There’s plenty of adventure in a Catskill hike

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May 9, 2010

Rick Brockway The Daily Star The Daily Star Sun May 09, 2010, 06:45 PM EDT

ONEONTA — Last Saturday, I took my grandson Justin and my ski partner Rich to the Catskills for a hike. It was a beautiful drive down along the Schoharie Creek and through Hunter and Tannersville. Our destination was the Escarpment Trail on the ridge above North South Lake State Park.

We shouldered our backpacks and headed up the Rock Shelter Trail, which begins on the county road just outside the gates of the park. The trail is very eroded and dotted with an overabundance of huge rocks that make every step a little more difficult than the last. At least the trail was fairly level, gaining elevation at only a moderate pace.

A beautiful waterfall marks the junction with the Mary Glen Trail, which turns north and heads steadily uphill. At several points, we had to climb over rock ledges on our way up to North Point. As we finally reached the escarpment, we realized the climb was worth it. The view of the lake, the forests and the Hudson Valley made it all worthwhile.

After a snack on the ledges, we headed on up the trail. I wanted to show Justin something special along the trail about two miles ahead. The hike to Stoppel Point was easy; after all we were already on top of the ridge. We paused at a scenic overlook and continued another 10th of a mile around the peak. There alongside the trail were the remains of a Piper Cub that crashed into the mountain back in 1983.

The aluminum fuselage and tattered wings are all that remained of the plane. If John Grace had been flying just a few feet higher, he would have missed the wooded peak and lived to talk about his flight from Poughkeepsie to Watertown.

It seems that airplane crash sites like this are very popular to those into geocaching. There are several that still litter the mountains.

What is geocaching, you might ask? It’s a game of hide-and-seek using a GPS. People search for hidden treasures using latitude and longitudes coordinates. The term geocache comes from “geo,” meaning geography, and “cache,” as a hiding place for concealing and storing provisions. It’s a game that’s played the world over. You can hide something and then post the location on the Internet so someone else can go searching for it.

Anyway, after looking over the wreckage, we headed back down the trail toward North Point. As we approached the rocky ledge, we could hear lots of yelling and talking in the distance.

It seems that a couple of tour buses from the city had brought 50 or so kids for a day hike in the mountains. So instead of fighting the crowds and listening to all that noise, we changed directions and headed off the mountain. We decided we would see Artist’s Rock and Sunset Point on a different trip.

There’s a lot to see in that area. A trip to the North South Lake area should include a side trip to Kaaterskill Falls, which is the highest two-tiered waterfall in New York state. The hike in is less than a half-mile and well worth the time.

We are going to return to that area real soon for another outing. There are lots of peaks to climb and things to see. After all, adventure is just around the next bend in the trail.

Rick Brockway writes a weekly outdoors column for The Daily Star. E-mail him at robrockway@hotmail.com.