The Catskills- 4000 footer #1 - Hunter Mtn

Thursday, May 17, 2018 - Wendy has a conference up in Amesbury, so I decided to DO SOME HIKING. Although there are 46 4000 footers in the Adirondacks (?rent a cabin for a month?), there are only 2 further south in the Catskills: Hunter Mountain (4,040) and Slide Mountain (4,180):

So I made reservations for Thursday and Friday nights at the Super 8 in Montgomery, NY (about an hour south of this area)(much cheaper!).

I am a good hiker (but not a GREAT one - i.e. not up-and-down multiple mountains in one day), so when I travel farther than a day-trip, there is usually "extra time" for me to do something other than hike up-and-down a mountain. In this case, The Thomas Cole National Historic Site has an exhibition "Picturesque And Sublime: Thomas Cole’s Trans-Atlantic Inheritance":

I called on Tuesday for the noon-to-1 tour, and, after breakfast in Boston, got out there 10 minutes early!

Unfortunately, the woman selling tickets had not gotten my message - the noon tour was FULL of people from The Met, so I got a ticket for 1. But it turns out that The Exhibition is not "part of the tour", so after eating lunch at the car, I saw the exhibit myself. It was in a single room in "the New Studio", and a beautiful display of art:


Of course there were works by Thomas Cole:
Ruined Tower (Mediterranean Coast Scene with Tower), 1832-1836 oil [Albany Institute of History & Art, Albany, NY]:

Catskill Mountain House, The Four Elements, 1843-1844 oil [Private collection]:


There were also works that inspired him:
J.M.W. Turner - Devil's Bridge, Saint Gotthard's Pass, ca. 1804 watercolor [Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT]:

J.M.W. Turner - Hardraw Fall, 1818 etching/engraving [Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT]:


The tour of the house was nice:

There is a very good slide presentation. Memorable art includes a Cole study:

(it was nice seeing the study after seeing the finished work!)
and a nice small piece by Sanford Robinson Gifford:

The Thomas Cole National Historic Site hosted an exhibit of Sanford Robinson Gifford just last year - sorry I missed it.

Then it was time to head down the road:


It turns out that the original Catskill Mountain House was just west of here - there is even a road called "Mountain House Road". I drove there, and it ends in a hiking-trailhead. So I continued on to Kaaterskill Falls:

Very beautiful up the creek:


A few minutes later I was at the trailhead for the Becker Hollow trail up Hunter Mountain:

The hike, being the first-of-the-year, was kind of hard. But you rest when you need to, and it actually gets completed. 5.73 miles in 3:09

5 minutes in, you cross a bridge over a stream:

There are these nice markers all along the trail:

The "3500 elevation" sign on a tree, with the trail continuing up beyond it:

I got to the Hunter Mountain Fire Tower just after 5


Nice views from the top of the Fire Tower:



You then hike south along a ridgeline for a little less than 1/2 mile. I love these ridge trails!!


At the end there is a ledge with a nice view to the west:



And then a little over 1/2 hour to get back down to the bottom. An hour-and-a-half drive to get down to the Super 8:

Pepperoni pizza, and Playoff Hockey for the night! Thank you God for these wonderful adventures!

Today, for my listening pleasure, I have been doing Shuffle Songs on my iPod. 17,869 songs! Today I listened to 86 songs, starting with:

#1 - "I'll Be Waiting" - Michael Franti and Spearhead (from the album The Sound of Sunshine, 2010)


and ending with #86 - "Stand Back" - The Allman Brothers Band (from the album The Road Goes On Forever, 2001 compilation album)


GREAT SONGS in between included: #4 - "Runnin' Down A Dream" - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (from the album Greatest Hits, 1993)

#5 - "Here To Stay" - the Pat Metheny Group (from the album We Live Here, 1995)

#8 - "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" (10:50 in length!) - Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble (from the album Live at Montreux 1982 & 1985, 2001 double cd)

#13 - "Meeting Across The River" - Bruce Springsteen (from the album Born To Run, 1975)

#43 - "Visions of Johanna" - Bob Dylan (from the album Blonde on Blonde, 1966)


and just so you know its not ALL ROCK N ROLL and JAZZ:

#24 (quiet folk) - "Tin Angel" - Tom Rush (from the album The Circle Game, 1968)

#34 (acoustic piano) - "Sung To Sleep" - Michael Manring (from the album A Winter's Solstice II, 1989)

#52 - "Passio D.N.J.C. secundum Matthaeum, BWV244: 52. Konnen Tranen meiner Wangen" - Johann Sebastian Bach (from the album St. Matthew Passion, 2009)