North Dome, Eastern Approach

I was planning on doing North Dome and Sherrill with Travis, but he backed out the night before and I thought about doing something else. I decided to stick with the plan and do them by myself. Screw Travis!! :-)

I've heard that North Dome and Sherrill can be one of the toughest climbs in the Catskills. It's a bushwhack, so there is no trail to follow. It also has many ways to approach it and some areas can be very difficult. I chose to approach it from the east, which was the most difficult approach. Climbing North Dome from the east gives you one of the most toughest, vertical climbs in the Catskills. Was I ready? Not really!!

I started at the western end of the Devils Path trailhead. This trailhead serves as the end of the famous Devils Path, which thousands of people climb each year because of it's extreme difficulty. It was a nice clear day and it was just the start of spring, which means one horrible thing: black flies. I made the mistake of not bringing my head net to keep the bugs away from my face so they wouldn't be that annoying. When it got warmer later in the day, I was begging mother nature to stop it with the bugs. It was that bad. But at least there was clear skies and the sun was out. The trees were just starting to bud, so you can see a little greenery in the lower elevations.

I started off on the marked trail of Devils Path. Eventually, when I was past private property and when I felt that the time was right, I would make a sharp right turn and head up the extremely difficult east side of North Dome Mountain. I underestimated this hike by a longshot. Once I hopped over West Kill Creek, the intense climbing began. And when I say intense, I mean intense!!

Before the first massive climb, I hit some interesting sized boulders, They might of been broken from the ledges above or have been sheered from the mountains by glacial movement over 10,000 years ago.

After that, BOOM, massive ledges appeared before me.

Now remember, there is no trail on this hike, so I had to find my way through these ledges. And yes, I said ledges. There was about 5 massive ledges to climb before I got to the flatter part of the hike near the top. It's not like this is straight up rock climbing, but you do have to look around in all places to find that 'chute' or 'path' up through the ledges. Some times looking back, it would look like this:

Usually when you look back, you say "Holy shit, did I just climb that?" Yeah. I did. Around five times I had to do that. That picture might not look too bad, but it was around 30 feet high and I had to climb slightly to the right, pulling myself up with the roots of the trees and grabbing on to the rocks that appeared out from the ledges. Here are some more pictures of the climb.

Occasionally, I got a glimpse of the mountains through the trees:

This is a look up one of the ledges I had to climb as I got closer to the top. As you can see, I used the exposed roots and rocks to climb up. This involved using 4 points of contact(both hands and feet) to climb up. It was some awesome climbing, but it was exhausting. In just under a mile, I climbed over 1300 feet in elevation. That's a huge amount of gain in such a short length. I eventually reached the conifer forest near the top and climbing the massive ledges was over. But another problem had sprung up: the black flies.

When I reached the canister and signed in, the black flies were everywhere. I couldn't escape them. Even in the cooler areas uptop. I even covered myself with bug spray again, which did almost nothing. I quickly signed in and then took off looking for the viewpoint on the south eastern part of the mountain. I decided not to do Sherrill because of the black flies. They were that bad.

Above is a United States Geological Survey marker. This is usually at the highest point of the mountain or at other places marking a specific place of interest.

Now, I usually spend a good amount of time at a viewpoint, soaking in the view and taking in all that mother nature has provided. But because of the horrible black flies, I spent about a good 5 minutes up there and chose to get the hell away from the goddamn horrendous creatures!! I did get some pictures though.

Above is the beautiful Burroughs Range, with Slide Mountain, tallest mountain in the Catskills, to the right. To the left, is Wittenberg Mountain, looking like a shark fin or a wave.

Looking south east with Timber Lake Camp in the lower right. As you can see, the trees were budding, but only to a certain elevation. After that they weren't budding due to cooler temperatures.

Slightly to the left is West Kill Mountain. All the little dots in the picture are the black flies. Yes. It was that bad.

A panoramic view spanning from part of Hunter Mountain, to the far left, all the way to the Burroughs Range on the right.

A selfie of me and my new friends. Look at the swarm of those suckers. It was horrible. After about five minutes of them having a massive party around my face, I was out. I couldn't take it. But now, I had two options, Go back up the mountain to the top and retrace my steps, or just go straight down. Going up would require more time with the black flies and some gain in elevation. Going down is a very steep and challenging climb. At this time, I've had it with the black flies and I just wanted to get back to my car. I chose going down. Man was it steep!!

That picture above is the ledge I was just standing on that I had to climb down. It was almost near vertical, but I had to get away from those damn black flies!! It was still pretty steep from there on, having to go over little ledges and boulders all over the place at an angle that you really couldn't stop on. In just about half a mile, I went down over 900 feet of elevation. Super steep!! After it flattened out, I darted around trees, rocks and muddy swamp areas looking for Devils Path. I was moving at a good pace just to keep the blackflies away from me. I finally hit the marked trail and started moving even quicker, since I knew where I was going and there was nothing to dodge. I got back to the trailhead and my car, threw my bag in the back and closed everything. It felt like that black flies were still there flying around my face. The air conditioner was on and so were the black flies. I was free!! What a horrible but great hike!!