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Hiking Indian Head in the Catskills
A few weeks ago it was super cold out. My hiking friend Skyler and I decided to go hiking (go figure!) It was before the huge snow storm so we were excited to not have to use snowshoes. However, there were a few inches of snow on the ground up in the mountains, so we just wore our microspikes. The trailhead to Indian Head and Twin Mountains is about 1.5 hours south of Albany. We were planning on hiking both since it was around a 7 mile hike total. With the windchill it was -13 degrees. With the appropriate clothing and gear, we were warm! We got to the junction…
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Hunter Mountain Fire Tower
School is over for the semester and I found myself with Monday off. It was going to be a pretty nice day so I asked Jona if she wanted to get in a short hike since she had the day off also. We decided to hike Hunter Mountain, a peak in the Catskills that is part of the 35 over 3,500′ (5/35) and is also on the Fire Tower Challenge (10/28) list. It is the second highest Catskill Peak at 4,040 feet. There are many trails to get to the summit of Hunter. We opted for the easier fire-road. The trail head is at a parking lot near the end of a long dead-end…
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Blackhead Mountian
Yesterday I took a day off from work to hike with my friend Brendan. He had the whole week off for vacation and Monday’s weather was looking fantastic, so I suggested we go down to the Catskills. I found three mountains we could hike, but ultimately decided just do one to make it a short day: Blackhead Mountain, the fifth highest Catskill peak, part of the 35 over 3,500 ft. We parked at the Big Hollow parking lot in Maplecrest and started our hike at 11:00AM. Late for me! The first mile or so of trail was relatively easy and flat, a nice little walk in the woods with a…
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Windham High Peak and Burnt Knob Loop
Yesterday was perfection. If every day could be like yesterday, I’d be a very happy person indeed. Chris and I drove South for a hike in the Catskills. One of the reasons we’ve been hiking down here lately is because there is still snow in the High Peaks and they close some of the trails up there. So, it’s warmer south, and there is no snow in sight. Yesterday was perfect for a hike in the Catskills. I pretty much choose my hikes based on ease and whether or not its on the list of “hikes with the best views”. So I picked Windham High Peak and the Burnt Knob…
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Hiking Slide Mountain – Catskills
Today Chris and I went for a hike! After two winter hikes in the Adirondacks, I wanted to change it up a bit. We took our snowshoes down to the Catskills to hike Slide Mountain, the highest Catskill peak at 4,180 feet of elevation. There are two ways to get to the summit of Slide. We took the longer route, the loop–we started from the parking lot and hiked to the where the trail splits and took the Curtis-Ormsbee trail which is the longer way up. It was marked with yellow trail markers. After about two miles, the trail split again, the red markers began and we hiked to…