Fall Break | October 10th-11th, 2016
A long weekend means extra time for fun. After a day skating the city got rained out I decided to head north to the Catskills to meet up with some friends in the area. I crashed at Dan and Larry's place since they also had off for Monday and Tuesday. Dan and I naturally started to plan a hike since the next day was supposed to be perfect. After a few beers we thought it would be a great idea to send it up one of the steepest trails in the Catskills. Why not take the gnarly way up?
Dan, his friend Billy and I set off to hike Hunter Mountain via the Becker Hollow trail. The trail was undoubtedly steep but we were loving it. Even with temps in the 40s we were down to base layers and still sweating. We summited within an hour and climbed the fire tower for a magnificent view of the Catskills and some peaking foliage. The fire tower was one of the nicest I've seen, lined with windows and even a topographic map of the region. After spending so much time in the Adirondacks it was nice to see a whole new area that I am very unfamiliar with still in my home state.
The second event of our day was a short hike in the hills around the Gunks, a famous rock climbing area. We took the scenic Millbrook Ridge trail. The summit allowed for beautiful views of Hudson Valley and the Catskills. As the sun went down we looked at where we just were a few hours earlier.
The next morning I woke up early to meet up with my friend Lindsay for some fly fishing. It was a chilly morning on the Esopus Creek but it was warming up quickly. Maybe a little bit too warm since the trout weren't biting. We didn't mind though, just being on the river in the morning was nice enough. We stopped for lunch on the way back and then I was off to Plattsburgh.
Driving along the Northway this time of the year always beautiful but that combine with a perfect day made it overwhelming. As I came up on exit 30 I think I heard the mountains shouting for me to drive over. I heeded to their requests and drove to the Adirondack Loj for an afternoon hike up Mt. Jo. After napping on the summit for awhile I decided I might as well stay for golden hour. I'm certainly glad I did as it was quite a way to finish off a great weekend.