Twin Mountain #2

Yes. I hike mountains twice. This hike is an amazing hike. Very challenging climbs with, to me, the most stunning view in the Catskills at the top. My old friend John wanted to do some hiking in the Catskills. He's already done a couple, so I wanted to take him to a place that would blow his mind. And I did.

Twin Mountain offers a variety of different climbing. Its nice and easy at first, but the higher you go, the tougher it gets. I've done Twin before, so I'm familiar with the challenge.

Like I mentioned, the further up the mountain you go, the steeper it gets. It's a pretty steady climb till you hit the Jimmy Dolan Notch. This is what it looks like on the way up. Steep, but not too steep. The rocks were very slippery due to the moisture from the fog that was flowing through.

The Jimmy Dolan Notch is the spot between Indian Head Mountain and Twin Mountain. Further down the notch is an amazing viewpoint to the south, but unfortunately, the thick fog was covering everything. We could barely see 30ft ahead of us. I got worried because I took John here to see the view and to me, it would be a disappointing hike if he didn't get to witness it.

We took a right at the trail junction to go straight up Twin Mountain. This is where everything gets nasty and that's why they call it Devil's Path. These photos show some of the steep areas we had to climb. Some places, you had to use the roots to pull yourself up to the next level. It was intense!!

Now this steep area isn't that long, only about a quarter of a mile, but it is very steep and it wears you down. There's usually a nice viewpoint on the way up, but the clouds were low and hitting this part of the mountain. It was the fog at the lower elevation and now the clouds at the higher part. Once we got to the top of the first part of twin, there is this phenomenal view that is the best in the Catskills. Unfortunately, this is what it looked like:

The clouds were flowing right through the mountain. We could feel the moisture hitting us. While it blocked the amazing view, it was an incredible feeling. It felt like we were on the top of Mt. Everest.

Now Twin has two peaks, hence the name Twin Mountain. The other peak is higher than the first one, so we had to climb to the second one also. The climb to the second peak is not bad at all and it required very little climbing. Nothing like the first part of Twin. The second peak has a stunning viewpoint also, but the clouds were still flowing through the mountain and this is what it looked like:

We had lunch here and started heading back to the first peak. I felt like an asshole. I led John up here telling him that this was the best view in the Catskills and I gave him nothing. I'm such a jerk :-(

But...........on our way back, a little before the first peak, I told John that I could start seeing through the clouds and we might be able to catch a view, but we might have to wait around for it to totally be clear. Right when we got back to the first peak it started to clear up and the stunning view was before us:

At first, the clouds were right above us. We could literally almost jump up and touch the clouds. It was amazing. The longer we stayed, the clearer it got and the view would open up even more.

John couldn't believe the view. He's been to other mountains that had good views, but he said this was amazing. We stayed up there for at least an hour. Soaking it all in. I was showing him the different mountains in the distance. The one in the middle in the back of the pictures was Slide Mountain, tallest in the Catskills.

We also stayed up there for a long time because we were sharing the view with a group of kids and parents. They were dressed very awkward for hiking. The women and girls had dresses on and the men were wearing long sleeve shirts and khaki jeans. A very odd way to dress for a climb up a very difficult mountain. We later found out that they were from the Platte Clove Community(also called Bruderhof Community) which is a small settlement in the Catskills. The age range of the people up there was probably 13 to maybe 60 years old!! It was crazy!!

After soaking in the stunning view for awhile, we had to get back on the trail and head down the mountain. It was a tricky descend, but we made it. We got a viewpoint on the way down that showed us part of Indian Head Mountain:

We also meet this guy on the way back down!

Remember that view I was talking about at the Jimmy Dolan Notch that we missed because of the fog? Well, we got to see it this time!!

Overall, it was an awesome hike. While we thought we wouldn't get any views, mother nature surprised us and gave us phenomenal view of the place that we love. Once again, thank you mother nature and thank you Catskills!!