Date: 11/02/09

Destination: Catskills: Wittenberg, Cornell, and Slide

Author: Jon Hanselman (trip leader)

The group gathered on campus at 8am, as usual, ready embark on our adventure to the Catskills. But after having some issues with the van, Ian arrived 15 minutes late to pick us up, and we didn't end up leaving campus til around 8:30. We didn't know it then, but this may gave been an omen for how the rest of the day would go...

It's a long drive to the Catskills, perhaps a little long for the day hike. But we had an eager group and the opportunity to meet and get to know knew people makes the drive fly by. In fact, Ian and I were so engrossed in conversation that we missed our exit off of I-87... by about 35 miles. We soon turned around and began heading back south, towards the Catskills, but as if a 2 and a half hour drive wasn't enough, we just tacked on an extra hour.

We ended up getting to the trailhead after noon, and didn't start hiking until 12:20. Since the seasonal tilt of the earth and the end of daylight savings time were conspiring to make the sun set at a ridiculous 5:15pm, that gave us less than 5 hours of daylight. We knew we had to adjust our original itinerary, which included hiking both Wittenberg and Cornell. At this point we would be thrilled to just get Wittenberg (3.9 miles each way) and make it back by dark. We set a turn around time of 3:00 and set off at a good pace, hoping to reach the summit by then.

The hike up was pleasant, a few steep sections, but overall a nice trail. We just missed the fall foliage season, almost all the trees around were bare, but the forest floor was covered with an even layer of freshly fallen leaves, and the bare trees allowed for some better views on the way up. But the real payoff was the summit. We just made it by our goal of 3pm. We enjoyed the view, snapped some pictures, and had a quick 15 minute lunch before starting the descent.

We made it up in 2.5 hours. I assumed we would go down at least a little faster, so I wasn't too worried about getting down by dark. That's where I went wrong. We made good time, but not good enough, and we saw just how quickly it gets dark. Fortunately, I had anticipated this possibility, and asked anyone who had them to bring headlamps: we ended up with four in the group of 12. Not much, but enough for me to find the trail one trail marker at a time and for everyone else to follow slowly. It was slow going, but we really were almost down when it got dark, and after 20 minutes or so of this we came to the trailhead sign-in box. Finally, the end of a long and exciting day, right? Not quite.

From the trailhead, the trail immediately crosses a stream on a (collapsed) bridge, and then climbs up the steep bank on the other side for a few hundred yards before coming to the sign-in box. So we weren't out of the woods yet. In fact, the combination of poor marking and leaves on the ground made this section of trail incredibly hard to find. Since we knew we were close and could see and hear the stream, we eventually decided to give up and just head strait down to the stream, then find the bridge from there. The steep bank was difficult to navigate in the dark, but eventually we all made it down to the water safely. Next obstacle: the stream was too big to cross without getting wet, the steep banks were difficult to walk along, and we didn't know which direction the bridge was. Leaving the group there, I crossed the stream and found the road I knew was on the other side. I guessed correctly and ran upstream a short ways before seeing the trailhead. Crossing the bridge, I then worked my way down the stream to find the group, and we all followed the stream back to the bridge. And even after all that, we still weren't in the clear. The stream still had a victim to claim: Scott's shoe. Falling while attempting to walk across with shoes in hand, Scott not only got completely soaked, but lost one of his sneakers, rushed off into the darkness by the current.

In the end we successfully conquered Wittenberg, but it sure didn't go down without a fight. We got a lot more adventure than we bargained for, but everyone was safe and actually had a great time. We celebrated with some great Thai food in New Paltz on the way home, and got back to Columbia late, exhausted but satisfied.