Skiing Sugarloaf (in the Catskills) 20/33

-

Sugarloaf (in the Catskills) 20/33



If we were to apply Shane McConkey's Game of Gnar to the Catskills, Sugarloaf would score you a lot of points--bonus points for losing the trail and having to bushwhack in the dark. This tour took me over 8 hours.

I went through my pre-tour ritual of having an IPA and doing a short meditation to get myself focused and manage my anxiety. I realized it's a weekday and I'm really going to be alone on this mountain that only has brief moments of cell service. I asked the universe to protect me. Just as I was about to start the tour, the universe sent me an angel: Jim Bouton of the Catskill 3500 Club pulled up in his truck!! I truly saw that as a positive omen.



Jim stayed with me up the difficult west side of Sugarloaf. I had to switch to boot crampons and bootpack a lot of it. When we got to the summit we parted ways as my route was to descend down the east side and take the Mink Hollow trail around the circumference of the mountain back to where I started. 


I had pure untouched snow descending the east side. There were a few moments I had to step down ledges, but otherwise, it was a fun ski.


The more problematic part was staying on the Mink Hollow trail on the way back. The trail markers were obscured by snow, and the blowdown and low hanging branches covered the trail. It was also night time by then so that didn't help. There were times I was just bushwhacking around. 

I wasn't afraid I was going to die or anything, but I did want to be on the trail rather than bushwhack. The latter takes a lot of time. At one point I was even asking my dead grandmother in Italian to just appear and help me find this trail again. 


Needless to say, I made it back. (Grazie Nonna!) I want to give a special shout-out to the Catskill 3500 Club. I let them know my whereabouts when I had service just in case. They were so concerned about me and were ready to come looking for me if the need arose. I do most of these excursions alone, but having such an amazing community of people around me helps me feel safe.

I had 3 IPAs and no food (though I did pack some). I subsisted on beer and fear. The first was the aptly named Devil's Path IPA (10/10). The other two I don't remember.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Balsam Lake Mountain

-
Image
Balsam Lake As much as I adore solitude, there were definitely times in the past few years where I wished I had some sense of community. Then, I started posting about my hiking and skiing and I developed an online community. Now, I’ve been meeting people from this online community in real life and am realizing the universe may have delivered to me exactly what I was looking for. Deborah and I had been following each other on Instagram this year and she asked if I’d like to go hiking, so we ended up doing BLM yesterday. She agreed to a pre-hike beer and it turns out we know some common people which seemed like crazy a coincidence. I had Sip of Sunshine and she had Heady Topper, which she liked. I was glad because when people don’t like Heady Topper, I always wish I had given them a beer that I don’t have to drive to Vermont to purchase. After a long time talking in the parking lot, we figured we should probably climb this thing. The trails were wet as it has been raining for two days. ...
Read more

Killington

-
Image
Day 85: Killington Self-motivation has never been a major issue for me, but having friends that share your passion sure does help with that. I told myself I HAD to go to Killington this weekend. What kind of ski bum am I to have missed last week? So I called my friends Nichelle and Bobby to see if they were heading over too. Turns out we motivated each other to get out there. My passion for skiing has never made sense in NYC, but through @mappy_hour and the friends I’ve made through hiking and ski groups, I’ve come to recognize that a passion for the outdoors is not mutually exclusive with living in NYC, and when things return to normal, I’ll have people in the city and the country to share my love of the outdoors with. I initially put on my best Hawaiian shirt for today because that means spring skiing to me. However, when I arrived at Killington, I was pretty cold and thought I had misjudged the weather. Turns out it’s not me, it’s shoulder season. Within a couple hours of arrivin...
Read more

Huntersfield

-
Image
Huntersfield It was a banner day for Huntersfield as I believe someone else posted about it too. This hike is the perfect easy trail run—or in my case, trail jog combined with power walk. There were a couple black flies at the bottom, but they barely bothered me and disappeared once I began moving. The road to the quarry is dry and smooth. From the quarry to the lean-to it is mostly dry considering the rain, but as you approach the summit, there are more deep muddy sections. If you step in the mud, your foot will sink pretty deep, but if you wear waterproof hiking boots (and you most definitely should) then you’ll be fine. I didn’t have a beer today because my friend, Joseph , who has been kind enough to take me on a couple of hikes and show me some cool things, also gifted me some wine he made. Based on some comments from our mutual friend, Stash , I imagine having some sort of green fairy absinthe-like hallucination from it. (Joe vehemently denies this will happen.) I didn’t drink it...
Read more