Giant Ledge and Panther Mountain

[Mitch]

Hello all! Back with another trip report.

I hiked to Giant Ledge and Panther Mountain on 2/8/12. Partly sunny with temps hitting a high of 32. There was almost no snow at lower elevations, just patches of ice. Perfect to test out my new microspikes. They worked really well for the conditions. Once I got to the col between the ledges and Panther, the hike got a little tougher and the snow and ice was building. I decided I felt safer in my crampons, and was happy to finish the summit in them. You still get an excellent view from Panther Mountain if you climb on top of the summit rock.

I only saw one other group of hikers on the way down. Another beautiful day in the Catskills!

I've been playing around with the PhotoShop trial. I hope you guys don't mind my photoshop "skills." =p

EDIT: I've also been trying out a GPS app for my phone. It posts nice little trip reports http://www.trimbleoutdoors.com/ViewTrip/1511004, but there is some sort of mileage bug. It doubled my mileage for some reason.

EDIT: Short little video I did http://youtu.be/CMtSNVQUkiA

Panther Mountain, to the left. From Giant Ledge:


View from Giant Ledge:






Slide Mountain, to the right:


View from Panther Mountain, on top of the summit rock:


Slide Mountain:


Probably the toughest section going up Panther:


Wittenberg and Cornell:




Slide:

[mike]

Nice Trip report Mitch! Love those photos. The views from Giant Ledge are great. I think I could sit up there all day long.

Looks like you found the same ice that everyone else has been finding. Smart idea to strap on your cramp-ons. If you slip, you are in serious trouble. A local hiker broke his ankle last weekend on KHP. SAR was there until 1:30 am in the morning. Everyone needs to be careful.

Like the first photo best. Just love that cobalt blue sky. I have both Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. I use PS Elements most for photos. Great tool. You can salvage some awful pictures with it.

Sounds like you had fun.

[Mitch]

Thanks Mike!

Yeah, I don't take any chances when I see ice. The group I saw hiking up as I was leaving had no traction devices. I told them it was slippery up there. I see that a lot, and I walk away a bit worried.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do when the photoshop trial ends. It's kind of pricey...yet worth it.

[Jon]

omg great pics I love the clouds in your shots.
It takes a long time to process the pics in photoshop. Good job though.

I got the photoshop "elements" which is like a sorta dumbed down version of photoshop, but has all the essentials. I use it to look at Raw files and do minor edits. It's never not had anything I needed, and you can find it for 50-60 bucks

[Mitch]

Thanks Jon! I'll look into elements.

[mike]

Photoshop Elements is the way to go. MUCH cheaper then the regular Photoshop CS. Has most of the bells and whistles of it's bigger brother. 99% of the time I can do everything I want with Elements. Shading, arrows, CMYK conversion are the only thing that would be helpful in Elements. But, I rarely use those features with photos.

With Elements I mainly use Resizing and Enhance tab (Lighting, Contrast, Saturation, and sometimes color correction). I would also try to find Scott Kerby's book on Photoshop Elements. He was one of the authors of PS, and his book is excellent! A bit pricey, but very helpful. I have many of the versions (3 up to 10). I still use Version 3 and 4 a lot. The newer versions have features that I don't use. You can find an older version on eBay for around $10-20. But, paying $75-90 for the latest isn't so bad either. There are some new features in the latest version you might like.

[Jon]

yeah also it comes in a package deal with their video software, Adobe Premeir elements. Which is pretty nice if you want something more than windows movie maker. Personally I prefer Vegas, but got the package deal for the Premeire to see what it was all about.

[bigsilk]

I just got back yesterday from GL and Panther. Weather was frikkin' perfect.

Friday morning was foggy. Looked pretty cool on the way out.