Hike #955; Red Hill to Willowemec

Hike #955; Red Hill to Willowemec

7/24/16 Catskills; Red Hill to Willowemec with James Quinn, Jennifer Berndt, Teun Ott, Marcello, and Kellie Kegan

In the tower; photo by Marcello

This next hike was another to tie up a loose end, a hike I’d done ahead of time without connecting it with another. I knew this hike would have swimming spots, and the next one I did in the area likely would not so much.

Lerch hosted a trip the day before as well as a campout for those who wanted to be up in the Catskills already for the hike, but the disconnect was that the campsite was an hour and a half from my meeting point, so only Kellie made it of all of the campers, and not until late.

Red Hill Fire Tower view

After meeting in Willowemec, with only a few of us showing up, we shuttled to the east to Red Hill, the start of our hike. There is literally no cell service except one high spot on the drive, and right by the tower. Stephen Argentina wanted to meet up with us, but he couldn’t connect with us well enough.

Red Hill Tower view

We parked at the base of Red Hill on Old Dinch Road, and we repeated the hike we did the previous time here, 1.5 miles up Red Hill Trail to the Red Hill Fire Tower.
The trail wasn’t too tough, but it was a good up hill workout. This would be by far the hardest and nearly only climb of the hike. I was thoroughly expecting more in the Catskills, but overall this hike was really easy.
There was a weird, giant cairn off to the left of the trail on the way up. It was obvious that this one gets a good degree more travel than some of the others, even though it’s middle of nowhere.

Tower shack

We had a tower guide at the site, a woman who lives nearby and watches after it in rotation with others. She took us up and pointed stuff out from the top, which was nice to have a frame of reference for where we were. I ran back down the mountain to check on Teun, but he was okay.
It was really insanely hot for a Catskills day. Typically it’s a lot cooler up there than just about everywhere else, but this one was pretty bad.
At the tower, there was a shanty building that went along with it, and inside was the original round map thing that used to be in the tower. There is a reproduction one up there now.
My phone was on the fritz, and I wasn’t able to get a text message to send to Stephen any more, so Jen tried calling him for one last effort that maybe he or others could meet. There was no luck getting back to him, and after Kellie joined, no one else would be able to meet up with us for the rest of the hike.

View on Red Hill Tower

After everyone had had a good view from the tower, we moved on back down the trail. While on the way down, we met Kellie, who was on her way up to meet us. She didn’t really have the time to go up to see the tower and connect with us again, so unfortunately she had to turn around and join us or she’d never find us.
We came back to the parking area at the bottom, where some of us had left our bags, and we all continued down Old Dinch Road. The road is closed just beyond where we parked because the bridge that used to span the East Branch of the Neversink River at the bottom is long gone.

Red Hill Tower

It was a nice relaxing walk down the hill from here to where the bridge used to be, and we passed a lovely spring on the left.
When we got to the bottom, there was stone masonry around, and the remnant of where a road would have gone along the river for a bit further. I noted this time that there used to be a mill here in all likelihood, because there appeared to be a mill race. I pointed out where the old road used to go across the river, and that there was still a steel frame section of it crossing over the mill race section. There is almost no evidence I saw of the bridge from our perspective on the near side, but one section of the bridge is still in place on the other.

Ruins off Old Dinch Road

The last time we were here, we turned right and waded across the river just up stream of the old bridge site to reach Denning Road, the route of the Finger Lakes Trail. This time, we just turned left because I wanted to try to follow the river down stream a bit. There’s really nothing to see on that Denning Road section that we’d already done.
This section of the Finger Lakes Trail looked to be among the most “boring” sections because it was on so much road, but since it followed the East Branch of the Neversink, I figured it would be a good Summer one for some swimming. That certainly held true up ahead.

Old Dinch Road bridge remnant

We soon reached a huge washout, where the path we were following along the river on the left side had completely been eroded away. There was a steep slope of mud and rock, but we were able to walk it to a certain degree. I didn’t waste much time on that and instead made my way down to walk directly down the river. It was absolutely refreshing, and when I got to a really nice deep spot to lay, I got in completely. I think everyone went for that actually. It was so hot, and the water was so cold and clear, it felt perfect. We talked about what a really nice time everyone that didn’t show was missing out on.

East Branch of the Neversink

We walked down the stream only a little while more, until it came to where Denning Road was right beside it. We climbed then up to the road and followed it west, the route of the Finger Lakes Trail.
The Finger Lakes Trail really fascinates me, and I want to do more of it badly. It was one of the few trips I’d been eyeing to do as my next backpacking trip. It begins on The Long Path to the east, and I’d done that bit from below Red Hill to there, and I’d done the part from north of Denning and Claryville out to Alder Lake earlier in the year, but had not connected this section. I purchased all of the maps from Finger Lakes Trail Conference, a huge mess of them.

East Branch of the Neversink

The trail leads west out of the Catskills and into the Finger Lakes region, with spur trails that lead all the way to Niagara Falls to the north, and west to the Pennsylvania line and to Allegheny National Forest. Along the way, it also connects with the Pennsylvania Mid State Trail, and I would love to connect what Jillane and I have already done there with the Finger Lakes Trail.
Maybe one day.
We continued walking Denning Road section to the west. It passed through lovely farm lands and often came within sight of the Neversink River. I saw where there was an old bridge site near a new one, with abutments still in place, and then we passed another under construction.

Denning Rd bridge construction

There were very few cars that went by, very few homes that we passed. There were some lovely farms that were like a step back in time, except the road is paved in this section. Denning Road is unpaved further up a bit.
Some homes are rather stately, probably some rich city goer’s weekend retreat, while others were sort of redneck. There was one place that was really run down with odd political signs outside of it. When we entered the little village of Denning, there was a collection of buildings. Outside of one, thee was a sort of foundation and old chimney where a building once stood. Upon further inspection, it was a memorial garden framed around the former building site.

Memorial garden house site

It was the Jean Switzler Memorial Garden, which had the following quote on a plaque:

“How good is a man’s life, the mere living! How fit to employ All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy!” - Robert Browning

The village of Denning was first settled in 1837 by John Bush. It had it’s first school house in 1845 (which makes sense if they had kids after “settling”!), and the town was incorporated in 1849.

We soon reached a little town center place that had two restaurants, and then a little store that sold junk food. We must have arrived at the busiest time of the entire day because there was a serious line, and the girl behind the counter said it would probably take forty five minutes to get food. We opted to just get junk food.

If only we had waited a bit more, the line went down and we’d have been served much faster, but we didn’t know.
We hung out at tables in front and had a nice break, and we chatted with a guy who pulled up on a beautiful 1947 Indian Motorcycle. My grandfather owned a few of these, that he bought in Easton, as well as a Harley at one point. One of them he paid $1,500 for he told me, which is amazingly more than I payed for my car that I currently drive!
After our break, we continued along the route still following Denning Road through to Claryville.

East Branch of the Neversink

The road was still only lightly used and really just very pleasant. It was getting pretty hot though, to the point where I couldn’t stand not to get into the water at the first chance we got. Everyone sort of moved along pretty quickly, but when the East Branch of the Neversink came close to the road again, at a point where it appeared to have been repaired from flood damages, I climbed down the stone wall and got in. It felt great. We continued walking the road to the intersection with West Branch Road. One of the last houses we passed on the right had some old stonework laid out in the yard along the creek, maybe some sort of an old mill remnant of sorts.

West Branch of the Neversink

We turned right on West Branch Road, still the Finger Lakes Trail route, and crossed the East Branch of the Neversink. Soon, the road was parallel with the West Branch of the Neversink. The confluence of the two was hidden from sight deep in woods away from the roads. The trail route continued on the road, across the West Branch and then just a little ways further to a left turn on a narrow and steep back road called Pond Road. We climbed here to a point where we could look down on the West Branch and West Branch Road, then the road leveled out for a bit.

Looking down on the West Branch

The trail, still on the road, soon followed the north side of Round Pond, all private access with homes along the shore. It was still pretty to walk by.
Finger Lakes Trail soon turned right on Black Bear Road, a dirt road heading up hill a bit more.
We followed this for a little ways and soon came to a parking area on the right, where we had begun our last hike on the Finger Lakes Trail. By filling in this gap, it was the second of only two remaining long hikes I’d done that did not yet connect with anything else I’d done. From this point, we’d be more in the woods for the remainder of the hike.

Willowemec Trail

We left the Finger Lakes Trail here, and continued on the trail to Willowemec.
The trail also followed a drivable dirt road at first. It took us through pleasant woods, called Basily Road, and to someone’s house at a big clearing.
Beyond, the road continued, but not vehicle accessible, and the trail remained on it for a while.
I wasn’t expecting it to be very easy. The lady we met at the tower told us that there was some hand hold climbing involved in these trails over here toward Willowemec, but we ended up finding nothing of this. It was just a pleasant woods road heading to the west.
The trail weaved around a bit, and it was overall just very pleasant to walk. Not at all difficult, next to no real hills to deal with.

We love James

When we reached a trail intersection with a snowmobile access trail, we turned left. This was the trail that leads back to where we met, the parking lot on Fugertown Road.
This also seemed to go by very very quickly. The trail was basically another wide woods road with almost no elevation except a slight down hill toward the end.
When we got to the lot, James, Jen and I went over to the Willowemec Creek across the street to lay in the water. It was just so hot out.
Sometimes it’s good to have a simple relaxing day like this, and it’s especially welcome when it’s expected to be tougher. Everyone who missed it missed out on a really nice time in the beauty of the Catskills without the killer workout.