Failure on the Devil's Path

 Failure on the Devil’s Path

Sometimes in hiking and backcountry skiing you have to know when to abandon your plans—such is the same with life.

When we started the hike, the trails were relatively dry and the overcast sky was parting enough to let the sun shine through the trees. The weather report had called for an overcast day, but no rain. The sun seemed an added bonus and shifted my mood from dreading the journey ahead of us to looking forward to all the amazing views we would encounter.

We bought @thecatskillbrewery Devil’s Path IPA and my own Queen of the Catskills IPA to celebrate, prevent bonking, and help give that mood boost when needed. A gentleman on the trail told me I should save it for when I’m done, and I graciously told him we all have our own process for what works.

We proceeded up Indian Head and Twin. The Devil’s Path is grueling. You can even see from the skyline how deep the cols are between many of these peaks. Many of the Catskill summits entail long flat-ish walks. (This is really noticeable when you ski them.) This is also why many consider our mountains to be more a desiccated plateau than mountain range. But there are some definitive peaks and many of them are on the Devil’s Path.

We were descending Twin when the rain came. At first Deb (@pathswithpadilla ) said, “This will be so badass for us to do this in the rain!” Then the rain got heavier and heavier and so did the wind. It felt like a monsoon.

The trails became rivers, not just wet and muddy. There was heavy water flowing down these trails. We were soaked to our underwear. All our waterproof and water resistant gear was no match.

I finally said, “We have to abort.” Thunder clapped which added to our urgency to get down off the mountain. We descended Twin as quickly as possible and made our way to the Roaring Kill PA. We knew we’d have to walk along the road to get to get back to Prediger PA. We were incredibly lucky that the parking areas weren’t far from each other. But then fate threw us some more good fortune when we were offered a ride by two kind ladies!

We will return, but consider ourselves to be fortunate.