Catskills Day 2

 Day 2

We were up at 5 a.m. and off to the local Dunkin’s to get the day started right.  After that it was a nearly 2 hour drive to the Mill Brook road trail head for Balsam mountain.  We took the dry brook ridge trail, which was a nice steady climb with decent footing.  That was key as it looked like it might rain at any time.  We got into the fog during the climb and reached the socked in tower at 2.9 miles and 43 minutes of climbing.  There was no reason to climb the tower as there would be no view, so we turned about and Eric took the lead on the downhill.  We were back at the car in another 43 minutes for a total of 1:26 round trip with 1,200’ of climb and descent.  We are tentative descenders and there were some leafy spots and a little bit of slick rock to contend with.

Another 1.5 hours in the car got us to the Denning road trail head for the Red Hill fire tower.  This was another very nice trail with moderate grades and relatively good footing.  We were steady climbing and reached the top at 1.9 miles in 31 minutes.  Again, there was no reason to climb the tower as it was completely socked in.  Eric again took the lead for the descent, and we were back at the car in 29 minutes for a roundtrip just a bit over 60 minutes with 1,200’ of climb and descent.

Our final tower of the day was the Upper Esopus which was located at the Catskills visitors center.  Since both of our climbs had been a bit short of the advertised distance we decided to do a few laps of the 1km (.62 miles) nature trail around the visitors center.  It was nice to run on some flat ground although my quads and ankle were not happy about the 9,000’ of climb and descent I’d done over the previous 48 hours.  We ran 2.5 laps (1.5 miles) and finished at the nice path to the fire tower.  This 80’ gem is completely refurbished and the cab was open for access.  Although the cloud coverage made for a less than fantastic view, the near peak fall foliage made the climb worthwhile.