Getting fried in Catskills

June 23rd '13
Long Path Tr(0.95m)
Devils Path Tr(3.9m)...not really sure bout the mileage...


Since i did not feel good yesterday i decided to run up to NY state today and hike up couple mountains in Catskills. 

Today it was going to be Indian Head and Twin Mountains. Drive up was very nice and only around 3:15hrs. I had a little trouble locating the trailhead but mainly cause i wasnt paying attention on how long i was driving on the Platte Cove road. When we parked i quickly got ready and we headed out right away.
The trailhead for this hike was a little down the road. I registered at the beginning of the walk and we went quickly into the woods. 
It was hot! Much warmer then i expected. Right before we left i checked the weather and it said 67-70 degree day. It was already much warmer when we started. I was sweating right away and Misha started panting. But i tried not to pay too much attention to that and soak in as much of the surroundings as i could. It was very pretty. I am amazed how Catsklills differ from White Mountains. The trail was wide and open. There was nobody around. There was no hard intersections, everything was marked visibly, and we were moving pretty quickly. 
When i was reading trail reports yesterday there were suppose to be some very difficult spots ahead of us but everything turned out very easy. I am not sure if people who tackle Catskills are not experienced hikers or what but i would not call anything from todays hike, extremely difficult. One spot involved a little thinking but it was not hard to find a way to climb it at all. I helped MIsha in a few spots where she could not climb but even for her it was not hard, it was the heat that got us more than actual difficulty of the hike. 
We got some pretty views on the Indian Head summit, and almost missed it because i was going so fast. Big thank you to MIsha who made me stop and rest a sec . 
From Indian head to Twin mountains it was like a breeze, fast and easy. Sweat was pouring down my forehead, and you could hear MIsha puffing, from the distance. We met 4 people at the summit of Twin mountain and one of the hikers took the picture of both of us. We passed some more hikers along the way and everybody was hot and tired. It took us much quicker than i thought to reach both summits so thats when i decided to add the third one, on the same ridge, the Sugarloaf, it was only around 2 miles away. 
I was a little worried that we would have to turn around or do some road work. At the end i opted for road walk, i did not want to walk back up the mountain.
HIke up Sugarloaf was the hardest, we were very hot and i was rushing it to get up to it,and it seemed like we would never get there. I ran out of water for Misha on top of Sugarloaf, so i was hoping that there was some sources of water down the mountain. I need to admit that i did not research that part of the hike, since i did not plan on doing it. Thankfully there were many. The hardest part for us was a little over 3 mile road walk, it was so hot, around 90F,way too hot for MIsha. But we made it and were really happy to get to the car. It was very beautiful hike and i would love to repeat it on a cooler day and with actual camera, not a phone camera. 
The whole Trip turned out to be around 14 miles.