Blackhead

Today's hike: 5.4 mi | 3.4 h | 1.6 mph

Seems like the stats for today's hike of Blackhead were almost identical to last week's stats for Slide Mountain. That's curious, because today's trail had a section that was much steeper than anything we'd encountered on Slide. The steep part was fun. You have to clamber up some rocks and tree roots. The not-fun part was that quite a lot of the trail was wet, even on the steep section.

I was hiking with Maggie's boy again, today. This was our second 3500-footer in the Catskills. We started at the Big Hollow Parking Area, and went clockwise over Blackhead. Originally, we thought we might go over Black Dome as well. But we ran out of gas, and descended after covering only the one peak.

Aside from the one steep section, there were a few interesting things about the trail that we took. First, the lower portion of the trail is criss-crossed by several well-made wooden footbridges. Presumably that's required because there's a large stream that flows near the trail in this area. The footbridges are high up above the stream. The fact that the stream was quite lively and wide at this time of year, after an extended drought, made me wonder how high the stream would get during a wet year.

mini waterfall along the wide stream

On the way up and down, over a short band of the trail, we encountered a lot of small moths fluttering about madly. It was a surprise for this time of year. The temperatures were in the high 40Fs or low 50Fs, but it's certainly been freezing overnight.

small light brown moths fluttered around. can you spot this one?

A little higher up, there's a lean-to close to the path. Not sure I'd be tempted to camp there. It seems too close to the trailhead.

lean-to sign

We had seen some small, bright red berries on the trail at Slide, and the same was true here. We sometimes saw these on tall trees near the trail, too. I haven't figured out exactly what they are yet. Are they possibly winterberries? Note: we also heard birds now and again. I think they were nuthatches, and maybe some titmice and chickadees as well. I wonder if they like these berries. Maggie's boy saw some birds hanging out in a small pool of water on a rock at an overlook! I missed them, since I was lagging behind him.

bright red berries on the trail in the Catskills

Near the top, it was cold enough that we saw some icicles hanging off a moss-covered rock face.

icicles! The trail is so cool here!

There's nothing to mark the top of Blackhead, too bad! Just a trail sign. The peak is covered in evergreen trees.

trail sign pointing to Black Dome at top of Blackhead

Shortly after crossing this area, you get to an exposed section of the trail with rock slab, a bit of "graffiti", some lovely, newly constructed slab stairs, and great views.

We didn't linger for the views. As we'd hiked up Blackhead, the trail was sheltered from the wind with lots of evergreen trees, or maybe there was no wind on that side of the mountain. Once we started our descent, the woods became mostly deciduous, and were bare of leaves. The section of trail with rock slabs was fairly open and exposed, so you could see Black Dome to one side, which was nice. But it was very windy and raw here, and overcast to boot.

view of Black Dome with stone "graffiti" in foreground

Overall, the trail quality was mostly similar to the trail we took up Slide. We rarely come across a tidy dirt trail. It was either loose chunks of rock and/or pebbles and/or running water covering the trail. It makes me wonder how these trails were made!

We were pretty tired by the time we got back to the car. This is a cool trail loop, and I hope to get back to it sooner or later! I'd like to check it out in the warmer months.

Slide Mountain

Today's hike: 5.6 mi | 3.4 h | 1.6 mph

I'm no longer in NH, but I hope to get back to the White Mountains and complete the 4000-footers over time. Who knows!? The Catskills are now the closest challenge, so I've put the 3500-footers in my sights. My first was Slide Mountain.

The weather was not welcoming: upper 30s, with a slight wind, and completely overcast. We decided to take the shortest possible route as described by the DEC. This meant starting at the "Oliverea Road South (Slide Mountain Trailhead) Parking Area".

We began by hiking up the Phoenicia East Branch Trail. We knew that we'd need to turn left onto the Burroughs Range Trail in about 0.7 miles. Soon, we came to a "T" in the trail. We turned left and hiked on for about 2/10 of a mile before realizing that we'd made a mistake. We turned too early, and were on the wrong trail. We turned around and headed back. This trail needs more clear blazing and a sign to make the way clear! Here's a picture of the current unclear sign where we went wrong.

bad sign (not clearly visible when hiking up)

For the rest, it was a pretty straightforward hike: up 1,780 ft and back down again. But there are a few fun points of interest. First, here's something that might be described as a "slide"? This starts after you've done most of the uphill slog, so the grade is quite mild here. (I still don't understand why this is called Slide Mountain).

slide on Slide Mountain?

The footing on this trail is poor because it's often covered with pebbles and loose rock. Here's a look at one section of the trail where you can see where those pebbles are coming from.

some kind of conglomerate rock on the trail near the top

Here's the marked top of Slide Mountain. My first Catskills 3500-footer!

peak of Slide Mountain

There are some artifacts at the top. A slab of concrete?

concrete (maybe) at the peak

As we hiked back down, we noticed little flakes of frost on the ground. It was that cold! Some of the pine trees were covered in a fine layer of ice.

ice on pine trees near top of Slide Mountain

All in all, it was a fun hike, despite the gray day. Pretty easy compared to the NH 4000-footer hikes that I've done. I think Slide Mountain is one of the easier 3500-footers in the Catskills. Some of these mountains involve a bushwhack to the top. That will get interesting, for sure!