Sugarloaf Mtn day hike.

Last Sunday was spent day hiking in the Catskills.  John was able to borrow a friend's car, Nathan had the day off from work (hark!), it was my last day before starting affiliation 3 -- 'twas set to be a magnificent day spent outdoors on rock stairwells going up and down and up and down.  Just my kind of time away.

We had a three hour car ride to ponder the day.  With about an hour to go John crooned that we could expect "thirty degrees and not a cloud in the sky."  Hmm.  My assessments before packing made it look like a 40 degree day, which is much different.  My pack held a ball cap and a beanie, down sweater, agile gloves, wool long underwear, extra socks, lunch, a full 2-liter Camelbak, my point and shoot digital camera, headlamp with working batteries, toiletry back-ups and necessary wallet items.  I thought about this a little longer, realizing I was already a little chilled in the car.  Cue wool long johns added to my person.  (Learning to change quickly and efficiently in the backseat of a car in high school through all the sports/dance/activity changes still comes in quite handy.)  As we rolled into the park area and wound through the roads to our trail head the temperature dropped another ten degrees.  Add beanie and gloves, prep bag so that we can get moving fast to build body heat.

After about ten minutes the trail finally starts climbing for real, fingers are still a bit cold but my circulation is building.  We came across an overlook where slate pieces were stacked into a structures such as a stairwell (to where we could not tell) and a "room" with multiple chairs.  You can see it in the YouTube video.  Not too much longer we hear cracking ice as we near a pond.  I slowed thinking it was a large animal on the other side of the pond dipping a paw or hoof repeatedly.  Turned out to be the ice cracking from the sun.  A beaver presence was nonetheless heavily present.  John noted the craftsmanship and resulting texture of the wood from the beavers' work, handing Nathan a long stick as an example. 

A frozen beaver pond, and Nathan's new stick friend.

Pretty sure these beavers are better organized that many humans could ever be.

Nathan and the stick became fast friends, so much so that he brought it with for the rest of the hike.  Reminded me of my brother Sam when he was a little tyke.  If he was into a new toy he'd end up cradling in his sleep for half the week. 

From there the trail curved around the lake and led upwards.  Small bits of ice were evident between rocks here and there, but nothing seemed all that significant.  I may have grown up in Missouri's ice filled winters and attended undergrad at Iowa (which, admittedly, is more powder than ice), but I sure as hell do *not* get along with ice.  Get that?  That's N-O-T.  At all.  I am on fall precautions around ice, quadruply so if its black ice.  I made a joke referring to this to explain my odd trajectory choices to John, and Nathan proclaimed he never worries about ice after growing up in the Syracuse area.

And then the comedic gods aligned.

*Slip*shuffle*boom*, Nathan was on his butt.  I had the pleasure of witnessing the entire event without a blink.  Legs slipped forward and to the right, landing semi-mermaid on the outside of his left thigh after bonking a knee on the way down.  But the stick?  Held aloft so that it never hit the ground.  "Don't worry, guys, the stick is okay."

Nathan used the stick the entire time, alternating between a substitute for Stretch Armstrong arms and taking it for a walk like the habit of many a cane user.  (Insert finger wag for those who know they should use their assistive device properly but do not.)  John and I preferred bilateral hand grabs on the trees and rocks.  The vertical had become quite fun, more a hand-over-foot stairwell.  We were gaining elevation fast, and yet so was the amount of ice around us.  There's one shot in the video of where the ice was enough that I pulled out the camera.  After that it continued to thicken into solid ice around us, though with plenty of rocks or brush sticking out for foot holds.  The temperature felt like it was dropping, and using my hands on so many cold boulders took them from chilly to cold to burning very quickly.

I don't know if the true peak was marked or if it was on a slightly different route, but we did pass a sign once things flattened out that was quite satisfying (for an east coaster with proximity issues, that is):

Atop Sugarloaf Mountain.

And at 3500 feet, this was the view of the neighboring hills:

Scenic view from 3500 feet.

The temperature dropped further, in part from the elevation but in part due to quick-collecting cloud cover.  We saw one or two snow flakes, wondered if it was from the air dealing with moisture content more than true precipitation.  The ice underfoot, however, became a steady path that swathed the entire trail.  The surrounding vegetation was thick enough that we could not move through anywhere aside from the trail, so we forced ourselves through pine branches and sought whatever bits of snow may have existed atop the ice.  I think we covered a half mile in thirty minutes to get to our intended scenic view on the other side of Sugarloaf.  My hands were on fire from the cold.  I stopped and pulled out the down sweater.  It's hard enough to hike with your hands tucked into your pockets, let alone when you are on fall precaution and atop a lobular, multi-inch thick ice slab.

Here's where the "Aha!" moment struck.  Multiple warm days into the 50s and 60s, lots of melting, followed by 24 hours that went sub-freezing.  Ooooh, right, it is January and we are winter hiking.  Another blonde moment of genius added to the list.  But to my credit, all three of us were fooled by the previous week to a certain degree -- no Microspikes, no emergency blankets, only one stove between us (John's), only two headlamps between us (John's and mine), no extra warm descent mittens. 

And then that damn stick.  Nathan would wait for me to catch up, as I had transformed from the quickest to the weakest link, then walk behind me for a bit, probably assessing for mental changes.  Then I'd see the stick sliding along the ice, creeping past me from behind.  If Nathan were to have fallen again, he'd need a twelve foot radius for that damn stick.  So having it pull a classless pass -- think those who call "LEFT!" on a public track for no other reason than to gloat over their speed -- made me even less at ease.  I told him to keep clear of me with that stick, so he'd shuffle and hop along the ice like it was nothing until he was out of sight (meaning about 40 feet ahead).

For those of you familiar with the swishy sound of synthetic outerwear when moving really fast, you may substitute this for the forthcoming onomatopoeia: *swish*swish*shweee*shploop*, then silence....  John: "You okay?"  Nathan: "Yea, I landed on my abdomen."  John: "How's the stick?"  Nathan: "It's fine.  I think I bruised my elbow..."  Kinda sad I missed seeing that one, but I was just fine with my slow and cautious pace.

The top of Sugarloaf is worn into a soft curve, much like the tops of nearby mountains you can see from the pictures.  Our route would make one big loop, and at this point we were traversing the top of Sugarloaf from a southern-ish to northern-ish exposure, simultaneously doubling the amount of ice and adding a strong, cold wind and some flurries to the equation.  Just when I was about to get despondent we found the teenie path to the overlook marking the midway point of our route. 

From the halfway point across the top of Sugarloaf Mtn., >3500 feet.

The wind removed most niceties about the view.  Not quite enough pine in the right growth pattern to make a wall against the wind unless you were small enough, i.e. the size of a little terrier, to squeeze through the inner forest.  John make quick tea so we'd have something warm to drink while we ate.  I wasn't even hungry, but if I was going to stay warm then adding calories would be pinnacle.  It would only take one more shift towards true winter conditions for our fun day hike to turn into straight up survival mode.  I also added my second layer of socks, tucked in my shirts, and marched in place until we were able to get moving.

We picked up the main trail and continued to crawl along the route as planned.  Temperature dropped more, wind picked up more.  Eventually we struck a natural boulder stairwell where the trail starts a long and steep descent.  Aside from the large boulder obstructing our view beyond the first drop-off, it was ice about a foot thick with few trees to assist us.  In the forest to each side offered a similar drop-off with ice layered atop the snow.  Nathan thinks we can make it down.  I think it is imminent death since we are without crampons and ropes.  Cue muttering about the damn stick and cavalier invincibility.  John pulls out the map to see if distance is a factor at this point.  We had to factor in the remaining daylight, which was just enough to backtrack our ascent route but only if we left immediately.  My mind was now in full on survival mode -- I am going to be at my clinic at 6:45 a.m. come hell or high water, f***ers.  I hurled myself to the other side of the trail to get a view beyond the first boulder, and I saw at least 30 feet of an ice climbing route in place of the trail.  No way in hell.  I called made the executive decision, and if my voice didn't somehow convey it then my face surely did.

The hike back across the top of Sugarloaf to the southern-ish exposure was pretty much like the first pass, though we crawled at perhaps .1mph faster since we were more determined.  The little elevation changes were down this time, so the trees became our friends while we got onto our butts to ease and/or slide our way down various passes.  It all looked incredibly different from this direction, so we didn't remember what obstacles we'd have to tackle in reverse -- though we knew everything was guaranteed to be better than that potential reverse ice climb sans tools.  Nathan still -- still! -- used his stick while grabbing trees with the other hand.  My hands finally stopped burning since they got to participate for an hour on mostly trees rather than cold rock.

I did not realize I had no photo or video documentation of the Sugarloaf ice flows until we made it back to the true descent.  What passed as tricky before was now downgraded to a pretty decoration, and only then did my camera even occur to me.  Probably better off that way, lest I'd have dropped it down the ice flow of doom due to painfully frozen and clumsy hands.  We were now out of the wind and into "warmer" temperatures, and we estimated that matching our ascension pace would give a 15 minute leeway before it was dark.  Off we went.  I was in a much better mood and no longer fearing for my life.  Nathan let us talk about things other than the stick, though we still teased him about it.

When we got back to the beaver pond, it looked like true winter returned while we were nearly getting stuck atop a mountain. 

Beaver pond, late afternoon. 

We passed the slate cliff-side modular hang out and were nearly back to the car when we spotted a gnome, face pointing towards Sugarloaf, body en route with the trail towards the car.  It was not there on the hike in.  A local may have a sense of humor, but really I think he's smiling that we didn't get our asses handed to us in a self-induced emergency situation.  Plus, the slightly underprepared blonde on fall precautions did not, in fact, have any fall or any threat of a fall.  So there.

Mr. Gnome.

We made it to the car with no problems.  After the few minutes needed to pack up and roll out we already needed headlights.  Luuuucky....

I left out the video I took of Nathan putting the stick into the car to bring home, largely because you couldn't tell the significance of the stick unless you heard the story.  And the only video of the way down was a small shot from when I noted my hands had warmed up again and I no longer felt like death was imminent.  John's reaction had been "This?  You're videoing this???"  Quite the understatement.