32F at 8.30am with clear skies: bright and sunny. 35F by 3pm and densely overcast.
© J.N. Urbanski 12.20pm
Daily Catskills: 01/28/16
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Tag Archives: Winter in the Catskills
Daily Catskills: 01/26/16
36F at 8.30am, calm, humid and overcast rising to 46F by 2pm with high winds.
© J.N. Urbanski 2.20pm
The Catskill 35: Slide Mountain
© J.N. Urbanski
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.
© J.N. Urbanski 10.20am
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.
© J.N. Urbanski Noon
The Catskill 35: Big Indian
© J.N. Urbanski
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.
© J.N. Urbanski 2pm
Daily Catskills: 01/22/16
21F by 11am, with hazy sunshine, shimmering cloud cover and snow remaining on the peaks.
© Urbanski 3pm
Daily Catskills: 01/21/16
21F at 9am and mostly sunny.
© Niva Dorell 10am
Daily Catskills: 01/20/16
25F by 10am with a mixture of sun and clouds.
© Niva Dorell 10.30am
Daily Catskills: 01/19/16
10F at 9am with a mix of bright sun and clouds.
© Niva Dorell 9.30am
Daily Catskills: 01/18/16
16F at 9am with shimmering blue-white cloud and a thick layer of snow rising to 18F with cloudless, hazy skies.
© J.N. Urbanski 8.30am
Daily Catskills: 01/17/16
32C by 11am, dull and overcast. Snow on the peaks laying thickly on branches.
© J.N. Urbanski 1pm
Daily Catskills: 01/16/16
38F at 9.30am and foggy with 2 inches of powder dripping off trees loudly onto the forest floor.
© J.N. Urbanski 9.50am
© J.N. Urbanski 10am
Daily Catskills: 01/15/16
30F by 10am and partly cloudy and sunny, rising to 38F and overcast by 4.30pm.
© J.N. Urbanski 4.30pm
Daily Catskills: 01/14/16
14F at 8.30am with still air, shimmering sky and with the barest of flurries.
© J.N. Urbanski 8.30am
Daily Catskills: 01/13/16
16F at 9.30am with shimmering clouds and a layer of powdery snow on the ground. 19F with drive-by clouds at 3pm.
© J.N. Urbanski 3pm
Daily Catskills: 01/12/16
19F at 9.30am, overcast and lightly snowing.
© J.N. Urbanski 11am
Daily Catskills: 01/11/16
20F at 8.30am and lightly snowing with isolated snow flurries moving across the landscape.
© J.N. Urbanski 10.30am
Daily Catskills: 1/10/16
45F by noon with fog, mist and rain. Continual rain with a brief gap in the clouds at 2pm and then Winter Storm Hera at about 2.30pm.
© J.N. Urbanski 2pm
The Catskills 35 (W): Blackhead Mountain
© J.N. Urbanski
There’s a part of the final metres of the ascent to Blackhead Mountain that is a vertical climb and one from which you should not look back down if you suffer the slightest vertigo or you will invite a case of the wobblies. It’s even worse now that it’s entombed in ice. My husband and dog hopped up it like mountain goats and I was left in the metaphorical dust, grappling with uncertainty, stabbing my spikes into the ice and, finally, hoisting myself up over the rocks with the roots of an aging birch tree. As I finally managed to haul myself over the top, I wondered if there was such a thing as hand crampons attached to a set of gloves because they would have made the job much easier.
Daily Catskills: 01/09/16
34F by 10am and overcast with fog and mist, rising to 37F mid-afternoon.
© J.N. Urbanski 2.50pm
Daily Catskills: 01/08/16
25F at 8.30am and still wiith marbled skies and a hazy horizon.
© J.N. Urbanski 12.45pm
Daily Catskills: 01/07/16
20F at 8.30am with hazy cloud cover fading with the dawn.
© J.N. Urbanski 8am
Daily Catskills: 01/06/16
18F by 8.30am, with clear skies and frosty air, rising to 28F by 11am.
© J.N. Urbanski 9.30am
Daily Catskills: 01/05/16
0F at 7.30am and still, with some areas reporting as low as -11F at dawn. Clear skies to the horizon, rising to 15F by noon.
© J.N. Urbanski 11am
Daily Catskills: 01/04/16
A hair over 10F at 7.30am and still with clear skies. Not much warmer by noon.
© J.N. Urbanski 7.45am
© J.N. Urbanski Noon
Daily Catskills: 01/03/16
30F by 9.30am with flurries of snow mid-afternoon and a few inches of snow on the peaks.
© J.N. Urbanski Noon
The Catskill 35 (W): Panther Mountain
© J.N. Urbanski
Oh, the joy of crampons. It’s nice to muster a decent pace with a good, long stride on the Catskills trails and I’m talking about the sort of stride that confirms the saying “to stretch the legs”, which British people call going for a walk. The only way you can do that in is in the winter on long stretches of iced mud, wearing crampons or “spikes”. Most Catskills trails are rocky, and I understand when I hear about hikers who go barefoot in good weather, because it’s easy to lose your footing if it’s wet or mossy. In the autumn, when the trail is covered with leaves, it’s too easy to slip between rocks and turn an ankle, especially when you’re on your descent and tired. Crampons are inadvisable other than when it’s icy or snowing because otherwise you’ll punch up the trail. They and snowshoes both make winter hiking rather special. Hillsound make a fabulous set for a reasonable price and I wore a pair yesterday for the very first time. Hillsound had sent us two pairs to try out for free and I love them.
Daily Catskills: 01/02/16
25F at 8.30am, cold and enigmatically overcast with snow on the higher peaks. 30F by mid-afternoon.
© J.N. Urbanski 11am
Daily Catskills: 01/01/16
Still only 32F at 11am with flurries of morning snow that settled more thickly on the peaks and overcast skies. A seasonal start to the New Year.
© J.N. Urbanski 1.40pm
Daily Catskills: 12/31/15
34F at 9.30am, humid, overcast and bleak with brief periods of sunshine and the odd flurry of snow.
© J.N. Urbanski 10.40am
© J.N. Urbanski 10.30am
Daily Catskills: 12/30/15
39F by 2pm, overcast, misty and dark.
© J.N. Urbanski 2.50pm
Daily Catskills: 12/29/15
31F by 10.30am and overcast with a thin blanket of overnight snow settling only on paths and roads.
© J.N. Urbanski 10.30am
Daily Catskills: 12/27/15
52F by noon, overcast, raining and miserable rising to 54F.
© J.N. Urbanski 2pm
Daily Catskills: 12/26/15
38F at 9am, mostly cloudy rising to 43F by 2pm.
© Erik P Johanson
© Gavin DuBois
Daily Catskills: 12/25/15 Christmas Day
47F at 10am rising to 52F by noon. Humid, wet and cloudy.
© Gavin DuBois
Christmas Eve in the Catskills: The Pepacton Reservoir
© J.N. Urbanski 10am
Daily Catskills: 12/24/15 Christmas Eve
61F at 8.30am, humid and gloomy with foggy wafting over the mountains, but brightening up by the afternoon. 66F by 2pm.
© Erik P Johanson 1pm
Daily Catskills: 12/23/15
52˚F by noon. Shimmering morning clouds turning gloomy by the afternoon. Sumac still hanging on.
© J.N. Urbanski 1.30pm
Daily Catskills: 12/22/15 Yuletide & The Winter Solstice
47˚F at 9am, overcast and raining. This morning the evergreens twinkled in the rain while a new winter sun rose behind a thick veil of cloud cover to mark the Winter Solstice and the ancient tradition of Yuletide.
© J.N. Urbanski 11.15am
© J.N. Urbanski 9am
Daily Catskills: 12/19/15
26F at noon with an overnight snow flurry having dusted the landscape. More gentle flurries beginning in the afternoon. 30F by 3pm.
© J.N. Urbanski 2.20pm