Twin Mountain, Catskills

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
8/13/2017	5.2 miles	4.5 hours

Map: NYNJTC Catskills Map 141
Parking: Roaring Kill Road
Directions: Follow yellow blazed Roaring Kill Trail. Left on blue blazed Pecoy Notch Trail. Left on Devil's Path. Hike to Twin Mountain. Return using the same route.

We had to leave both dogs at home, because they just started having signs of kennel cough (lots of hacking). It feels wrong to hike without Trek. When we arrived in the Catskills, everything looked wet. It had rained the day before, and the trails were soupy mud. We had just recently done the Pecoy Notch Trail in order to hike up Sugarloaf. We had considered adding on Twin Mountain to that hike (it's just another 1.4 miles, why not?), but after today, we're glad we didn't. We had hiked Twin Mountain before, but from the Jimmy Dolan Notch trail. We needed to complete a small (.7 mile) section of the Devil's Path between other sections we've hiked before (we are working on hiking all of the trails in the Catskills).

We got lucky and had the Dibble's Quarry to ourselves. We sat down and had a water and a snack break. The quarry is so fun! Even as an adult! I swear, I would like to have 2 new outdoor chairs in our yard - why can't I have chairs like this!  I took out my map and practiced my map and compass skills, trying to identify the mountains around us. I definitely don't practice those skills enough, and really need to every time I come out here.

Moving on to the Devil's Path, things got more challenging of course. We had one spot where we got stuck! I tried a couple of times, but my fear prevented me from climbing up. I asked Glen to try - he's taller than me. So I figured if he could find a way up, I'd try to copy the path he took. He tried to figure out a way, but couldn't do it either. UGH. The rocks were wet. I'm wondering if I would be able to do it when the rocks were dry. We spent 15 minutes trying to come up with a way. I felt pretty defeated. I decided there has to be a way around it at least. I ended up find a safer way up around 20 feet to the right of the trail. Glen still felt our alternate route was sketchy, and wasn't sure he wanted to descend that way. Climbing up is much easier than climbing down. Besides the fact that we couldn't get up the trail, I don't know what we would have done with Trek. We almost decided to make a loop out of our hike in order to avoid that spot. But, that would add in extra hours plus road walking.

The rest of the climb up Twin was fine. We were definitely glad we didn't add it on to our prior Sugarloaf hike. On the way down, I looked for another alternate way. I found another way even further to the right where we both felt comfortable descending and whacking our way back to the trail. Phew! Maybe Trek could have gone this way too (with some human assistance). I really wanted to sit at that spot on the trail and just wait for someone to climb up it, so that I could see where they placed their hands and feet! We don't really feel like we need to repeat this route. Well. Maybe if its a really, really dry day.

Arriving at the quarry

There are several stone chairs in what feels like a living room

Practicing compass skills from my chair

Typical Devil's Path trail

Some rock scrambling required, but this was an okay spot

This is where we got stuck. It's around a 50 foot tall cliff. We could get partway up and then couldn't figure out how to get higher. So frustrating.