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Fir 11-17-12

Balsam Mtn (3602), Beaver Kill Range, Big Indian Mtn, Eagle, Hayes, Hirams Knob, Fir, Hemlock, High Falls Ridge, Mongaup, Sand Pond Mtn, Spruce, Willowemoc, Winnisock Lake Mt,
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Jon
Posts: 324
Joined: Tue Dec 20, 2011 9:43 pm
Location: Bangor, PA

Fir 11-17-12

Unread post by Jon »

So uhhh I guess I'm kind of late for this trail report. I'm not dead, but I've been kinda bogged down with paleontology reports and ecology & ethics reports and all other school work that is turning my mind to jelly. I haven't updated my picasa, or my website, or even visited catskillmountaineer in a month. I don't know where the time flies, but I only have 1 week left of semester and them I'm gonna start hitting those trails again (of course until mid january when my next semester starts >.<)

So here goes. As I remember it we met sometime around 5 pm....no wait. Maybe like 10 am. Sounds about right. I remember that I was surprised coming up route 47 that it was washed out again in the big bends, and I didn't know how far up it was out. So I headed over to the parking lot to meet up with Trunks and Jesse who are kick ass hikers (if I don't say so myself). Jesse is already a 3500 member and he comes equipped with 4 GPS units so we had no problem navigating to the top of Fir. The plan was to head up the blue trail from biscuit brook until we got past the lean-to, then we would start the bushwack up the leg of Fir. After summiting there we would head over to Big Indian.

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Trunks & jesse signing in at the DEC box
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We had to climb up a small hill, and then down it before getting into the river valley that we would follow up to the leg of Fir.
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After we crested this molehill, I could see through the tress Double Top (on the left) and a leg of Big Indian (on the right) Which I had recently climbed. Boy they looked big from down here
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Zoomed in on Double-Top
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Crossing one of several little streams. They are nothing now, but in snowmelt or ice conditions these would be formidable obstacles
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The trail skirts along the river, however it is about 30 feet above it, so there is a veeeery skinny trail at one point with a nice drop-off to the left, which could break some bones if you lost your footing
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So after we passed the main river confluence we headed up into the bush. It's basically this scene x1000 for the next hour or so
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Jesse kept promising us that he remembered it was "an open walk with nothing in the way" Well he must have been on some other path, cause we had every sapling in the woods in our way.
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above 3,000 feet there was barely an inch of snow covering. Just enough that we could make out some animal tracks. They weren't identifiable, but I was thinking bobcat, maybe a raccoon.
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Who throws a shoe?....err sandal... The random stuff you happen upon "in the middle of nowhere"
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(On a side note this is only eclipsed by the 1990s cell phone we found while bushwacking on Dunderberg Mountain) **Not catskills - Across from Indian Point**
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So back to Fir mountain, we made the summit by about 1ish. Thumbs up for summit shot!
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Trunks at the summit
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I know you have a pic of me with my Tunafish tortilla, and I'd love to see it =)


At this point I re-evaluated the time and figured that there was no way to make it 1.5 miles (or more) over to Big Indian and then the ~4 miles or so back to the parking area before dark. I told the guys I would head back down by myself if need be, but would not be continuing on. I knew Trunks wouldn't quit, cause If I was in his shoes I probably wouldn't either. Though I didn't feel like hiking out in the dark when I didn't need to, since I had already summitted BIg Indian a few months ago. We said our goodbye's, then Trunks and Jesse headed off. They returned a minute later and decided to head more toward the northwest, and that's the last I saw of them.

I had my GPS unit with me and just followed the breadcrumbs down. I wound up running into a group of 20 people who were bushwacking up. I guess it was a professional guide company or something and had all these "city-folk" with them for this trek up Fir mountain. I definately scared the poop out of them since I was lumbering down at Sasquatch pace, and since I was alone I wasn't talking or making any human noises. They thought I was a bear so they decided to "hoot" at me, at which point I said "whoooo.....whooooo is that?" I strafed over to them and told them that there was snow at higher elevations and they could follow our footprints up past 3,000 feet. He told me his website and said I could get 50% off (what guiding service?) and we parted ways. That was the last human I saw until I got back to my car.

Some Cliffs on the way down.
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Anyways trunks hope you guys had fun, sorry for splitting early but after I had to hike down Witt in the dark I try to avoid it. I'm also glad Jesse didn't have to resort to cannibalism, and that you guys got out OK safely.

Cheers and hopefully we can bag some more peaks wherever or whenever that may be.
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