Sugarloaf Mountain

Devils Path once again. There are six peaks that make up the treacherous Devils Path. I have climbed 5 of them, so this was my last one. Maybe someday I'll climb all of them in one hike!! :-)

Today, Travis and I would be taking on Sugarloaf Mountain. I've heard from many hikers that this could be one of the most difficult hikes in the Catskills. A lot of hard climbing is involved in this hike and the hike on the western side is definitely one of the most difficult ones I have encountered. But, there is a lot of amazing scenery all around Sugarloaf, so even though it's going to be difficult, it will all be worth it!

We got on the trail pretty early in the morning. We didn't want to start out late and be stuck on the trail upon nightfall. We also didn't know how long this hike would take so we didn't want to take any chances. Since it was the middle of April, there was very little ice or snow on the trails. It was a chilly day, but we still brought our microspikes just incase. The trail starts out on the north side of the mountain and doesn't have any challenges until you approach Pecoy Notch, which is the point between Twin Mountain and Indian Head Mountain. On the way, you do get some decent views of the Platte Clove Valley when the leaves aren't on the trees.

One of the cool stops on the way up was what they call 'The Chairs'. This place use to be an old mining query and over the years people have rearranged the rocks into these cool structures.

While sitting in the chairs you get an excellent overlook of the beautiful Platte Clove Valley and the west side of Twin Mountain.

After checking out the chairs and the amazing view, we headed back on to the trail and had to cross a stream. The stream was flowing pretty nicely and I head a lot of rushing water down below. Since I love waterfalls, I decided to pursue it and see what I could find. This is what I found!!

This waterfall was a couple tiers ranging from a good 30-40ft. We haven't heard of a waterfall here, so it definitely a nice surprise!! Shortly after the waterfall you come to a beautiful beaver pond!! We knew this was there, so it wasn't a surprise this time. But, it was very different than what it looked like in pictures. It was beautiful!!

These beavers must have the life right? A nice, secluded place up in the middle of the Catskills? A very cool place indeed. After that, we finally started to gain some good elevation until we hit the middle of Twin Mountain and Sugarloaf Mountain called Pecoy Notch. Right after that, the fun began. We almost started gaining some massive elevation immediately. Encountering places where we had to use the roots to pull ourselves up and areas where you had to climb up the massive rocks embedded into the side of the mountain. It was awesome!!

About half way up, we saw an opening on the side and we decided to go and check it out. This small ledge offered an amazing view of the west side of Twin Mountain.

The exposed rock cliffs were definitely the eye catcher in those photos. It was really cool to see all that exposed rock. Millions and millions of years in the making right there. Just imagine what that rock has gone through!! My plan one day is to explore those ledges.

We still had a good amount of climbing to do after that nice view. It was still a steep climb too. Section after section of steep climbing can wear you down. We came to another small viewpoint higher up, which gave us a view of the south side of Twin Mountain and in the background, the Hudson Valley.

The steep climbing didn't end till we got very close to the top of the mountain. We were exhausted, but it was a nice, relaxing walk on the top, surrounded by the beautiful conifer forest.

The next viewpoint was just after the summit and that's where we decided to have our lunch. We didn't have the greatest view, but it was nice to relax and get ready for the steep descend on the west side. Here's the view we had:

I'm guessing that over the years, the trees have grown and black some of the view, but we weren't complaining. It was still a great place to have lunch. People suggest that the trees should be cut down to make the view better, but they shouldn't. This is a natural forest, so let the trees grow!! After lunch, we begin going down slightly then we hit the massive drops down:

It continued like this all the way down to the notch between Sugarloaf and Plateau Mountain. I didn't take that many pictures because I was too worried about slipping and falling. There was still a little bit of ice on the west side, but we just had to navigate around it. There came this one part on the trail that was very interesting:

It looked like a a huge piece of rock fell off the side of the mountain and got lodged in between two other rocks, making a sort of natural bridge. Its very cool to see this stuff on the trail. After that the trail was fairly flat and a little downhill. There was this one part that led up uphill slightly, but nothing too serious. It did make us angry, because we were definitely done with the uphill climbing! From then on, it was easy, downhill hiking till we got back to the car at the trailhead. There were some cool spots towards the end of the hike that there were very little trees around. We suspected that since this was the lower elevation, they cut down some trees back in the days for lumber. Another awesome hike in the books!! Only 18 more climbs to go!!