Although I have been an avid hiker most of my life, I have done most of my serious hiking in the West. There I can get far away from civilization for many days at a time. The time and trouble to fly across the country always seemed worth it for a trip of a week or more.
But recently I changed jobs and thus went back to having minimal vacation time. And what time I had was largely spent attending to pressing family matters. When I realized that I would not have time for even a quick trip to the Sierras, I resolved to explore the mountains nearby. Thus I discovered the Catskills.
From where I live, the Catskills are too far a drive for a dayhike, but near enough for a satisfying weekend backpack. Over the years, of course, I have hiked from time to time there, often in preparation for longer hikes out west. When the kids were little, we could hike in a few miles, camp overnight, and return the next day. But I had never explored any but the most popular of areas.
Searching on the internet for hiking ideas, I ran across the "Catskill 3500 Club," a group dedicated to climbing all the Catskill peaks over 3500 feet in elevation. Although I did not at first focus on this goal, their list of peaks seemed like a reasonable way to explore the region. By plotting worth exploring.
This page records a log of those explorations.
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Catskill 3500 Peaks Overview |
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