Straight shot up to Slide Mountain yesterday: New York State Throughway, to Route Twenty-Eight and then left on Oliverea Road. “My day” I treated myself to Sgt. Pepper’s on the way up, which is grand to consider in its fullness every so often. I’ve lived near the Catskills all my life, but I can’t ever recall having properly visited the area and as we get closer to the rising mountains it’s clear that we’ll be hiking today, in the snow.
This is the fifth year in a row we’ve gone and climbed a mountain around my birthday. In China we climbed all the Wu Yue, save one: Huashan, in Shaanxi. The Wu Yue are mountains that emperors and the rest of the Chinese citizenry have climbed for thousands of years and there are steps, sometimes many hundreds of them carved into the mountain. Every hundred yards or so there are informal concession stands that some enterprising local laboriously stocked. In many places there are railings to grab ahold of. The wilderness is at hand, thought the trail path is never in question.
I tried to get our bearing with the trail map, but the “you are here” notion was well hidden and by now I’d read enough to know the likely progression of the trail. My older daughter yelled out that this was a “ghetto trail” as there was simply . . . a trail through the woods and despite their inappropriate foot ware the young ladies plowed ahead confidently. My dad and my stepmother had also joined us and they too drove ahead, across the stones in the river and up the initial, steep, snowy incline.
I had it my mind to try the Curtis-Ormsbee trail up. The two, ill-fated, late nineteenth century outdoorsmen had forged a path that cut off from this main trail up, which apparently was a bit more arduous but afforded some remarkable views. After the first half mile the pathway became flat we had a pleasant warm, wintery progression till we found the turn off for the Curtis Ormsbee trail. Not long after, and of course, as expected, it became very steep again. Near a collection of remarkable cliffs that seemed to have tumbled down into place in a manner still traceable, we paused and considered things. I went up the switch back ahead , found it very tough going up the icy rocks and decidedly dangerous coming back down, so we called it and began our descent. Some other time for the summit then, when the weather’s more favorable.
And as we returned along the way it was as if we were, indeed visiting the trail in a completely different season. With each step it seemed more of the snow around us disappeared, revealing the spring progression that had been there before the unexpected April 18th snowstorm. And all this snow was now filling up all the mountain rivulets, turning them all into rushing streams. And even though we had no handrails, or people along the way selling water, we did notice that large, flat rocks had obviously been placed to channel the water off the trail and off to the side.
Today, I’m enjoying the morning-after ache, though its more modest than I recall I’d felt after any of the Wu Yue. The little one came down asking for lunch. I’d already eaten a left over PBJ from yesterday’s hike. There was a big jar of tomato sauce with only a third of its contents still inside. Opening the freezer, I notice the package with four spicy, Italian sausages. It’s a bit early. Maybe that’s too heavy for lunch? But the finished creation has already touched my mind’s eye. I could fry those up with some onions and mushrooms and feed everyone for lunch save the vegetarian who still isn't awake, anyway.
Monday, 04/20/20
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