter. The nuts are a preferred by squirrels, deer, turkey, woodpeckers, pheasants, grouse, quail and jays.
39F at 11am and overcast with light snow. 35F at 2pm and more snow.
© J.N. Urbanski 1.50pm
43F at 8.30am with thick fog rolling off the mountains. Update: 54F by the afternoon with a mixture of cotton wool clouds of various colors. Down to 44F with icy snowy rain by 2.30pm. Back up to 53F by 4pm.
© J.N. Urbanski 8.30am
43F at 8.30am, with hazy sunshine, rising to 61F by 3pm and bright despite light cloud cover.
© J.N. Urbanski 2.30pm
43F at 8.30am, overcast with morning mist over the mountains. 55F by 2pm.
© J.N. Urbanski 2pm
42F at 8.30am and overcast, rising to 39F at 2pm with a biting wind.
© J.N. Urbanski 2.20pm
40F by 8.30am with hazy sunshine, rising to 57F by 3pm.
© J.N. Urbanski 11.41am
© J.N. Urbanski Noon
© J.N. Urbanski
The trail to the summit of Bearpen is a long, gradual meander around a mountain, mostly on a part of a snowmobile trail that’s much longer than the walk to the summit and privately maintained. Unlike other trails to Catskills peaks over 3500ft, which are rocky, and perhaps because it’s so further afield than the others, the path is soft and grassy. There’s no tripping over boulders or sliding around on gravel. Most of all, there’s no clambering. If you like hauling yourself up over large boulders, this is not the hike for you. There are short lengths of the trail that are steeper, but they don’t last long. Bearpen is bearish, not bullish, if you like market metaphors. Yesterday, the trail was wet and that made the going very muddy with the boots sinking inches into thick banks of mud in some parts. There were long, round puddles that reflected another gorgeous winter day wearing the mantle of spring. On the ascent there are views through the trees during winter and at the summit, there are many breathtaking views. There’s also a large, rusting contraption that looks like an old ski-lift pulley converted from a car or truck, around which small trees have grown.
39F at 8.30am, with clear skies and a light breeze. 57F at 1pm.
© J.N. Urbanski Noon
© J.N. Urbanski 12.50pm
43F at 11am with a mix of sun and clouds, breezy and warm. 48F by 2pm.
© J.N. Urbanski 1.15pm
59F at 8.30am, overcast, humid and calm. Light, steady rain for the rest of the day.
© J.N. Urbanski 12.40pm
A hair over 70F at 8.30am and hazy with a light breeze. 74F by 2pm.
© J.N. Urbanski 2pm
© J.N. Urbanski
Lizzie Douglas is the proprietor of Stick in the Mud, a recently-opened cafe and store selling local goods and produce, in the ground floor storefront of the Bussy Building in Margaretville.
JNU: What brought you to the Catskills?
LD: The connection I have with the Catskills was that my daughter originally had a second home here.
Where did you raise your daughter?
My daughter lives in Brooklyn.
Did you live in NYC for a long time?
No, I have never lived in NYC. Before I came here I was living in Colorado, in the Four Corners area. Before that, I was travelling all over as a tour director and before that I was living in London.
What took you to Colorado?
As a tour director I would take my groups on authentic stagecoach rides and we would do Hollywood, Vegas, Grand Canyon Wild West Style. We would do dinner and dancing afterwards. I met a stagecoach driver.
50F at 8.30am, overcast and humid. 61F by 1.30pm.
© J.N. Urbanski 1pm
© J.N. Urbanski
It certainly wasn’t the plan to complete the Catskills Winter 35 (hiking every peak over 3500ft between the dates of December 21st and March 21st). In fact, the plan was to do the four required winter peaks of the regular Catskills 35 and resume in the spring, but like many carefully laid plans, this one failed. Being a city girl, before moving to the Catskills, all my walking was of the pavement persuasion and, truth be told, I only started hiking to wear out my puppy. I am not prepared for spring at all (and never was), but thanks to my friends at Hillsound, I am perfectly winterized with crampons, ultra crampons and gaiters, which are nifty contraptions, like hiker’s leg warmers that don’t wrinkle. Gaitors have stirrups that prevent the gaiter from rising up so that snow does not go up the trouser leg.
30F at 8.30am and overcast. 55F at 1pm, brighter and with less cloud.
© J.N. Urbanski 10.15am
27 at 8.30am with clear skies and warm in the sun, rising to 38F by mid-afternoon.
© J.N. Urbanski 10am
30F by 10am and overcast. Bitterly cold and dreary for the rest of the day.
© J.N. Urbanski 10am
30F by 10am and cloudy with a slight breeze. 34F by mid-afternoon.
© J.N. Urbanski 1pm
24F at 8.30am with a light layer of overnight snow and low cloud cover quickly clearing in the sunrise.
© J.N. Urbanski 7.50am
31F at 8.30am and lightly snowing with a mixture of sun and cotton wool clouds. Down to 25F at 1.15pm and very windy with isolated snow showers.
© J.N. Urbanski 11.40am
© MAU
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.
21F at 8.30am and mostly clear with hazy sunshine. 42F by mid-afternoon.
© J.N. Urbanski 12.30pm
© J.N. Urbanski
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.
© J.N. Urbanski
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:
47F at 8.30am, overcast, raining and breezy.
© J.N. Urbanski 8.40am
57F by 2pm with hazy sunshine through wispy cloud cover.
© J.N. Urbanski Noon
19F at 8.30am rising to 34F by late afternoon. Clear and sunny.
© J.N. Urbanski 1.45pm
21F at 8.30am, lightly snowing, a fresh layer of powder and beautifully overcast with a shimmering sky.
© J.N. Urbanski 9am
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.
© J.N. Urbanski 2.50pm
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.
© J.N. Urbanski 2pm
© J.N. Urbanski 2.40pm
31F by 1.30pm and overcast with light afternoon snow having laid an inch by dusk.
© J.N. Urbanski 1pm
32F by 8.30am and bright with clear skies and warm in the sun.
© J.N. Urbanski 7.30am
43F by 11am, overcast, but still bright. 45F by 2pm.
© MAU
50F by 11am, clear and sunny except for a few lonely clouds.
© J.N. Urbanski 1.15pm
14F at 8.30am with the sun rising through a veil of cloud. 32F and overcast by mid-afternoon.
© J.N. Urbanski 1pm
17F by 8.15am and still, with clear skies apart from dashes of cotton wool cloud.
© J.N. Urbanski 10.15am
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.
© J.N. Urbanski 1.50pm