Hike #1272; Beerston to Downsville

Hike #1272; Beerston to Downsville

11/11/19 Beerston to Downsville Finger Lakes Trail with Brittany Audrey, Polly Delafield, Serious Sean Dougherty, and Annika Krystyna

This next hike would be a point to point, and the next in my Finger Lakes Trail series.

South Mountain from the parking area

I had just done one of these not too long ago earlier in the Fall, but it seems like when I revisit a series it sparks such an interest that I just can’t wait to get back to it.
When I was writing the journal entry for that hike, it’s usually inevitable that I start looking ahead at the next ones and what is to come. Even though it’s so far off, I started looking ahead and realized that the official guide maps set it up pretty easy for me, where the sections are almost 15 or so miles for the next few bits.

O&W grade

The last section had ended in the town of Downsville. I have been looking at this point now for over five years.

Finger Lakes Trail on the O&W

When I started doing the Finger Lakes Trail as a series, I hadn’t anticipated really any of it. I was working on the Long Path sections, and I had just backpacked the section from Burroughs Range to the Neversink Valley where we spent our last night out camping. That would have been back in August of 2012.
I soon planned another one where we’d do a bit of the Long Path and a bit of the Finger Lakes Trail route where it follows the road in the East Branch of the Neversink, which I sort of considered part one.

FLT on the rail bed

We did follow ups where we went the opposite direction with part two taking us from Red Hill area to a side trip on other trails. The third took us up over Balsam Lake Mountain to Alder Lake. The fourth was from that point to a back road at Holiday Brook. The fifth was from there to Downsville. I suppose that makes this one the sixth one, unless you were to count the section up around Slide Mountain. The Finger Lakes Trail was extended from its original terminus at the Neversink to the top of Slide Mountain.

Trail register on the rail bed section

The trail is hundreds of miles long in its main route, with tons of side connecting paths of considerable distance, plus tons more old historic corridors like rail trails that aren’t maintained by the Finger Lakes Trail Conference.

O&W Railroad bed

The distance between Beerston and Downsville was just about exactly what we needed. I figured we could go between the West Branch of the Delaware and the Covered Bridge Park in Downsville on the East Branch of the Delaware and have it be exactly between fifteen and sixteen miles. Perfect.
Instead of doing the hike westbound on the trail the way we had done the rest of them, I chose to do this one eastbound because it would take less time driving in the morning to Downsville than to Beerston.

Trail register on the rail bed

We met at the little store in town and got some sandwiches and stuff to go for the day, and then got in my van to head to Beerston.
It was an out of the way drive, up and over the mountains by way of the town of Walton, then back to the south toward Beerston. We used a little parking area directly along the West Branch of the Delaware a short distance from the trail location.
The roads on the drive down were a bit unnerving. There was ice on the top of the mountains, and visible snow. I could see some of it on the road on the way down toward the town of Walton, which kept me going slower. I have to get my bologna skin tires changed soon.

Photo from Serious Sean

I had been afraid the weather would not work out in our favor for this one because it was supposed to snow the previous Thursday. If there was any cover for this hike, I was planning an alternate hike that would be a bit easier and have more road walk tracing the former Delaware and Northern Railroad right of way that passed through downsville. That will be the subject of a hike in the future regardless.
Fortunately, the snow cover did not pan out, and warm preceding days ended up getting rid of most of the ice and such I was concerned about.

Contradictions...

We only had to head up the road a little bit to the left turn on left on Beers Brook Road, where the Finger Lakes Trail goes.

Photo from Serious Sean

There was a blue blazed trail route out to the highway to use during hunting closures.
That was another thing to effect this series adversely. Many different sections are closed because of seasonal hunting, and thus it is necessary to go around those properties by way of blue blazed alternate routes. I really don’t want to skip any of the back woods sections, and this section was the last one we could do without having to worry about hunting closures for the near future.

O&W Railway bed

Just a little bit up Beers Brook Road, I saw the white blazes and Finger Lakes Trail signs going to the right, and we headed in.
It was an odd spot. There were very obvious “no trespassing” signs on the gate, but also prominent trail signs and blazes. There was nothing in my guide for this section that said anything about a seasonal hunting closure, so I figured we would be okay.
The trail in this section followed the right of way of the New York, Ontario, and Western Railroad, which is of course another series I have been working on, but haven’t reached anywhere near this point yet.

Finger Lakes Trail leaves the rail bed

It’s actually around thirty-five miles from the next section of it I’ve done in Hancock NY, where the east and west branches of the Delaware diverge.
The New York, Ontario, and Western Railway started out as the New York and Oswego Midland Railroad in 1868. The New York, Ontario, and Western inherited the lines built by the Midland in 1880. The railway absorbed a few other lines and served parts of the Catskill Borscht Belt at some of the farthest reaches.

The railroad near where we were walking historic image, Pineville

The railway was ill fated, and many consider it one that should never have been built, despite covering some 541 miles.

FLT in an evergreen grove

Motor vehicles and improved roads doomed the passenger service, and the last passenger train traveled from Walton to Weehawken New Jersey in 1948. Freight service continued but dwindled. The line, which is referred to as the “O&W” dwindled with service and was referred to as the “Old and Weary” and other similar things.
Coal traffic also began to drop because less homes were relying on it for heat.
It made history when it was the first railroad to be completely abandoned in one day, March 29th, 1957.

Evergreen grove

We hiked the right of way a bit to the west, and I signed in on a trail register in a little mail box. We crossed an access road to a state police place, and when I looked at my phone GPS, I realized we were going the wrong way.

Beers Brook Road

The map made it look like we should be on the railroad bed for a time, but it was supposed to be in the other direction. We had to backtrack a bit, having wasted a bit of time.
We got back across Beers Brook Road where the trail continued into the woods on the rail bed. There was a large plantation of I think it was Norway Spruce along the route.
The trail turned to the right from the rail bed soon, and then passed through more of the evergreen plantations.

Beers Brook Road section

There was a bag to the right which everyone called me back for when I was ahead, because they were afraid there was a dead body in it. There were some kids toys in the woods, so I too started getting freaked out that there might be something awful.
I went back and saw the plastic bag shallow buried under one of the evergreens. When I kicked it, it had weight in it that felt like it was attached to something. I thought “great, this is someone’s head”. I didn’t want to open it, but when we checked it was thankfully just a bunch of dirt that was holding weight funny.

View of South Mountain

We continued through the woods, and soon it took us out to Beers Brook Road again where the trail turned to the left heading gradually up hill.

Odd mailbox holder...

There was a long road walk on this bit; longer than I was expecting it to be, but it had its points of entertainment.

Deer blind pool

We had a really nice view of South Mountain to the west of us as we walked, around the point where the road passed over Beers Brook. We saw abutments to an old bridge to the right out toward a house. The mail box for the house was a very odd sort of antique hoist holding the mail box from a section of pipe from above.
We walked just a little further than this to pass a modular home that had a camouflage swimming pool. I immediately started into a some redneck talk about how “I like to shoot deer from my pool”.
It’s definitely a bit more redneck than the popular parts of the Catskills.

Heading up Houck Mountain

Everyone tends to think of towns like Hunter Mountain with all of the ski resort stuff, or Phoenicia which is a bit more gentrified, but this western Catskill area isn’t even in the forest preserve I don’t think. The last sections we did are still in that area, but this area is a bit separate from all of that.
The eastern end of the Castkills is well known, and referred to sometimes as the “Great Wall of Mongaup”, coming out of Ulster County and parts of Orange, but the western boundary of what the Catskills are considered has always been somewhat vague. The Catskill Forest Preserve further makes it confusing.

South Mountain in view

The Catskills are just really an eroded plateau more than regular heaved up mountains. Geologically, they are the eastern end of the Allegheny Plateau and the same as the Pocono Mountains in northeaster PA, but with a steeper relief from erosion.

Seasonal view to South Mountain

I’ve chosen to try to place boundaries on things thorughout doing these hikes, such as the Poconos and such. I’ve done a lot of this with the Pocono Rim series, and then with the stuff along the D&H Canal and Rail corridor. We also did a lot on the Endless Mountains.
In the same way I’ve looked at those, I don’t consider the Catskill Forest Preserve to be the western end of the Catskill Mountains. I think a good line to draw in terms of these mountains is the Susquehanna River. Both branches of the Delaware are within the western Catskills, and it makes sense.

View on Houck Mountain

Looking at the USGS and other topographic maps, one can see that the Catskills start to taper off into the rest of the Allegheny Plateau to the west.

On Houck Mountain Road

Even so, they still remain pretty large to the east of the Susquehanna and through the valleys of the East and West Branches of the Delaware. I don’t think there’s any question as to the East Branch being part of the Catskills, but the West Branch is still very similar.
Thus, I would draw the boundary line as being on the east side of the Susquehanna.
This means we will have plenty of Catskill sections coming up on the Finger Lakes Trail. From where we started, it sure looked like the areas to the west of us were as hilly as what was to the east.

View to South Mountain from Houck Mountain

We continued on Beers Brook Road for a bit, and then turned very sharp to the right to start climbing up hill on Houck Mountain Road. This was a long climb.
I was thinking that this was going to be a dirt road, but unfortunately it was paved.

View on Houck Mountain Road section

The road went steeply up to the first hairpin switch back, and already by that time I think we were all sweating pretty well. It was far warmer than we were anticipating.

Tower Road section

I had worn my red blazer thinking I would at least need some kind of jacket, but the forecast was calling for near fifty degrees, which was sort of unheard of for any Catskill weather.
Serious Sean had originally planned to do some peak bagging in the Adirondacks, but it was supposed to be deathly cold, so he decided to bag that and come with us on the FLT.
He had this giant jacket on, which would have probably made him sweat to death going up Houck Mountain Road.

Tower Road section

I think we all took our jackets off at some point, and Brittany unzipped the legs from her pants into shorts.
The Houck Mountain ascent, even though it was on the road, just seemed to go on forever.
It became a bit more gradual, and we had some nice views through the trees to the left, toward South Mountain and it’s prominent hump, but it was still a long climb.
I spotted what seemed to be an abandoned trailer off to the right. There was junk down the slope from the road that had been dumped off probably years ago, but no one would ever go get it.

Tower Road section

We eventually crested Houck Mountain on the road. It was such a relief to be at the top, but stopping for just a minute made us all a bit colder already.
I started looking to the left side of the road for where the Finger Lakes Trail goes off to the left. There was one long lane and private house, the first we had seen since near the bottom, and I thought maybe it went out there, but I saw no marking at all.
We started going down hill on the other side, which was getting me worried.

Pleasant Tower Road section

No one wanted to go down hill and then have to go back up again. Fortunately, Tower Road, the next section, was just ahead on the left, and it was a nice unpaved route.

Snow on Tower Road section

We headed up hill slightly on the road, with the white blazes showing the way most of the time. When the route is more obvious, there are far less blazes, which gets me concerned in case we miss one somewhere.
I had digitized the maps and the mile guides to my phone, and sent them to Serious Sean just in case, but they were still not that descriptive. This wasn’t like the Appalachian Trail guide book.
When the road started to level off, I popped a drink and we continued going along a much more relaxing section. The trail followed the road past some meadow openings.

We went down hill slightly and around a bend where we passed by a house, which was pretty odd for being in the middle of nowhere.
We headed out of the woods and into a very wide open area where there was one more home on the left.
Serious Sean had his lovely wooden guitar with him, and when he had his jacket secured in such a way that it wasn’t a burden to carry, he started strumming some tunes. There’s always some chords I recognize, but then I’m often surprised at what he pulls out that I wasn’t expecting to hear.

The map showing some of the trail system

He started strumming what turned out to be “You Make Loving Fun” by Fleetwood Mac, so Brittany and I started singing along with him.

FLT

That one led into yet another Fleetwood Mac song, “Don’t Stop”, which was yet another one I would never have expected to be singing on a trail in the middle of nowhere.
I think we got into a few others after that as well, but I can’t even remember what they were at this moment.
The trail left the wide open meadow area and started going up hill again, which seemed harder this time than before even though it was a lot less climbing up. The Tower Road section was a lot rougher from the last house than the other stuff we had been on.

One of the views along the trail

When we got near the top of the hill, there was snow on the ground all around. It wasn’t a complete cover, and it wasn’t where we were walking, but it was the first I’d seen.

Photo from Polly

Near the top, the Tower Road continued to the right toward some DOT tower or something, and the Finger Lakes Trail continued left on an older woods road, which soon became part of the Bear Spring Mountain trail system, which is a multi use equestrian trail area. They have several loops of trail in the area for that use.
We started seeing blue horse trail blazes as we entered Bear Spring Mountain Wildlife Management Area, which was the only other public land tract the trail passed through for the rest of the hike.
The trail went back and forth with several other trails breaking off in different directions. The white blazes continued and were our only thing to tell us for sure where we needed to be.

Finger Lakes Trail

The trails were at first really muddy with a lot of dips and stuff from trucks or ATVs, and then things widened out quite a lot. The paths were apparently mowed.

Finger Lakes Trail heading down Fork Mountain

There was lots more music and singing in these sections. Serious Sean ended up playing some Beastie Boys stuff, and then went on to “Closing Time” and others.

Descending Fork Mountain

We all sang along to Deep Blue Something’s “Breakfast at Tiffanys” from the nineties, and at some point Sean pulled out some obscured Paul McCartney numbers that included the medly from early 1973’s Red Rose Speedway, including “Hold Me Tight”, “Lazy Dynamite”, “Hands of Love”, and “Power Cut”. We started talking music more, and then he came out with “Magneto and Titanium Man” from the 1975 Venus and Mars album.

FLT, Fork Mountain

The trail soon came out to West Trout Brook Road. The elevation we were following was overall pretty easy. Once we got of of the north cusp of Houck Mountain, we just kept mostly on the same elevation to the road, and then the trail followed I think it was Horse Trail #5 east to reach the northern end of Fork Mountain (we actually never were on Bear Spring Mountain, which is apparently to the north a little bit).
The trail climbed a little bit more on the other side of the road to what was probably the highest elevation we would reach for the day, at around 2,681 above sea level. I think we started at around 1,400, and there were bits of ups and downs.
Once we reached the highest elevation of the day, we were having a great time. Overall, the trail was very relaxing but offered just enough of a challenge at times.
It was much wider in this section than previous sections, in a very wide mowed route. Near the highest point, thee was an area to the right that had been cut in the past few years, where there was a bit of a view to the east.

FLT

We took a little break up in this area an I ate the Italian sandwich I had ordered earlier.
There was a side trail to the left that went down the mountain, and I was trying to use these with the guide to pinpoint about where we were.
It seemed like, as per the written guide, there was only a bit of distance ahead we had to go, less than a mile, to where we were supposed to turn left and descend from Fork Mountain. We walked that distance, and sure enough there was a trail to the left, but there were no turn blazes or white FLT discs.

FLT

The guide seemed like it was written that this HAD to be the way. We turned left and started going down hill rather steeply, but I didn’t feel like something was right. I kept looking at the maps and called everyone not to go any further. It didn’t make any sense matching with either my GPS or my official FLT map.
I decided we should come back up and continue on the same trail we had been on.
It was a good thing we did this, because after a little bit there was a white Finger Lakes Trail blaze, and then a white plastic disc showing us it was the correct way.

FLT coming out to East Trout Brook Rd

The trail remained on Fork Mountain as it started losing elevation in a long stretch to the south. It basically follows the entire length of it down hill.

Scene at East Trout Brook Rd

I was upset when I went to get my last drink that it had come capped but with no contents. I’d never had that happen with a bottle before.

FLT at East Trout Brook Road

The wide path got to be really slippery, and it was so wide that we had to do our walking switchbacks on our own because none were delineated. The path must have been mowed about two car widths down the entire slope ahead, which provided a bit of a view at it’s steepest.
As we approached the wetlands of the east and west forks of the Trout Brook, the trail turned hard to the left and then passed through some wider open mowed meadows under the shade of evergreens. It then entered the woods on a much narrower route than we’d been on to the east.

FLT parallel with E. Trout Brook Road

We came out of the evergreens onto a nicely mowed path that descended slightly more to a nice parking area off of East Trout Brook Road. We stopped here for a little break and let everyone do their restroom breaks or whatever.
We sat down, and sang “I Can Hear Music” by the Beach Boys, as well as some other stuff that I just can’t remember at the moment.
Polly was checking out the facilities just below the parking lot, which is set up so that people can camp with horses.

FLT at East Trout Brook Road

We were doing really pretty good on time. We had started later than anticipated because we were all running behind getting there on time, but really made up for it by moving along.
We had one more major climb to do before descending to Downsville, and at this point I was no longer worried about time because the last bit of it is road walking anyway.
When we were all ready to go again, we continued on the trail blazed from the parking lot to the north. I knew the guide wasn’t right at this point, because it differed from what it read.

Pond along the trail

The guide said to go across East Trout Brook Road and basically to rock hop East Trout Brook then ascend on the other side on a blue blazed trail.

FLT crossing of E. Trout Brook

Usually, at least in my experience, where the Finger Lakes Trail joined with other trails, it was only marked with the FLT blazes at the trail intersections. So far, it was mostly marked with FLT blazes and white paint blazes, which was good. This section only showed one bit that would be also blue, and it was to the east.
The trail no longer went across the road direct an across on a rock hop. The guide said that if the water was too high to walk upstream and cross on another bridge. That is what the trail actually does now, but they cut a new route over to it.

East Trout Brook and a pond with dam

We climbed back up hill slightly, and then were in the woods with a lot of evergreens. East Trout Brook Road was to the right of us below.

The trail in fields

Soon, the trail headed down hill and crossed over the road at a point where there was a lovely little pond view. I got my group shot there, fortunately, because there were no other really spectacular views along the way for one.
The trail crossed on a foot bridge to the other side of East Trout Brook, and there was an old stone dam just up stream that had been re-dammed by beavers to create the pond. I’m not sure if it was just a farm dam or some kind of old industry.

Finger Lakes Trail

The trail weaved to the left on the other side through open grassy fields. There was really hardly any kind of tread way delineated. We just had some posts occasionally.

Trail intersection

We headed up hill and into the woods, with a small tributary parallel with us to the right.
We were not on a blue trail like the map and guide said we would be. This was a red trail reading “foot path” on it, and a sign we passed read “Box of Rocks Trail to Trail #2”.
We headed up the hill steeply on this red blazed trail, and it joined with a couple of other ones. Eventually, we did join with a blue blazed trail further up as we got closer to the top of a knoll. This was the ascent of Trout Brook Mountain, for which we could see the peak above us to the right.

FLT on Trout Brook Mountain

The trail tapered off a bit as we reached a sort of shelf, and we started following a woods road section with a more gradual up hill.
I thought it would be easier from here, and that the trail wouldn’t climb up to the top of that peak. It didn't’ seem necessary for the direction we were going.
The woods road bit came to an end and we turned right on a foot path through a really soggy area to pick up another old woods road, this time a bit more vague. It again seemed like things were going to flatten out and get easier for a time.

Trout Brook Mountain

Just then, the trail turned hard to the left, and then started to ascend toward the peak of Trout Brook Mountain. Serious Sean and I took up the lead to the top pretty quickly.
The trail seemed to follow an old woods or logging road up hill just a bit, but that seemed to end near the first switchback of this final climb, and we were on a foot trail that took us the rest of the way to the top.
We waited for everyone to catch up when I was sure we were were at the top of the ascent. The elevation there was about 2,222. We had come up from around 1,350.

FLT on Trout Brook Mountain

We took another little break at the top, and when everyone had caught up, continued along around the same elevation.
The trail started heading slightly down hill on a more uneven route than we had been using since we started on this hike.
At a point near the north end of Barney Hollow, the blue blazes ended and the Finger Lakes Trail moved to the east into private land.
There was a good sign describing the private land stipulations. The trail continued on a narrow foot path through the woods that felt more like past Catskill hikes.

Foot path section

The foot path didn’t last all that long on the private land. It soon came out to a rough woods road that apparently is used for a hunting camp on the private land. It was nothing anyone was getting a truck through, just maybe an ATV or something.
We went over a little bit of a knoll to maybe around 2,300 feet in elevation, and then started gradually going down.
The road had another road come in from the left, and it got wider. The entire area near the top here was very wet and full of puddles. After we started going down, it stayed pretty dry.

FLT

We had some seasonal views as we started heading down hill. The woods road kept getting a bit steeper as we reached the mid way point down. Dead leaves made it easy to slip and fall.
We crossed over a wide utility line clearing as we started heading down.
The woods road continued to get better to the point that a truck could easily get up or down it. We had a creek forming to the right of us out of all of that water up on the mountain.
The trail descended through what is known as Gregory Hollow. The more prominent road continued to the right after a wide open area, and we kept to the left on another little used old woods road.

Top of Trout Brook Mountain

The road took us down hill rather steeply, around a switchback, and then emerged on what was probably another part of that same wide road we had just been on.

Meeee

Annika had fallen back a bit, and we took a break here to make sure she was okay coming back out.
We turned to the left on the wider road again, which descended down to Rt 30 along the East Branch of the Delaware.
We continued walking along 30 to the west, which had some splendid views out through the valley down stream.
Polly commented how much easier it was to keep momentum after so much time in the woods, but also how much the pavement hurts the legs. It’s never more apparent how bad pavement is until you’ve spent so much time off of it.
The road moved away from the river a bit, and we started passing by a large farm with cleared fields all the way to the top of this finger of Trout Brook Mountain. There were all different sizes, and some of them had such wide horns it’s a wonder how they got through anywhere.

Moo Moos

To the right was a fireman’s field park. Brittany said something about being able to cut through there, but I didn’t see a way of doing it. I should have gone for it, because when we got to town, we found out there was a good trail along the berm of Downs Brook.

East Branch of the Delaware

We continued past the school building on the right, and then turned to the right on the main street into town. It was just starting to get dark as we made our way in. Perfect timing.

Downsville Diner

It was unanimous that we wanted to stop for dinner, and the Downsville Diner was a nice experience before, so we went for it again.
The waitress this time we found out was the daughter of the owners. She had a southern accent because she lived down in Alabama for thirty years, and only recently moved back.

Covered bridge and the Beaver moon

I had a very delicious burger and seasoned fries, and then I ended up eating Sean’s as well because he didn’t want them.
Polly had a pot roast thing, and I think we all had cream of broccoli soup. It was a great meal.
We then headed out toward the covered bridge park where the other cars were.
The full moon was coming up beautifully over the East Branch of the Delaware. Annika told us this was called the Beaver Moon, being the first full moon of November. Even though we got to the lot, Serious Sean said “Hey let’s walk through the bridge!”.

Downsville Covered Bridge and the Beaver Moon

I was totally up for that. At 174 feet, it’s the longest covered bridge in the state of New York, and it would be a really cool way to finish off this great hike.
The bridge was built in 1854 by Scottish immigrant Robert Murray, and is a rare area example of Long and Queen Post truss design for the area.

FLT view

I absolutely loved this and all of the hikes so far in this series. I think as we continue westbound on it, the terrain gets easier. The next section includes an abandoned fire tower, and 7.8 miles of it are now part of the Rock Rift Rail Trail, which is the old O&W line. That promises to be an outstanding one of course. Maybe a good one for Spring.

HAM