Beacon loop day hike: Casino, Scofield, and Fishkill

We're busting out of the seams to leave NYC.  I get temporary relief from my weekends in the Palisades as weather allows, but Nathan isn't up to those distances anymore after a prolonged time off of running.  So when he found a last minute car rental for $44 per day, we jumped at the chance.

Originally we decided to shoot big - Slide Mountain in the Catskills, though compromising with our route when accounting for winter ice flows in place of hand-over-foot rock ledges.  Definitely did not want to duplicate what we almost got ourselves into last year on Sugarloaf.  We'd take the less aggressive route, and this year we were armed with Microspikes and headlamp and extra down poofy jackets and mega-insulated mittens and....  We'd pick up the car at 8am, get on the trail by 10:30 after driving straight there, and probably be off by about 4pm.

Checking weather the night before made us reconsider.  Wintery mix to start around noon, predictions of 1-4 inches in the towns, unknown how much intensified it would be in exposed areas along the ridge.  Determined to not be completely stupid yet not lose the day, we opted for Beacon, NY.  Just over an hour away, with a deli next to the trail head and the food/pharmacy/shelter of town a 2 minute drive or 5 minute walk away, my familiarity with the area, and actually having the map (kind of an important one in winter, right?).  We'd hopefully be starting our hike at 9:30 and finished by 1:30, with time remaining to hit up antique stores in Beacon and Cold Spring.

Our departure went without a hitch, and with the cold and predicted weather - not that bad, but people here are very, well, sensitive to the slightest hint of inclemency - we had no traffic issues as though it were an early Sunday morning.  We left the car and started at our predicted time, heading up the red Casino Trail as the snow started.  It is steep with a handful of switchbacks, having originated as ski slopes back in the day.  It runs overall in parallel to old, now mangled Mount Beacon Incline Railway that in its day climbed from 200 feet to 1500 feet of elevation to reach a casino (now just a brick set of walls) up on the ridge, hence the trail name.  It's worth it to follow that link and see the pictures of the angled rail cars and the grade of the climb.  In summers I usually would come from Breakneck Ridge to finish going down the Casino Trail, and it is steep enough that it is easier on the knees to jog than it is to hike down. 

Once on the vantage points along the route the wind and snow picked up.  I ended up most of the day in wool 200 weight long underwear quarter zip top and pants and my rain shell and winter hiking pants (kind of a light softshell of sorts), plus a wool beanie and Black Diamond Mercury Mitts since my hands are always the only part of me that does not handle the cold.  We snapped a few photos, but you are limited to few since stopping for more than one or two minutes resulted in a dramatic drop in core temperature.  Means I couldn't take enough time to get the exposure of our "view" to work out, but at least this time I remembered to use the darn thing and my hands would cooperate for at least a minute. 

The red Casino Trail passes close to the crest of South Beacon Mountain, which we skipped in lieu of staying warm for the moment in the temporary protection of a more wooded area.  It then bottoms out at the yellow Wilkinson Memorial trail along Scofield Ridge.  We headed north, and along a series of vantage points had to keep track rather well as to where the trail was supposed to be.  The rock outcroppings capping the ridge are great for summer lunches or naps, but with only bushes and no trees to place trail markings they end up painted onto the rock.  Once the rock is covered by snow, which by now accumulated to about 2 inches with bits of ice beneath, then it gets tricky.  A few are straight forward with large breaks in the bush leading forth.  Others, particularly larger outcroppings, were not so clear what with about 50 feet of open nothingness and a dozen possible trail starts on the other side.  One of us would keep tabs on our last marker, the other would attempt to guess a line according to the map.  The snow at that point was sideways and making the left side of my mouth numb.  Had we not found it within fifteen minutes then we would have opted to turn around and head back along where we knew was marked, even if it meant being out for longer than predicted.

The yellow Wilkinson trail made a few zigs and zags before hitting a short connecting blue trail.  Blue is not the easiest to see on dark tree trunks in winter, but aside from scanning the environment a few times it was easy to follow.  Maybe ten minutes on the blue trail and we found the white Fishkill Ridge.  Blue may be been a little hard to see at times, but white, as you can imagine, was all the more fun.  Many points here had snow four inches deep.  We made our way to the top of Lamb's Hill to another vantage point and outcropping.  This one took a good ten minutes to find on the other side, largely because the trees did not start for a good ways down the other side.  This one made me happy I had an extra wool sweater, vest and down sweater in my pack just in case.  Didn't pull them out, its those moments that hint at the worth of the gear you have or, in some instances, do not have (*cough*cough*Sugarloaf*cough*).

The day continued to be either uphill or downhill.  Rarely was there much in between.  Did I mention how great Microspikes are?  Best.  Invention.  Ever.  We wish we had stock.  Heading down from Lamb's Hill we found a few spots with ice beneath the snow.  Usually we'd stick, even if after a one-inch slide.  At one point Nathan was leading.  He stopped, turned to point out another iffy patch, and barely had he turned forward when his feet went out and he gracefully swept onto his right side.  I started laughing, my usual response to myself or others falling.  Aren't I a great and compassionate wife?  But he kept sliding down, rolling onto his back and then his left while sliding backward, nothing within reach to grab.

A six inch diameter tree was the only thing between him and continuing his slide down off the side of the ridge for who knows how far.  It caught him at the butt, with a good posterior jolt to the trunk and legs.  Once he hit the tree I got serious again, took one step towards him, and before I knew it I too was whisked onto my butt and accelerating downhill with spiked feet headed straight towards Nathan.  I couldn't turn or stop or reorient myself.  Only thing I could muster was to slide with my feet apart in the splits so that the spikes wouldn't kill my new husband who had managed to not go flying off the edge of a ridge.  Apparently I looked like quite the cartoon headed spread eagle towards him.  Nathan may be skinny, but thankfully he isn't fragile.  Otherwise my butt would have crushed his ribs.  Not much else would have saved our fifteen foot slide except full crampons and an ice ax.

Once stopped I was able to roll onto my belly and maintain enough traction to untangle my leg from Nathan's armpit, though I was laughing so hard that I was about to pee myself.  (Even now as I write this, I've been in tears from laughing so hard for the last ten minutes.  The kittens have no idea what to make of me.)  Nathan was concerned for the reality of the little tree and what otherwise would have been a very precarious situation.  Me?  My concern was getting off the iceflow and onto tractionable ground so that I could relieve myself volitionally and tell this story while retaining a milligram of dignity.  Even once safely peeing I was crying from laughing so hard.

The visible track of ice down the trail was the full path we slid.  The tree just to the left of middle was what saved us.

A better view of how much further we may have fallen, with the trail and our locale of fall/catch obscured here by the trees in the panel second from the right.

Regrouped, we made our way along the rest of the white and picked up the small yellow connecting trail that led back to the car.  Mid-yellow was tricky when crossing a forest road.  The tree that had two markers indicating the direction of a turn had been split between the two markers.  One marker was on the remaining stump, the other was twenty feet away on the top half of the tree laying sideways across its neighbors.  For those marking trails, this is where having one or two immediately following the turn is a good thing to confirm the trail and back up your original mark.  Took another ten minutes for this one.

Regrouping from the fall.  (Actually, he just wanted his picture taken sitting on the little bridge.  We were in good spirits.)

Somewhere along the white trail, post-slide.

Just before reconnecting with the base of the original red Casino trail we encountered a woman out hiking on her own.  She wore hiking boots, but she was really slow going on comparatively flat ground.  Another score for our improvement over last year.  By the time we made it back to the rental car we totaled three and a half hours.  The snow and sleet had in the last hour turned to freezing rain and bits of actual rain, so we were happy with our timing.  A little reorganizing while the car warmed up, and into town we went.

Turned out that most places were closed.  Not sure how many of them may be closed on Mondays anyways, but it seemed that many places either stayed closed or closed early due to "inclement" weather.  On the sidewalks and streets everything seemed fine to us, and for the rest of the day we didn't encounter anything hairy, but so goes the NYC-sprawl's reaction to weather.  We managed to find a place with a veggie burger, but no antique stores were open.  We found one that would have been awesome, and through the window saw two old wooden tool boxes that would have been great to organize some of Nathan's fountain pens and smaller items.  Next time, I suppose.

We still hit up Cold Spring, only a few towns away.  Closed, closed, and more closed.  We couldn't think of anything else for which to use the car, so opted to call it a day and return home.  The drive back was wet but not icy, though from the way others were driving you'd have though otherwise.  We were surprised at how empty things felt at 4:30pm, which is usually when rush hour is developing well.  Meant that the whole way home was as eventless as the drive up pre-snow/wintery mix. 

In all, our time on the trail amounted to around 7.5 miles with more than a few thousand feet of cumulative gain, and our time getting to/from the rental agency and through the town of Beacon amounted to another 6.5 miles.  Our route ended up being just a hair different than the suggested South Mount Beacon/Scofield Ridge, the only difference being that we skipped the little crest of South Mount Beacon.  Having all the right gear makes for all the difference between arriving home satisfied with your day and arriving home thankful to be alive.