Chapter 213
5/27/2009
Trail Maintainers
Angels and Demons
Buddy Pete, as an official NY/NJ Trail Conference volunteer , maintains the Pecoy Notch trail leading to the famed Devils Path in the Catskills. He has been giving this effort for the benefit of the hiking public since 1993 and is now taking on Region 4 chairman oversight of all trails in Greene and Delaware counties. I've only helped a few times but on Memorial Weekend we set the modern all time record cleanup effort with 24 blow-downs sawed and removed from the trail. Ok, we didn't remove the above 12 inch diameter dead Spruce (picea mariana) that was completely blocking the trail over the edge of the mountain. We trimmed and made note of it, along with a 24 inch Maple, to call in the big boys on the chain saw crew. With the heat and the bugs we pretty much knocked ourselves out for 6 hours completely clearing the rest. We blame global warming. If you keep driving those gas hogs, the terrorists win.
video notes:
This wouldn't normally be chapter-worthy except I wanted something to counter balance our housemate's national hiking volunteer of year award and amuse the mates. Maybe Pete should at least get Pecoy Partner of the day award.
The Catskills are beautiful viewed from the flood plains. On the way in by Kiskatom, feeling in a National Geographic moment, I wanted to capture the essence of the mountains but with a foreground subject. Pete wasn't too embarrassed so I walked into this strawberry field. "Our" Indianhead Wilderness Area mountain range is just behind the mountains in the background behind this mexican migrant worker picking strawberries . The scar on his cheek could be the result of a drunken knife fight over a senorita or maybe he was wounded defending our country in Iraq, you be the judge.
The video contains pictures of our hiking lunch spot sitting on rock thrones. These were made by hikers from the waste or tailings that were deposited there from the Dibble Quarry. Many years ago the bluestone (slate) was mined there for the sidewalks of NY City.
Also to fill in the video are scenes from the Marco Diner a year earlier in Coxsackie with hidden camera and candid philosophies of life. Background music by The Moron Brothers "Ignorant but Happy"
Added interactive display thru excellent and free Trimbleoutdoors.com interface (trip details/google earth button will load trip into Google Earth automatically):
This site does not support embedded trip maps. View the trip here instead.
Found this great picture on Google Earth from "Uberdog" hiking on Devils Path in the geographic interactive trail layout with 65 pictures, Every Trail.com display here in web format and Devils Path interactive. Just behind dog Roxy is Saugerties, Hudson River, Overlook Mt, firetower, TV antenna, and Ashoken Reservoir. Six miles down to Woodstock where co-oper Nick Elton had built a house for his Dad John; and former hangout of Bob Dylan, The Band and Big Pink .
The Pecoy trail has changed from the map I bought so I've produced this topo for geo-locational reference. Thanks to the USDA Farm Services Agency for their reference map and Google overlay.
Some consider the trail to be difficult.