7/15/17 Catskills Mink Hollow to Phoenicia with Justin Gurbisz, Serious Sean Dougherty, Jennifer Berndt, Scott Helbing (Tea Biscuit), Amanda Lance, Jim “Uncle Soup” Campbell, Stephen Argentina, Michele Valerio, Gina Zuvich, Angelo Ezzo III, Karen Ezzo, Stephen’s friend Csaba (not melon) ?, Nick Rondinella, ???, Kenneth Lidman, and Kralc Leahcim (Lerch).
Our next hike would be another point to point in the Catskills, once again on the Long Path to do another section I’d not done. I’d done the piece of it the previous Thursday in Harriman, but the Catskills are entirely different. It doesn’t even feel like the same trail really.
We met in the morning at the Sleepy Hollow Campsite where Lerch had arranged an overnight trip. He’d done some hiking the day before, and they were of course up much fo the night parting and whatnot.
It was a while to get everyone together to go. I made this the end point of the hike, and figured we could wade across the Esopus Creek at the end to easily reach the camp site. This was a bad idea as they were doing a dam release. Serious Sean didn’t realize that, and so he parked on the other side, then tried to wade it. He lost a hiking pole and got in a really tough situation, but made it out. Just as we were getting ready to leave, he staggered into the site drenched announcing that he’d almost died!
Long Path junction
We were finally on our way, and I was the lead car. We had to go a long way out and around to get to the trail head. My plan was to start at the abandoned Mink Hollow Road, which was the shortest disntance to the Long Path route some fifteen miles out of Phoenicia. The dirt and gravel road came to a sort of cul de sac at the end, and we parked there before starting our ascent. At the point we’d join the Long Path, it was co-aligned with the famous Devil’s Path. The treacherous route has a ton of climbing, and I’d long wanted to experience some of it.
We headed up the old Mink Hollow Road from the north, which is not a blazed trail route. It was questionable at a couple of points, but the foot trails that turned off of the old road only returned to it to avoid washout areas. It wasn’t long before we got on the main trail.
Stephen on the rocks
Once we were on the Long Path, our climb to the top of Plateau Mountain began. This is another of the Catskill 3,500 plus peaks.
Justin, Stephen, and newcomer, Stephen’s friend ???? were up front with me.
We pushed hard to the top. There are places where hand hold climbing is necessary, which I love. We passed a spring on the way up, and we watched as the vegetation switched from normal deciduous and conifer to a firs and mossy rocks. It took a lot of effort to push to the top, but we got there, and there was a nice east facing view toward Sugarloaf Mountain and others.
View from the top of Plateau Mountain
After the four of us, I believe Jen was next to reach the top, followed by Uncle Soup. The others soon followed save for Lerch, who amazingly had blisters so bad he couldn’t deal with it and headed back. He borrowed someone’s car that drove up to get back.
The peak of Plateau
It took everyone a long time to get to the top of the brutal ascent. We all took a break on the rock for a bit when everyone caught up, but we had to keep moving.
The top of Plateau, and the distance ahead was actually quite nice. It was more majestic old growth Spruce and Fir forest unlike what there was below, or anything else we would see on this hike. It was probably the most relaxing section of the entire thing.
The trail remained pretty easy along the top of Plateau and past the peak. The peak was kind of a let down; a tiny pile of stones sitting off the trail.
We continued on to Warner Hollow Trail, which turned left. This is also the route of the Long Path. Devil’s Path continues straight ahead. Both would have to be future trips for me.
View from Long Path
The trail descended rather gradually through woods, which very quickly began to change character. We got a view soon from a side path to the left of Daley Ridge and Stony Clove Valley.
The section of trail was always rather close to a steeper descent to the left. I took a few side trails looking to see if there were views. Some didn’t pay off, but some were fantastic.
We had a really fantastic view of Warner Creek Valley and Olderbark Mountain from a rock ledge along the trail on the way down Plateau. It was very pleasant for a while, but the descent did start to get very rocky and tough after a bit.
Mossy
After we passed over the not notable summit of Daley Ridge, we headed steeply down hill over rocks. This was starting to kill my knees after a while. Some of the rocks were slick, and so we had to watch not to slip and fall on the way down.
As we got lower in elevation, there was more typical looking undergrowth, some of which had encroached on the trail a bit. Prior to starting the hike, Lerch warned Justin and I that this hike was going to be insanely tough. He said no one used this section of trail, it was going ot be barely a trail and we would have a very hard time finding it.
The worst part for weeds wasn't that bad
The only spot that really got bad for weeds at all was the last bit of descent to Silver Notch Hollow. The trail was still obvious, but it had grown in at lower elevation with Stinging Nettles, which sucked. Still, we got through it, and congregated again when we got to the woods road at the bottom.
Silver Notch Hollow
I suppose Plateau Mountain put the Fear of God in most of the group, because they all stood together conspiring on how to get out, because at this point they foresaw being out there until nine PM. I knew it wouldn’t take that long, but I knew it would still be tough.
After going over the route, everyone decided to go for the early out and follow the old road route down Silver Notch Hollow except for Justin, Jen, Serious Sean, and I. A few more were still behind when we decided to continue on. I gave Tea Biscuit my car keys, that way drivers could get back to the start, and then everyone could be loaded into cars more efficiently to head back to the campground.
Warner Hollow view on Edgewood Mountain
Justin and I powered ahead to the top of Edgewood Mountain. The ascent here wasn’t really bad at all, and we got a bit of an obscured view to the east over Warner Creek Valley.
The two of us went over the summit of Edgewood with no more views, then had some more steep descending. It wasn’t too terrible, as we did not fall down this time. We continued on down hill until the grade got to be more manageable, and then we turned on an abandoned old road. It was a really beautiful route with springs and small tributaries running on it and across it for a good stretch through the valley.
Old woods road
Soon, the trail turned left away from the woods road an led us out to Warner Creek.
This is a rather wide creek with no bridge crossing. I was sweating up a storm and couldn’t wait to jump in and cool off. The stream was freezing cold, but it bothered me none. I laid in it until Serious Sean and Jen caught up with us. They weren’t super far behind, but Justin and I were motoring along pretty fast. Jen and Sean were planning to just bushwhack down the stream to get out if we were not there waiting for them, but since we were, we all continued together. Jen tried to take a dip in the water, but she couldn’t handle the cold the way I did. We crossed and continued on the southbound Long Path.
The trail followed a slope above the creek for a time. It then turned left heading up hill, and I spotted an old foundation just off the trail to the left.
It surprised me that there was remnants of a homestead here. It didn’t make any sense to me until we were further up hill on the ascent of Carl Mountain.
On the way up, after a couple of good switchbacks, I saw what appeared to be old quarries. After a little while of seeing it, I was absolutely certain that these were old bluestone quarries. It amazed me that this area was quarried despite the fact that much more easily accessible bluestone was available close by. We crossed over a few piles at a sort of dry tributary, then continued climbing Carl Mountain.
Old foundation
We continued up Carl Mountain, but skirted the edge of it for a while before finally making the final ascent of it. From there, it remained a lot easier because it was almost like walking on a ridge top section, just a bit more rolling.
Bluestone quarry
We made good time on this section ahead. I actually got pretty far ahead of everyone in the group for a while at this point.
When I was up front of the group, I heard rustling in the bushes to the right of the trail pretty close, then something big ran off to the right. It seemed to be a bear, but I didn’t get a good enough look at it. I cautiously continued a bit further on, and to the left of the trail was a bear cub up in a tree. He or she saw me, and then fell out of a low limb of the tree with a big thud. I wanted to laugh for a moment, it looked so silly; the cut ran off down the ridge to the southeast.
I then realized the mother, the larger thing I had just seen, went to the west off the other side of the ridge, and that I was now right between the mother and cub. I waited still, made noise and had to get everyone else back together. I let them know what had happened, and we continued together along the ridge top with no further problems.
Tremper Fire Tower
In a col, the yellow blazed Willow Trail went off to the left to descend into the valley. I figured the trail would be more used in the section ahead because an alternate access was provided.
Tremper tower view
The trail continued along the top the mountain, and descended to the col between Carl Mountain and Tremper Mountain. It remained nice and gradual, through mature forest.
We eventually came to the abandoned Tremper Mountain Fire Tower. I had heard that this fire tower was restored and open for visitation, but there was no one up there, unlike the Red Hill tower we had done in the past. It wasn’t at all blocked off, so it could easily be climbed, and it gave us some outstanding views of the surrounding area.
View from Tremper Tower
The mountain was originally known as Timonthyberg Mountain from the vernacular of the early Dutch settlers.
The name Tremper was already around in the 1800s and associated with the resorts of the area.
By the early 1900s, after much of the lands had burned in fires, lookout towers were placed at prominent points throughout the Catskills as a preventative measure. For a while, Slide Mountain, the highest point in the Catskills, had a tower of it’s own.
Tremper Tower view
The structure on Slide was short lived, and it was sort of replaced by the tower on Mt. Tremper.
It is believed that the fire tower we climbed is still the original structure that was erected at that point, built in 1917 (if that’s the case, it is the oldest fire tower I’ve been up).
The fire observation station was used at Mount Tremper until 1971 when it was abandoned. Shanties and such for workers have all been removed, and the area around the tower has much reverted to a more natural state.
Because historic preservation is not written into the purpose of the Catskill Forest Preserve, it was proposed that the tower be torn down.
Tremper tower view
The tower sits at 2,740 feet above sea level, and the structure itself is forty seven feet tall. The tower was placed at this location because it provided views of areas not visible from nearby Hunter or Belleayre Fire Towers.
Tremper tower view
The fire tower remained in service until 1971 when the state started shutting them down.
At the peak, there were more than one hundred fire towers in the Catskill and Adirondacks regions, and there were 19 in the Catskill Mountains alone.
Tremper tower view
After the closure of the towers, they along with their associated buildings began to deteriorate. Those that were not torn down were closed off to public for safety reasons.
In the late 1990s, a grass roots effort began to restore and re-open these towers for their views and their historic significance to the region.
Tremper tower
In 2000, the five remaining Catskill fire lookout towers, Tremper, Red Hill, Woodstock, Hunter, and Balsam Lake Mountain were re-opened for visitation (there is actually a little known sixth one on private land in the south end of the Catskills that has not been restored).
Tremper Lean to
At this point, I have been in all but two, Hunter and Woodstock, and I’ll have to make it a point to get to those ones in the near future.
The structure didn’t strike me as being as old as it was. If it really was built in 1917, it is the oldest fire tower I have ever been up. Previously, it was Big Flat Fire Tower on the Tussey Ridge in PA built in the twenties.
The view was quite excellent, and still quite clear enough for us. We could see to the Burroughs Range, and across to Romer Mountain, and then out toward Ashokan Reservoir, which was just barely within sight to us.
Phoenicia Trail
We couldn’t get up inside the box, but that was alright. We could really see plenty from just below it.
From here, we went down and started to descent on the trail. We almost immediately passed by the Mt. Tremper Lean to, a rather ragged looking shelter. It’s a pretty old one as well, but not quite as old as the fire tower, but way worse for wear. We headed down hill further, and there was a nearby second shelter, the Baldwin Memorial Shelter, on our left. The trail descened gradually here.
On the Long Path/Phoenicia Trail
I was expecting the trail on the way down to be a simple rugged footpath. I thought a nearby road I saw on maps was the original road to the tower, and that it was an official use only thing or something. It turns out, the trail was marked right along the original road to the tower it would seem. Today, it’s incredibly rugged, and one could hardly imagine even a cart going up the thing, but it was very obviously a former road, especially as we got down closer to the bottom. At one point, the trail turned steeply right, only because it skipped a hard turn switchback that the old road route makes, and it regained the road in a short distance just beyond.
It seemed like the descent went on forever. I could see off into the valley through the trees, and see the sun setting, but it still seemed like we had so far to go down. At some point, I could start to hear the cars down on the highway below, but it was still pretty far below us. It did eventually start to level off, and then the old road dipped down to the highway to the right. I think that’s the Long Path route, because it turns right onto the road there. The map makes it look farther, but it was really just a stone’s throw away. Sean was parked at the trail head for Phoenicia Trail, which had us continue on a bit further.
Phoenicia Trail stone steps
The Warner Hollow Trail section only continued to the Tremper Tower apparently, and beyond it is the Phoenicia Trail. It can get confusing at times.
We continued on from where the woods road turned, and the trail was a foot path. We had to go back up hill a bit, which at this point in the hike seemed killer. It went up and down a bit, then cut down hill steeply on some stone laid steps. It then went down very close to the road and crossed over a small stream on a foot bridge before emerging into the parking area.
At some point earlier on, I was still considering wading across the Esopus Creek to the camp grounds, but I was so spent at this point, and I knew now that the water was deep, so we were totally happy to just cut out here and head to the camp ground for some food made by Scott Trinkle.
We headed into Phoenicia first to get some drinks and such at a convenience store, since we had to drive out and around to get to the camp ground anyway. We met up with Uncle Soup there, who had headed to town to buy some fire wood.
We soon got to the camp ground and Scott already had some food made. I went and made myself a sandwich or something with the pulled pork, followed by another...and another. I was like a zombie, so I don’t remember it quite clearly.
We had finished hiking at almost exactly 8 pm. It wasn’t dark yet, and everyone else was saying there was no way we would be back by dark. We really had to move along at a good pace to make it on this one.
The next day, Lerch arranged for a tubing trip down the Esopus Creek from the camp ground, but I opted not to stay for it. Outside of the hikes I feel pretty much out of place anyway, so I didn’t stay any later than I needed to.
It was overall a really great, challenging trip that I really loved. I’m looking forward to getting back up to the Catskills to cover some more ground, on the Long Path heading northbound with the rest of the Devil’s Path, and on the Finger Lakes Trail heading west. I get incredibly anxious just thinking about the scenery and experiences with every step.
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