South West Hunter #2

So once again....... Travis needed to cross off a Catskill 3500 mountain that I had already done. I did South West Hunter in the summer, so doing it in the winter would be a whole different experience. Even though this a fairly easy hike, this was one of the most strenuous hikes we've ever done.

South West Hunter, also called Leavitt's Peak, is right off of Hunter Mountain. It wasn't considered one of the 3500 peaks until they re-surveyed the mountain and found that it fit the criteria of the 3500 list. Taken from the Catskill 3500 Club website: "There must be at least a 250 foot drop between the peak and any other peak on the list, or the peak must be at least ½ mile away from any other peak on the list."

It recently snowed for a couple days before we hiked, so there was a decent amount of snow on the ground. Probably a couple of feet. When we started out, it was a cool day, around the mid 30's, but it was supposed to get up to near 50 degrees towards the middle of the day. While that sounds great, it actually turned out to be horrible. I will explain why that later on!

South West Hunter lies on the famous Devil's Path. This section isn't as difficult as other parts of Devil's Path, but it still has its moments to show why its part of it. The hike doesn't really have any extremely difficult climbing areas. It's at grade that is an uphill battle for a good amount of time. During the summer, it's a wet, rocky climb. So the slipperyness(is that a word?) of the rocks can pose a great threat where you slip and hurt yourself. We had the luxury of being able to use our snowshoes again, because of the snowfall from the earlier days. But there was a problem.

When hiking in the snow, there is a term called 'post-holing'. Post-holing is when the snow is deep enough that you should use your snowshoes, but you don't, and leave behind deep holes in the snow for people to twist and quite possibly break their ankles in after the soft snow solidifies into a harder crust. If the person wore their snowshoes, the path would of been level and kind of plowed for us making an easier hike. But instead, these holes were every couple of feet. This was one of the problems we had to deal with. The trail had post-holes all the way up. You can sometimes avoid these on a wide path, but this part of the path is very, very narrow and the post holes were unavoidable. We kept falling over while trying to avoid them, but since there were probably two people, the post holes were everywhere. It made the hike extremely difficult. Below is some photos of the trail and the post-holes.

You might be saying 'Whats the problem with people not using snowshoes and post-holing?' Well, think of it like this. When you have your snowshoes on, its supposed to keep on top of the snow, instead of sinking you down into it. Now, you have your snowshoes on and when you're supposed to be hiking almost top of the snow, you're falling in about six inches or maybe a foot deep from the previous post-holers. Also, you have to pick that snowshoe up and out of the snow. Do that for 3 miles, while gaining 1400 feet in elevation, with every step. Not fun. At all.

Then came two more problems. The sun and the temperature. As the day progressed, it got warmer and the snow turned into slush. The sun started appearing more and more, turning the snow into what hikers call 'mashed potatoes'. While sun felt good, it melted the snow quicker. We were only about half way up the trail and we were extremely exhausted. Between the post-holes and the slushy snow, it wasn't fun at all. But since we were half way up, we had to keep going and get to the top.

We finally reached a level area on the hike up. It was still tough with the post-holes and melting snow, but the steep area had ended and we had a chance to catch our breath while still moving. I couldn't even count how many times we had to stop and catch our breath on the way up. It was that difficult. This part of the trail also leads up to Hunter Mountain, the second highest mountain in the Catskills.

When you reach around 3400 feet on the trail you come to the stunning conifer forest. This is what it looked like behind us, with us making the path with the snowshoes.

That's what it's supposed to look like. Almost like there was very little snowfall instead of foot deep holes.

South West Hunter is supposedly a bushwhack hike. But since it's one of the easier bushwhacks and it begins off of the path of the popular Devil's Path, its has a well defined trail to the canister. Also, there use to be a old logging road on this mountain and up Hunter Mountain. This makes the trail well defined and easier to hike. The good thing is someone had broken the trail in the snow before us, making it easier to follow. There is a rock cairn to show you where to turn for the hike, but we turned too early, starting our own trail for about a quarter of a mile, then eventually coming together with the actual trail to the top.

It was a much easier hike to SW Hunter after the turn off of Devil's Path. It seemed like a responsible person went on the SW Hunter trail and the irresponsible people went on Devil's Path. We got to the canister, signed in and had a good lunch to regain our energy. While the hike down would be easier from us breaking the trail, it was still going to be tough because of the melting snow.

On the way back down we hit up Geiger Point. This amazing view overlooks SW Hunter, West Kill Mountain and part of the Spruceton Valley.

Below is the view of South West Hunter and West Kill Mountain in the distance.

Me!!

The decent was still a bitch. Our snowshoes kept catching on the heavy, wet snow and we kept either falling over or forward into the snow. What should of taken us 45 minutes to get down, took us about an hour and half.

On the way up and down I did notice some massive boulders lying in odd places.

Luckily, I have a friend who specializes in this natural phenomenon. These boulders we placed here by glacial movement millions and millions of years ago. Back then, these valleys were filled with glaciers and some of these boulders were ripped off the sides of the mountains, moved here with the ice and stayed in this spot after the ice had melted. Very cool stuff!!

We finally hit the flat part of the hike near the bottom, which was the the trail junction of Hunter and West Kill Mountain, where the post-holing and slushy snow had finally stopped. We took off our snowshoes and walked with ease back to our car. We were very relieved it was over. While being extremely tired, our legs were completely dead from the hike. I got home, took a long bath and drank some alcohol to soothe away the pain!! You're welcome Travis.