KHP (West Access) - May 4th 2013

[mike]

On Saturday, May 4, 2013, a bunch of us got together and hiked the KHP from the west side. A number of other people had planned on the hike, but backed out due to a variety of reasons. So, in the end, it was Rich, Kevin, Alexis and me. We had two rules: (1) Have fun; (2) And, take our time and enjoy this beautiful day. It was a great group of people. It was a beautiful Blue-Bird day with low humidity and temperatures in the 60's.

It was around 10am by the time we all arrived and got our gear ready to go. Our starting point was at the end of Gillespie Road on DEP land. We headed up the trail. At the top of the hill we headed off into the woods to arrive at the intersection of the Snowmobile Trail. This small bushwhack cut off about a 1-1/4 miles off the trail. We came out about 100' below the intersection. We then hiked up the northern side of the Snowmobile Trail. This part of the trail was dry, but it usually is. Actually, it is the only dry part of the trail. When we reached the top of the hill we headed up the Western ridge to Round Top and KHP Mtns. The old trail was full of blow down and leaves. At times, it was difficult to follow, but not terrible. We passed through the two conifer forest. Both were beautiful. We then approached Round Top Mtn. We had to scrabble up to the 3250' ledge on the north side of Round Top Mtn. We then walked across the ledge. From time-to-time you could see down to North-South Lake. The warblers were chirping away. If you stop on the 3250' ledge you can see many of them flying around. There away seems to be a high concentration of them on the 3250 ledge.

From there we climbed down into the col between Round Top and KHP Mtn. We then worked our way up the northern side of the col until we reached the Tory Fort. From there we worked our way over to the Hanging Ledge. We stopped and had lunch there. There was still a big chunk of ice there. And, we suspect that it will be there for a couple more weeks. Who knows, maybe it will still be there on June 1st. We took a few pictures before we headed up the trail.

We then worked our way up the more obvious trail to KHP. Even with it being more obvious, we still walked off the trail a couple times. It was a little bit steeper, but still fairly easy incline. There were some small views on the way up. Near the top, we took a wrong turn, and had to bushwhack through the dense conifers. We did run into another hiker who was hiking up behind us. When we reached the summit, we took some pictures and headed down to the northeast ledge.

When we got to the NE ledge we took some pictures. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my polarizing filter, so the pics didn't turn out as good as they could have. We then carried the plane crash crankshaft back to it's rightful resting place. Hopefully, no one else will move it. It was a stunning beautiful day with great views. We then walked over to the upper plane crash on KHP. Took some pics, and hiked back up to the summit.

We then hiked down to Hurricane Ledge. The views were great, but the sun was shining up towards us. But, it was in the afternoon, so that was to be expected. We stopped and enjoyed the view. We then hiked backup to the summit. We then contemplated if we should hike down to the col, and then bushwhack down to the Snowmobile Trail, or hike down the North Access. We then decided to hike down the North Access. There were still patches of snow here-and-there.

Once back on the Snowmobile Trail, we headed west to reconnect with the junction. Even though it was very dry, the Snowmobile trail still had deep water and mud in sections. Once back at the Snowmobile Junction we bushwhacked to the car. When we got near the car, we heard a Barred Owl. We called back to it trying to get it to fly to us. We spent a good 5-10 minutes calling back-and-forth. Entertaining, but we didn't get to see the owl.

Rich decided to drive home, but the rest of us went to the Last Chance Restaurant. The food was good. Tired, we all headed home. Overall, it was a great weather day, for a spectacular hike. Here are a few of the pics (Note: I had some pics of the group, but I have not processed them yet):


Hanging Ledge - Alexis standing under the ledge.


Rich standing on top of the Hanging Ledge


View of Platte Clove from the NE Ledge on KHP


View of the Hudson River from the NE Ledge on KHP


View looking north towards Palenville from the NE Ledge on KHP


View of Platte Clove from the NE Ledge on KHP


Plane Crash near the summit of KHP


Plane Crash near the summit of KHP


Hurricane Ledge


Hurricane Ledge


Hurricane Ledge


Hurricane Ledge


Hurricane Ledge


Hurricane Ledge


Hurricane Ledge

[rkugel]

Mike,

Great trip report! And thanks for posting all those photos so we could "re-live" the day. HDR did wonders with the shots of the hanging ledge. Did you get the name of the other hiker we ran into? I'm hoping he will either reply or post a trip report of his own so we can "trade notes". All in all, a great day.

Rich

[kennykb]

Rich: The other guy on the west access called himself 'Casey.' I didn't catch the names of the curly-haired guy who was going up the north side as we were going down, or the couple who were on Hurricane Ledge. I think that Casey was trying to follow Mike's directions from this site.

Mike: Great pictures! I have a few nasty phonecam shots to add to the trip report once I'm done with postprocessing. I'm not going to be able to work on that until tonight at the earliest, and maybe not then since I've got a situation at work to deal with.

Thanks again, all, for a great hike! I'll add more impressions later.

[rkugel]

Kevin,

I forgot about the other guy who was ascending the North Access Trail. Hopefully, Casey will post a trip report. Also, looking forward to seeing your shots.

Rich

[kennykb]

This trip was my first time up Kaaterskill High Peak. I haven't been working on the 35 for long; this was my seventh of the 39 climbs in a little over a year (including two of the winter four, and now three trailless). I've done others back when I was a teenager, I'm sure, but I no longer recall which they were or when I did them, so I can't very well put them on a tally sheet.

The Tory fort, the old stable and the hanging ledge were interesting things to see, and the ledge was a nice lunch spot once I moved out from under the dripping water.

Now that I know the way, I'm going to have to invite my colleague Gregg along on a repeat visit so that he can come in with his metal detector and see what there is to be found. At some point, I'm also going to want to try to locate the remaining two survey markers at the summit; there are a total of four, as you'll find if you go to http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/ds_pid.prl, enter NA2042 in the box, hit 'Submit' and then on the next page, hit 'Select All' and 'Get Datasheets'. The ones we have found are remote reference marks 1 and 2; they have arrows that point to the main reference mark at the summit, which I suspect lies directly under the small cairn that's there (or else under the airplane wingtip).

At the survey markers we did find at the summit, I grabbed my customary shot of my boot and the marker; it's kind of a personal "I was here!" memento for me.

Kaaterskill High Peak reference mark 2 by ke9tv, on Flickr

From the summit, we headed northeast to the northeast overlook and the plane crash. The crash site introduced the usual pause for photography, as Mike set up his tripod to stabilize the camera for HDR work.

Plane crash on Kaaterskill High Peak by ke9tv, on Flickr

I lagged behind the group on the walk down to Hurricane Ledge, since I was messing around with my smart(ass)phone. By the time I caught sight of the breathtaking view, Rich was already parked down on the clear part of the ledge. (Click on the image to enlarge.)

hurricaneledge_800.jpg

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And of course, when I got down there, Mike was already working on his lovely HDR images. (Again, click on the image to enlarge.)

hurricaneledgemike_800.jpg

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(Apologies for the stitching faults. There were parallax artifacts, which is to be expected when trying to shoot a panorama with a handheld phonecam.)

We went out down the north access, partly because we'd spent enough time lallygagging that the shorter (or at least, less-bushwhacking) way out seemed like a good deal. I had a lot of fun doing the scrambles down the north side; they were hard enough to be interesting without being seriously scary, even with the few patches of ice that turned up in the herd path from time to time. I did bruise my knee on a protruding branch; that's going to be sore for a bit, I'm afraid.

The snowmobile trail was an ocean of mud. I told the others that the fun of the rock scrambles made the slog through the mud worthwhile, even after a rock tipped from under me and I fell full-length in the slop. The look the others gave me made me think that if I kept up talking along those lines, I'd be dodging mudballs, so I kept further discussion to myself. (I still say that it was worth it!)

A nice dinner at Last Chance followed the return to the cars. Fortunately, my hiking pants didn't show the mud-stains too badly, so I was still as presentable as a hiker ever gets at the end of a day in the mountains.

Thanks to all three of the others for a great outing!