Blackhead Mountain - Winter Hike

For our last winter hike, we were going to take on Blackhead Mountain. Standing at 3'940ft, it's the 4th tallest mountain in the Catskills. It's a very challenging mountain that can give you some problems when climbing up or down the steeper sections. In the winter, it's even more difficult because of snow and the even worse, the ice. It's been a weird winter and New York has been lacking in snow. Barely any snow has fallen and the temperature has been ranging from the negatives to the 60's on some days. Very odd.

When we arrived at the trailhead there was no snow on the ground at the lower elevation. The previous days have been in the mid 40's and sunny, so any snow was melted down. But....at night it got cold and all that water would freeze over and make major ice all over the trails. Travis and I decided to go on a Sunday so we could get the winter hike in before it was too late. It was odd to go on a Sunday for us. We usually go on Tuesdays and there are barely any hikers on the trails. Since the weather was pretty decent, we knew that today would bring a lot of people to the trail, especially to one of the highest mountains in the Catskills.

At the start of the hike, there were only two cars in the parking lot, when we finished, the parking lot was full and cars were parked on the road. Now that isn't unusual for this area. You can hike to many beautiful viewpoints here plus the parking lot is for four of the Catskill high peaks. When you start on the trail you pass over the Batavia Kill creek. At times this creek can get nasty when a lot of rain falls. Hurricane Irene made this creek into a massive, raging river that took down houses and destroyed towns. When we crossed over it, it was flowing very nicely with a lot of ice around:

As soon as we got onto the trail, the ice was everywhere:

The trail was a whole sheet of ice. We threw our microspikes as soon as we crossed the creek. As you can see, you can't take any chances with this amount of ice. One slip and something could be broken. This is what it looked like almost all the way up. There were some spots here and there that didn't have ice, but I'd say that 90% of the hike has ice or a touch of snow. Once we hit the trail junction of Blackhead/Blackdome, we had to decide if we wanted to hike up the west or the north side of the mountain. The north is very very steep, and he west is not as steep, so either way, we would be encountering some problems with both ways. We decided to take the west side up and face the steep north on the way down.

The way up to the trail junction of Blackhead/Blackdome isn't too bad as in being steep but we encountered this massive areas of ice on our way up!!

When you hit the trail junction and take a left, it becomes a challenging hike. It's not as steep as the north side, but it still has some difficult areas that will wear you down and also make you think where you'll have to go next, especially with the amount of ice we had to deal with. There was also a good dusting of snow when we got higher up the mountain, which helped us out with traction, but also made it difficult to find where to step next. This is what it looks like going up the west side:

With Travis in the picture, you can see how steep it is. After we climbed 3/4 of the way to the top, you come to a great viewpoint that overlooks Blackdome mountain and some of the eastern parts of the Catskills.

I wonder how Blackdome got its name. Hmmmmmmmm

Some of Devils Path and Hunter Ski Mountain.

From the junction to the top of the mountain was just over a half a mile and we gained over 400ft in elevation!! Steep climb indeed!! After the steep area and the viewpoint, we came to the conifer forest near the top and it was a beautiful, easy walk from there to the summit.

After the summit is a nice viewpoint further to the east that we wanted to check out again. We've been on Blackhead before, so we knew that this was definitely worth the extra effort.

This view overlooks a huge part of the Hudson Valley. It was a good place to stop, have lunch and gain some energy for the very challenging hike down. The weather was almost perfect. The sun was strong enough to warm you up in the colder temperatures. It was about 45 degrees, so it wasn't too cold. After lunch and the view, we headed back to the summit and started to descend down the steepest part of Blackhead. We finally met some hikers at the top and said hello. They didn't seem that eager to talk so we basically said hi, stood there for a couple seconds and said "Ok then, have a good hike!" Must of been people from the city.....

After that, we hit the steep area. It was definitely tricky. Sometimes, Travis and I had to wait for each other as we descended down the steep parts, making sure to catch one another if we slipped. At one point, we met two older ladies who told us that we were going the wrong way. I tried not be an asshole because we've been on the mountain before and we knew where we were going, but I said,"Well, then.... what way did you guys get up here? I'm pretty sure we're going the down the same exact way you came up." They disagreed with us saying that we were going the wrong way, even though we're headed the direction they came up. Pretty odd, but oh well. We wished them a happy hike and went on our way. Here's a picture of what we were facing while hiking down:

Apparently I didn't take that many pictures on the way down. Probably because I didn't want to risk getting injured!! After the long, carefully taken hike down the steep area, it was an easy going hike. We still had a good 1.7 miles to get back to our car though. We went by a good amount of hikers on their way up the mountain and warned them of the ice. We didn't hear about anyone getting hurt, so I'm guessing they took our word!! Blackhead crossed off the winter list and the winter hikes are finished!!