February 27, 2014 Health, Sports & Fitness
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Club website offers many safety tips, as does www. hikeSafe.com. Being able to read the terrain is also helpful. One hiker who got seriously lost in late winter was able to finally figure out where he was by knowing the differences between a south-facing and northfacing slope, Carol said. Her writings about tragedies on the mountain in Peak Experiences include the story of two men who went the wrong way on the Escarpment Trail in a major snowstorm from the top of 3,940-foot Blackhead Mountain in March 2010. Experienced winter hikers, they dug a snow cave and survived Saturday night. The next day they were suffering from hypothermia, making their extremities useless, and they couldn’t get their snowshoes on. Ten rangers searching for the men – who had called for help using a cell phone – finally found one of them on Sunday night at 9 p.m. The other, who was hypoglycemic, had left to find help and was found dead nearby on Monday.
W Arlo Cusmano, 7, finishes his 35th peak as part of the Catskills 3500 Club on Kaaterskill High Peak. Rhinecliff to Kingston Point. Bill credited hiking and splitting wood with keeping him strong enough to play tennis twice a week at age 84. At that age, Bill hiked up 3,140-foot Overlook Mountain in 58 minutes. They also hiked in Australia, New Zealand, Scotland and the West. Bill, born in Kingston, also made the history books as the last president of the Cornell Steamboat Company in the 1950s, which was based in Kingston and had once boasted the nation’s largest fleet of tugboats. Although the oldest club member to finish climbing the 35 high peaks for the first time is undocumented, Frank Serravallo took his first climb at age 73 and celebrated a third full round on his 82nd birthday on 3,720-foot Balsam Lake Mountain with many friends, according to an account in Catskill Peak Experiences. The youngest club member is five-year-old Jaco Cusmano. Jaco’s brother Arlo finished all the peaks at age seven, is now a winter member. Arlo is featured in an upcoming film, To Be Forever Wild. Somewhat ironically, the most notorious climber of the Catskills isn’t a club member but a speed climber known as Cave Dog, who has broken records hiking up Colorado’s 54 14,000-foot peaks and the smaller mountains of the Northeast. In September 2002, Cave Dog climbed all the peaks in the Catskills in two days, 15 hours, 24 minutes, with assistance from his support team of 15. “In fairness, he started timing it when he was at the top of the first peak and finished at the top of the last peak,” said David.
T
he most challenging trails are Devil’s Path and the Escarpment Trail, both of which are about 25 miles long. “People have trained for climbing in the Alps on the Devil’s Path,” Carol said. “It’s a roller-coaster, hundreds of feet up and still more down over several high peaks.” The highest peaks, 4,180-foot Slide Mountain and 4,040-foot Hunter Mountain, are among the easiest. The Slide trailhead starts at 2,400 feet, so
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you climb about 1,800 feet. The greatest ascent is 2,623 feet up 3,843-foot Peekamoose Mountain. The mountain with one of the best views is 3780foot Wittenberg, with its panorama of the Ashokan Reservoir, a 2,400-foot ascent. While the lack of bugs, crystal air and magical snowscapes are among the assets of hiking up the mountains in winter, people need to be prepared and take precautions in case they wind up stranded in below freezing temperatures. Actually, they need to prepare any time of year, given the harsher and changeable weather at higher elevations. A map and compass with the skills to read them are essential, given that cell phones and GPS systems can be unreliable. The trail-less peaks also lack the “herd paths” that one finds in the Adirondacks, making the Catskills a route-finder’s dream, said the Whites. A flashlight or headlamp with extra batteries is also essential gear, as is food that doesn’t freeze, water (poured in the canteen hot and held against one’s body, to prevent freezing), a whistle, first-aid kit, matches, pocket knife, hat, plenty of warm, layered clothing and extra mittens. The 3,500
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hen it’s snowing and there’s a 20 m.p.h. wind, hiking in the high peaks can be “a little nasty,” said David White, noting the wind chill effect at 20 degrees is minus 10 degrees. But when it’s a sunny day with little wind and mild temperatures, “winter hiking is fantastic,” he said. Actually, the Whites said they enjoy the mountains in all seasons, with the exception perhaps of a humid summer heat wave. “With the different seasons and weather conditions and times of day, it seems that you don’t climb the same peak twice, and mountain hiking somehow never gets old,” Carol said. Although they have also hiked throughout New England, extensively out West, and in Scotland, the wonders and beauties of the Catskills satisfy completely. Hiking the peaks in the winter “opened up an entirely new world.” They learned enough to climb all Adirondack High Peaks and New Hampshire’s 48 high peaks in winter, including Mount Washington, famous for its record 231 m.p.h. winds.
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