Hike #934; Finger Lakes Trail; Round Pond to Alder Lake

Hike #934; Finger Lakes Trail; Round Pond to Alder Lake

4/24/16 Finger Lakes Trail; Round Pond to Alder Lake with James Quinn, Amy Davis, Kralc Leahcim (Lerch), Justin Gurbisz, Jennifer Tull, Michele Valerio, Neil Washington, Brian ?, and Euin Gonzalez.

This next hike would be a point to point between two pieces of the Finger Lakes Trail system I’d been wanting to do.
Actually, this is a strange unconnected section, something I almost never do. My reasoning for doing this was because I will be connecting it in the very near future. I’d done it all from just below Red Hill to the east to the Long Path, it’s eastern terminus. The section I was missing here was simply a road walk section that I’d already driven. In order to hike this section the way I have it planned, we will be wading across the East Branch of the Neversink River, and so I wanted to save that for when the weather gets warmer. A hike is planned from Red Hill to the Willowomec trail system.
The planned end point, Alder Lake, is a rather secluded spot where there used to be an old hotel building. Hardly anyone drives to this far out of the way place, and it’s probably the farthest I will ever go for one day hike. Fortunately, I didn’t have to go it alone, James, Amy, and I carpooled.
It took what seemed like a lifetime to get up there. Lerch did a hike the day before, and he ended up coming over the mountain by way of a deplorable road that probably shouldn’t be open, but thankfully he was able to make it. I had a somewhat wild red blazer to give him on this one as well.

Our shuttle to the start point was also rather difficult. Lerch helped Michele to spot a car at around the mid way point, and the rest of us headed to the start, a parking area near Round Pond, just outside of the little village of Denning along the Finger Lakes Trail.
Finger Lakes Trail is superimposed onto existing Catskills trails for this area, and at this point it is on the Neversink-Hardenburgh Trail. From the parking area, the trail simply follows dirt back roads to the north.
We headed along the road, which was a nice warm up. There area few houses out there, but they don’t look to be more than just vacation residences. We had some nice views to the east of us, which we tried to identify for a while. I determined at some point that a couple of them must be Table Mountain and Peekamoose Mountain, then further up we were probably looking at the Burroughs Range.

Pond and mountains

At some point, the road became less kept up. It was more of a regular dirt road off into the woods. I figured this was the end of any vehicle access, but to my surprise there was one more house out there in the woods, away from anything and accessible really only by way of a good high clearance pickup truck or SUV.
Beyond the last house, the trail continued on, along the road, but it was most certainly not very accessible. The trail remained on the woods road for a good while. It was actually an easy and quite relaxing route, through lush young greenery and some new plants that look like hastas coming up, rather than the skunk cabbage we have at lower elevations.

Fall Brook Shelter

Soon, we came to the Fall Brook Shelter, one of the back woods rustic shelters intended for hikers going the distance.
We encountered some trail magic when we found a tap box of wine inside! We had a nice break here. The trail so far was much easier than I’d anticipated we’d be doing, and it was just a warm up for the mountain coming up ahead.
After leaving the shelter, we made our way somewhat down hill to the Beaver Kill. This tributary to the upper Delaware River flows over rocks through a mossy glen that was stunningly beautiful. The trail sometimes was intimately close to the hillsides, but never really dangerous. There were remnants of old roadways out there along the creek, and possible old mill and dam sites that are now nearly unrecognizable.

Beaver Kill

The trail continued along the brook and soon picked up a better section of woods road. We even crossed a rather intact two track bridge over a smaller tributary. The bridge was obviously intended for full size vehicles to cross over, but the rest of the trail on either side was no longer amenable to any kind of vehicle getting back there. Even an ATV would have trouble at some spots along the way.
We continued down stream along the pretty brook until the trail broke off to the right. We crossed over Gulf of Mexico Brook, another smaller tributary, then lost the trail for a little bit.
We had to do a degree of wandering around in order to find it. Many of us split off in different directions in order to figure out where it was. I eventually found it by heading up hill and to the north. The trail, blazed at this point with yellow DEC discs, was not blazed nearly enough to be recognizable at times.

The group at Balsam Lake trail head

The trail continued through the woods, then crossed over Black Brook on another foot bridge. It’s curious that both Gulf of Mexico Brook and Black Brook had nice foot bridges over them, but the more substantial Beaver Kill had nothing but stones to hop across!
We soon came to a somewhat open field section to the right, then emerged to the Balsam Lake trail head parking area, where we turned away from the Neversink-Hardenburg Trail section.

NYNJ Trail Conference map of the area

Michele and Euin both cut out early at the parking area. Michele had done the hike the day before with Lerch and had had some knee problems, and Euin had literally just been off the plane from China or something and barely got any sleep! What possessed him to drive all the way to the Catskills after such an event is beyond me, but it’s commendable that he showed up!

The group at Balsam Lake Mountain trailhead

From the parking area, Finger Lakes Trail continues north on blue DEC disc blazed Dry Brook Ridge Trail. It was a gentle ascent at first, and I took off along it. None of the rest of the group were coming, apparently assumed I was coming back. I think Lerch got them together to move on.
He soon caught up with me, and we made our way gradually up hill on the trail, which was basically following a well traveled woods road. The Finger Lakes Trail turned to the left, somewhat west, on the red DEC disc blazed Balsam Lake Mountain Trail. This was just a footpath that broke away from the Dry Brook Ridge Trail to the left. Lerch and I waited for the bulk of the group to catch up before we started ascending Balsam Lake Mountain.

Balsam Lake Mountain Shelter

The trail was really rather steep. I was expecting most of the hike to be like this, so none of it came to me as any kind of surprise. It was still hard though; I’d not been doing enough up hill stuff as I had in the past, so I’m still not in the best shape for this, though I was still at the front of the pack. Lerch and I slowed off and gave up the front of the group to make a side trip to the left, on the spur that went to the Balsam Lake Mountain Shelter. I always try to take the side trips to the shelters, just to see them.
We continued back to the trail and continued climbing a bit more. Just ahead, we came across a very nice piped spring just on the trail.

Spring

We paused for a moment and had a drink of the delicious water from it before continuing our climb.
It was steep for just a bit longer, until we came pretty much to the intersection with the Mill Brook Ridge Trail. The Finger Lakes Trail turned left, to the west, from here. At that point, we continued straight for an out and back trip to visit the Balsam Lake Mountain Fire Tower. When Brian went by, he left a message for Dan and Amy to either wait at that intersection, or continue straight to the fire tower. Amy had said earlier that she didn’t want to go to the tower, so we figured she would just stop there. The rest of us continued on to the tower.

Balsam Lake Mountain Fire Tower

The trail intersection was pretty much at the top already. Continuing on the Balsam Lake Mountain Trail to the north barely had any more up hill on the way to the tower, just a few steps up and we were there.
When we got there, there were already people there, and a couple up in the tower. We sat down for a break and waited for some of them to make their way down. Two girls we had first seen at the parking area where Michele and Euin met up with us caught up at the tower.
The tower was not manned at this time. No one was around anywhere. We made our way up the stairs to the box at the top of the tower.

Tower view

I was very surprised that this tower was left completely open for people to just go in and look around. Usually, tower boxes are locked up when we get to them so that people can’t get in, and in the Catskills particularly, many of the towers have been refurbished and are manned on weekends for people to tour.
We had good views in all directions of the different mountains. I’m not sure which of the peaks we were looking toward at the top of this one. I’m not familiar at all with the surrounding terrain at this point. It just looked like a vast expanse in every direction, without really a bit of development anywhere in view.

Tower view

At 3,723 feet above sea level, Balsam Lake Mountain is one of the Catskill 3500+ peaks. “Peak bagging” is very popular among Catskill hikers, so for some of the group really pushing to do all of these, it was another to scratch off of the list.
I look at the peak bagging very similarly to how I look at the Appalachian Trail: I love it and maybe one day I’ll do it all, but it’s not in any way my driving force, or even a main initiative. If I do all of these peaks as part of the series of hikes I am working on, that’s great, but it’s really someone else’s contest, not mine. I’m most content connecting previous hikes together and sort of building a body of work. It sort of feels more like doing a coloring book when I prefer to sketch my own art to color.

Tower view

We all got up to the box of the tower, took several photos, and made our way back down. The wind was strong, and the narrow tower was a bit claustrophobic. I didn’t want to stay up on those narrow angle iron posts with so many going up.
We had a break at the base and ate some snacks waiting for the rest of the group to catch up. Dan was doing really quite good for his first Catskills trip. We were worried about Amy though, because she didn’t show up. The two girls we had seen told us that they had seen her go over to the shelter, and then left to make her way up the mountain. We had a little phone service at the tower, one of the only places we’d have it along the hike, and tried calling her to no avail. Brian went back, as did Neil to look around for her. They went down past the shelter, saw some other people who hadn’t seen her, and they came back up.

Tower view

The rest of us made our way back down the trail to the junction with the Mill Brook Ridge Trail. When Brian and Neil didn’t find her, we regrouped and talked over what we should do. Brian’s note at the tree, done with chalk, was still there, so we figured she should have seen that. Because others had seen her, we had to assume she continued along the trail and was continuing back to the cars at Alder Lake.
We all started following the trail switch backing down Balsam Lake Mountain, passed through a saddle, and then climbed part of Woodpecker Ridge. We were moving along pretty quickly, and figured we should be able to catch her. Further, Lerch ran speedily ahead to see if he could catch up with her. When he did not and we caught up with him, we got somewhat worried.

View on Mill Brook Ridge

Brian was carrying radios for communication, which really helped a lot. We made sure that certain people had them to stay in communication since cell service was so spotty. It was decided that search and rescue should start since we just weren’t sure, and Brian and Neil offered to go back to the other parking lot in case Amy showed up there. I took one of the radios, and the rest of us continued ahead. Just on the other side of the Woodpecker Ridge section, James got a call from Amy, who got cell service. She was totally fine and had just continued on along the Mill Brook Ridge section. She hadn’t seen Brian’s note on the tree at all and just knew which way we were going.

Mill Brook Ridge Trail section

I couldn’t get the other guys on the radio at this time, so I ran back over the Woodpecker Ridge section to a rather clear view toward Balsam Lake Mountain. From there, I got Neil rather quickly. I let him know we’d heard from Amy and that they should come back our way before they get too far. They got the message and replied, and we waited a bit to allow them some time to catch up. Amy pushed along at a steady pace toward the end, and we never really caught up with her. We hooted and hollered and made weird noises from some sections, which she said she heard at some point and responded, but we never heard her.

Shelter

The trail was actually pretty easy after one more slight up and down over another knoll. It was nothing like the climb up Balsam Lake Mountain, and even that was nothing compared to other Catskill 3500s.
We gradually descended with a couple of slight views over ponds and such. We made a final descent to the next shelter overlooking the beaver meadow along the Alder Creek. The trail from this point followed on or near an old woods road parallel with the creek heading gradually down hill to the west. The trail remained on the woods road to the west end of Alder Lake where we had the choice of going left or right around the lake.

Alder Lake

We chose to make the right turn around the lake from here, on the Alder Lake Loop Trail because it was quickest to the cars as well as the way that stayed closest to the lake shore, and would probably be the most scenic.
The were more people in this area. The place has good camp sites close to the lake throughout the area. I asked some campers close to the trail if they had seen Amy go by, and they had about ten minutes prior to us. We just barely missed catching up with her.

Coykendall Lodge ruin

Just before the parking area, and on the Finger Lakes Trail (former driveway), are the cobble and limestone foundation ruins of the historic Coykendall Lodge. The old home was a 2 1⁄2-story half-timber lodge of balloon frame construction built in 1899. It was built in the Shingle Style, which is a mix of Queen Anne Style and English influence combined with Colonial American.

Historic view of Coykendall Lodge

The high peaks and flat shingle construction gave a look of horizontal continuity. Despite the fact that the structure was on the National Historic Register, the state of NY had it torn down because it was in need of so much repair.

Remains of Coykendall Lodge

We walked up the drive and checked out some of the cobble wall ruins. We could see the vertical sections that held the porches, and the old fireplace was still standing in what probably would have been a large living room. The remnants of this building give no real clue at how grandiose the building actually was.

View of Coykendall Lodge before demolition.

After passing the building site, we reached the parking area where Amy was sitting waiting. The others were still a bit behind us, but not by far. Dan did really great staying caught up with us the entire time until surprisingly the flatter, easier stuff at the end. We guided him by radio on which trails to turn on along the lake.
While waiting, Lerch, Justin, and I went over to the lake dam to check out the spillway.
Someone had placed a step ladder into the spillway from the dam in order to access for fishing. It was somehow secured on by a rope or something. Lerch climbed down to check it out more closely.

Alder Lake spillway

We made our way back up to the parking area, and made weird noises into the radio and such while waiting for Dan to catch up. He made it back before it got totally dark out and still seemed to be feeling pretty good after the long hike.
We didn’t bother having a group dinner thing on this one because it was such an incredibly far drive. Just as bad as the drive itself was the commute between trailheads for this one. I was really glad to get this one out of the way for that reason alone. It was definitely more of a pain to put together as far as hikes go.
Still, we had a really great combination of relaxing walking through the woods, challenging climbs, and beautiful scenery to make it all worth it.

I look forward to doing more Catskills trips as well as other interesting hidden areas as the year progresses; it’s been off to a really great start!

Happy