Day 4: Tremper Mountain and Red Hill

Tremper Mountain

Looking out the window at 5:30 in the morning gave me some hope.  It was hazy, but there was blue above the haze.  I checked the weather forecast again, and it had gotten much better.  Partly cloudy until about 2:00PM, then chance of showers.  No threat of thunderstorms until 7:00PM.

The trail to the Tremper Mountain Fire Tower probably rivals the Appalachian Trail in our area for rockiness.  For much of the hike, you have to constantly look down and watch ever foot placement.  And that's for over 6 miles up and back down.  (Note:  6.41 miles total with a 2,044 foot elevation gain).  I was expecting my hips, knees, and ankles to feel some strain, but what I wasn't counting on was the shoulder pain that I think came from looking down at my feet for hours.

But put that all aside.  The view from the top of the fire tower was absolutely spectacular.  Really makes me wish that I had gotten a bit luckier with the weather over the last two days.  I'm sure the views from the other towers would have been fantastic.  At Mount Tremper, it was glorious to finally look out from a point that wasn't ABOVE the clouds!  The photos are great, but they don't really do justice to being there.

No cell service in the parking area, how am I going to find my way to...

Red Hill

Fumbled my way here trying to figure out which roads to take.  From Tremper Mountain, I thought I should get on bigger roads until I'm heading the right direction, then get on smaller and smaller roads to get to the parking area.  Got it right, but I did have to pull off a couple of times to squint at downloaded maps.  Eventually got onto a "3 season" dirt road that ended at the trailhead.

Just as I was signing in on the trail register, 2 other cars pulled in and unloaded a ton of kids.  There must have been 37 of them (turned out it was 8).  They were all pretty loud, so I started up the trail with the hope that they'd keep talking and slow down so I could get far enough ahead that I couldn't hear them.  Mostly worked.

The trail started out pretty rocky, but pretty soon was mostly just a dirt trail.  I popped out of the trees at the top, saw the fire tower, and realized that I had managed to complete the challenge.  The ranger sitting on the deck of his weekend home must have thought I was a little nuts by how big a smile I had.  Of course, I've been told lately that I don't look like I'm smiling anymore, so maybe he didn't think I was that crazy.

Needed a break after only 3.04 miles and 829 feet of elevation gain, so I stopped to talk to the ranger.  Over the course of my time at this fire tower, I learned a lot about the history and about the working and living conditions when this was an active fire tower.  The family arrived about 5 minutes into this, and the kids went straight to the tower.  I sat there talking to the ranger and one of the moms.  Eventually, I realized that the kids were going to keep going up and down the tower, so I found my slot to go up.  There's a maximum of 6 allowed.  While I was at the top, one of the kids asked me if I'd like to take a look through his binoculars.  Hell yes!  But I didn't say Hell to the kid.

I've completed the Catskills Fire Tower Challenge.  It was not easy.  I pushed myself to my limits and realized that those were not actually my limits.  Maybe I have some lessons I've learned or tips for my future self:

• It's OK to stop and take a breather.  Nobody cares.  Neither should I.
• Moleskin.  Practice with it once on totally healthy feet before you ever need it.  The time to learn is not when you're sitting on a bed in a hotel room.  Waste some.  It's worth it.
• Bring twice as much water as you think you'll need.  If you think you already are bringing twice as much as you need, then bring 4 times as much.
• Put some snacks in the car.  The apple I ate after Tremper Mountain was the best damn piece of fruit I've had in my life.
• Write down directions.  Waze and Google Maps both send data to server farms to calculate routes.  No cell data?  No route.  Think AAA TripTik.  It could save hours.

This is probably the end of this blog.  Driving home tomorrow, picking up caches to fill in the empty counties (I should end up with a connected path of counties from Mississippi to Saratoga, NY), then back to work the next day.

If you've been reading along, thanks for joining me.  If you stumble across this in the future, I'll be happy to answer any questions you have about the Catskills Fire Tower Challenge.  Or just chat about it.