35 Peaks in 30 Days: Double Top Mountain

35 Peaks in 30 Days

With retirement quickly approaching, I needed to find something to challenge myself both physically and mentally. Since my first idea of a thru-hike on the Appalachian Trail was out of the question, (sleeping on the ground every night for six months is not a just a challenge, it's slightly suicidal) I decided to attempt to hike all 35 peaks in the New York Catskill Mountains that are over 3500 feet in elevation in 30 days.

The Catskill Mountain 3500 Club awards certificates and patches to those who make all these required climbs.

Almost immediately after retiring, I traveled to New York and did manage to make it to the top of 32 of those mountains in the first 30 days including signing in at 11 cannisters on trail-less summits.

I later continued the quest by coming back after only a month away and finished out the last three "in season" hikes. The unique part of this quest is that in a departure from the requirements of several other such "peak bagger" mountain clubs, you have to return once again and re-climb four select mountains during the winter season.

Three of those winter climbs have been done. Only one remains. It will be completed in December 2011, hopefully with my close family standing on the top of the last mountain with me.

If you happen on this blog and find any of it of interest to you, please understand that each post shows up as most recent first but, the story actually began back in September-2010. Please scroll back and feel free to look at all of it...

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Double Top Mountain - 3860 ft.

I planned this climb out several weeks ago to coincide with a group hike. It seemed at the time to be a good idea to take advantage of any group hikes to trail-less summits. Since that time, I've gotten more experienced, stronger, very cocky and extremely independent. I like to climb at my own pace, which is a little faster than what most groups do. Since I am on a mission, only summits matter. I'm not necessarily looking for views, (although I will take a short stop for a photo op) nature experiences or pretty places to sit down and eat lunch and I don't screw around much once I reach the top. When on a group hike, you meet great people, learn a lot about other mountains, but move at their pace. Our guide did a good job of getting us to the summit, but then a need to find a good view point that didn't exist had us wandering around the double summit for better than 30 minutes.

As I might have mentioned in the past, I don't take well to direction and I had invested enough money for this trip in equipment that my technology is more reliable than any compass. My GPS may not be "old school" but it is fool proof as long as you have enough batteries. A compass gives you a "bearing" but I can do that along with knowing our altitude, contour lines down a softer ridge and whether we are following the same path as the one we came up. We ended up well off track coming down a much steeper descent than we had coming up because some

one couldn't admit that their compass isn't smarter than my GPS. We came down one of the steepest points of the mountain into a col between Double Top and Graham Mountains more than a 3/4's of a mile from the point that we started up. (and on private property which, of course, hasn't been a huge concern for me so far)

All in all, a long trip for only one mountain. No "Betsy's" on this trip, Strong hikers, several of which I had been with three weeks ago when I did my first group hike and most of them at that point had more mountains than me. Now, I am way ahead of them. Number 29 today. A two mountain day planned for tomorrow. Three days to go. I will clean up the cabin and take off on Tuesday, done or not. Weather played a strong factor.

35 Peaks in 30 Days