Today was supposed to be a two mountain day, Vly and Bearpen. I got an early start in hopes of beating the rain. Just my luck, the Catskills were having a drier than normal summer until I got here and now they've had more rain in a week than they normally get all year. The trail head that I chose as usually starts at the end of a dead end road. A mile walk up a pretty well maintained hard-scrabble road, with private property on each side, led me to a hunting cabin where I borrowed their covered porch for a few minutes to put on my rain gear. Unfortunately, unlike the warm weather rain that the young guys and I hiked in last week, this was cold rain. Vly is technically a bushwhack, but I was able to pick up a herd path towards the summit once I reached the col. I followed it along a flat ridge and then up a long climb to the top, checking the GPS every so often to make sure I was on the right path. It was a tight trail closed in by vegetation. That means you just get wet walking through it. There was a thermometer on a post at the cabin that said it was 48 degrees. It kept getting colder as I got higher in elevation. The path eventually led me right up to the canister where I signed in and took the above picture. It was a slippery, wet decent back to the col where a decision had to be made. Even with rain gear, I was soaked and cold. My hands were numb and even though I did have gloves, they were wet and not doing any good. After checking the maps and looking at the sky once more, I decided it was better to hit only one mountain and live to fight another day. I will likely come back tomorrow (weather permitting) and finish Bearpen. I'll probably drive my truck all the way up to the hunting cabin on the wood road (I don't think that they will tow it from there) and save that first one mile walk.
On a side note; it keeps amazing me after living in and around Raleigh for so many years how technology has failed to find its way to the Catskills and upstate NY. I stopped in the town of Fleischmanns today to get gas. It is a small mountain community with several old Jewish hotels. The Citgo station (a gas card that I happen to have) had to "call in" my purchase and I had to sign for it on one of the old 1970's ditto sheets. I heard this from a comedian once, but I felt that when I was leaving that I had to "get my truck up to 88 mph just to get back to 1985."
Unfortunately only one mountain instead of two, but there are still nine days left and only 11 mountains to go...
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