Agile Trekker: Vly and Bearpen Mountains, Catskills

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
8/11/2019	7.8 miles	5 hours 17 minutes	2,129'		309.3

Map: NYNJTC Northeastern Catskill Trails, Trail Map 145
Parking: Route 3 (south of the mountains)
Directions: http://catskillmountaineer.com/BWF-vlybearpen.html

We were looking for a hike with a certain amount of elevation gain, so we chose Vly & Bearpen. We headed over to hunters cabin, and then turned right towards Vly. These are theoretically bushwhacks, but not really. I took out my compass anyways, and decided to practice with it. So, the instructions are very clear on how to climb Vly. We've done it once before. The trail is actually blazed with blue spray paint. Glen checked Gaia though - and the "trail" Gaia showed was not where the herd path began. He walked over to where Gaia showed the herd path was, and there was nothing, lol. We returned back to the blue blazed trail. We arrived at the summit earlier than I expected. I was checking my compass periodically to see which way we were heading. Our NYNJTC shows a herd path which has switchbacks. I don't remember us switchbacking, and my compass never showed us going southwest for example. So, that was confusing. Finding the canister was not confusing, lol. It was easy. We found a geodesic marker right past the canister. Glen checked Gaia, which showed the summit further away. We saw a herd path continue past the summit. Trek followed it, and when the herd path disappeared, Trek continued wandering into the woods. He kept checking that we were following. Glen watched the Gaia app as Trek led. Trek brought us right to where Gaia showed the summit as being. I don't know how he does it. Whether he smelled someone having hiked there before (the last entry in the canister was a few days before) or whether he can detect it some other way. Anyways, he is freaking amazing. We will never have such an amazing hiking partner. Then it was time to head back to the canister. I mistrusted Trek, and thought we should go in a different direction. Glen said - follow Trek. Trek led us right back to the canister. I gave him a handful of dog treats. He was a happy dog. Again leaving the summit, I was a little disoriented on which way to go. Glen said - follow Trek, and yes, he took the right herd path from the summit.

We went back to the hunter's cabin and headed up the ski trail to Bearpen. I think the first time we did Bearpen we got a bit lost. We ended up on other ski trails? We hiked up there a second time in winter and had no problem. This time I was determined to go the correct route. How hard could it be? There is a snowmobile trail that takes you all the way to the summit. Well, we didn't get lost, but I was practicing my map and compass skills and still didn't exactly know where we were on the map. We had no problem following the snowmobile trail, but there were side trails off of it. I had problems identifying which side trail we were passing. It seemed like there were more side trails than the map showed. We decided to pass Bearpen (summit is just off the snowmobile trail) and head over to the view. I had thought it was a more open view....where you could sit down and still see the view. Maybe I'm thinking of a different Catskill summit. The view was great though. Then we turned around and took a short herd path to the summit. We headed back down to the hunters cabin & then out. We met one other person on the trail - a woman who was working on her Catskill 3500' list.