Nick and Stella have been with us on several Adirondack High Peaks and it's always a pleasure to hang with them. We even survived the dreaded Pinnacle Traverse together, which is certainly a friendship forged by fire. I was chuffed when Nick asked if Sunny could patch Stella on the ultimate peak of her Adirondack 46er, Skylight. Of course, I immediately agreed. Nick and Stella are expecting a new family member very soon, so it was imperative that we do this quite soon, certainly before August. A weekend was set and we watched the weather. It was touch and go for a bit, but some chance of rain...
I was kind of champing at the bit to finally complete the maintenance on our section of the Indian Pass Trail and the weather was looking fantastic again the Monday after our last trip. I decided to just go ahead and head out there one more time in order to finish up.
Unsurprisingly, volunteering to maintain Southern Indian Pass Trail has been quite a challenge. I went out there in May with Dan when we scooped out a lot of drainages and cleared a bunch of blowdown up to Wallface herd path. Then Sunny and I went in June when it rained all day and we had to bail for safety reasons, though I did manage to clear a bunch of new blowdown and clean up more encroaching vegetation. I was going to leave Sunny home at first, but I didn't really have the heart to do so. Besides, my goal this time was to finish clearing up to the Cold Brook junction and I didn't relish...
I know that parents can risk projecting their wants and needs onto their children. I definitely try to remain cognizant of that fact. Still, I want to make sure I impress upon my kid the importance of staying active. I want to share with him the healing power of accomplishing hard things. Still, at his young age, I knew he wasn't ready for 8 to 10 mile days. I did think he could handle short overnight trips where we break up the trip over two or three days. I'd considered just doing a quick camping trip at a campground to gauge his reaction to tent camping. However, the summer had begun...
A couple of months ago, Sunny and I were invited to Adam N.'s Catskill 3500 finisher on Kaaterskill High Peak. It warmed my heart to be invited and I immediately added it to the calendar. As the day approached, the forecast showed that we would have just about a perfect day for it. After a short discussion in the chat, the group decided we'd bushwhack up to Roundtop first (which is on the Catskill highest 100 list), then head over to Kaaterskill. Thanks to the folks on the hike for sharing photos of the day. Several of the photos here were taken by them. We arrived at the trailhead at the end...