OK, I'll stop spamming this website after this... in the middle of September 2011 I really wanted to do this route. I decided it would be much more fun if instead of doing the regular loop that involves Giant Ledge and route 47, I'd just camp at the base of Slide near 47 near a water source, and just hike back to Woodland Valley. See things twice, and get a different perspective on the trail. My first day I did all three, started at Woodland Valley, add descended on the Curtis Ormsbee trail. I then had to decide. East Branch Neversink or the random water sources? I decided against the neversink... save that adventure for another adventure. So I camped in the woods near the Curtis Ormsbee bridge, going upstream for water. Day 2, I hiked back over Slide, and camped in that glorious red spruce grove below Cornell. Day 3, bright and early up Cornell. Hung out at the view right above "the crack" for hours... I really love that spot. Cornell is my favorite mountain the Catskills. Towering right over Wittenberg Valley and Cold Brook Road. Every day on the trip down to Bennett... and then Onteora, I'd just look right up at them, knowing that another monster, Slide, loomed behind them. So on my last day there, when I ascended Cornell with the sun saturating my vision (I like that effect, but it's probably going to make me go blind someday), it was like some sort of grand shamanic ascension through the Axis Mundi of my personal Catskill Cosmology.
ANYWAY, here you go. Now that I know how to post photo URLs I'll post both a slideshow link and a ton of random pictures that I think highlight the journey.
A last note: because of Irene, I noticed that the moss, lichen, and fungus growth EXPLODED in the end of summer. The summits around then also smelled like pure death. Big mushrooms everywhere. not sure if it was death or fungus rot.
Slideshow:
http://cmd.shutterfly.com/commands/pict ... &album=736
Why couldn't I hold the camera level?!?!??!
... or level for this one?!!
Too many?
