Walking Woodstock

Woodstock is beautiful, it's in the Catskills, it's where I grew up and went to high school. So I'm working on a book about about walking and biking on Woodstock's country roads and mountain trails. I'll include some notes about hikes and rides in the surrounding towns as well. Maybe I'll get a book out of it -- if possible? You would be welcome to contribute by commenting especially with a photograph that shows a favorite walk or including suggestions in a comment. Kitty Montgomery knows much more about the best of the mountain walks than I do, so she'll be a co-author if I can talk her into writing something. And go walking with her quite a lot, whenever possible.

-- Christian Gehman

Rockhopping the Sawkill

This exercise reduces hubris.

The Sawkill rises in Echo Lake (north of Overlook Mountain), flows generally west through Shady, then south to Bearsville, east to Woodstock, and southeast to Zena on the way to its confluence with the Esopus River near Kingston. It is blessed with many good swimming holes, most of which are more or less "owned" by someone, though the Town of Woodstock does maintain a good swimming hole at Big Deep on Rt. 212 more or less across from St. Gregory's Episcopal Church. There is not much rockhopping downstream from Rt. 375 because the stream gets too wide.

Almost any time of day is good for rockhopping. In the summer, of course, you might want to go early in the morning; conversely, in the winter, you might like to let it warm up a bit and then go around noon.
It is probably unwise to try rockhopping when the stream is iced over.

So: you start out on the banks of the stream. Then hop along from rock to rock, striding smoothly, taking little leaps.

The aim is to put steps together. The more steps you put together smoothly and without stoping, the better. This often means doubling back or turning sharply to the left or right.

Always keep as close as possible to the edge of the stream. You will want to be close enough to hear the stream chuckle, even at low water.

The first temptation is to step too far.

You must keep your eye on where you are stepping. Don’t look up much while you’re hopping is a very good rule.

Wear loose fitting nylon shorts, and, preferably, shoes with no socks. Socks get wet. And then you have to carry them. Birkies are good. Anything with a good gripping sole.

I haven't tried aquasocks yet. They would seem to be more for the beach. Rocks are lumpy.

The great joy of rockhopping is that no two steps are ever the same. This helps rockhoppers avoid the repetitive stress injury that is always a risk when you're running.

Although rockhopping works the legs more than it works the upper body, the balancing and turning and twisting also work the upper body.

Ten or fifteen minutes of rockhopping ought to raise a small sweat without really getting you completely out of breath. And that’s the point – rockhopping elevates the pulse a little. Not as much as running. And it’s really good for losing weight.

Depending on the conditions – easy hopping at low water? – twenty minutes of rockhopping should be a pretty good workout.

Keep your feet dry.

Be careful: a moment’s inattention will land you on your kiester.

Kind of a skating motion is best – not picking the feet up too high, with a nice rhythm between steps while you choose the next landing spot.

Never try to step too far.
Often an indirect route is the best approach.
There are no straight lines beside the stream.

Rockhopping is more work than walking on level ground and it’s less work than jogging or walking uphill. The pulse rate doesn’t go up so high so it is slightly better for weight loss than jogging, and slightly less effective for maintaining aerobic fitness than jogging or playing raquetball or hiking up a mountain.

For those who insist on keepingt score, here is a suggeted point score:

Falling on your keister -50 points, start again
Foot in the water, wet shoes -20 points
Slipping –5
Near Fall -10
Tippy rock -5
Crossing over dry shod +20
3 hops connected +5
7 hops connected +20

These below might be a good places to start rock hopping:
Sully’s Bridge at the bottom of Ohayo Mountain Road where the Sawkill comes down through a pretty good swimming hole, and before it is joined by the Tannery Brook; hop upstream to the Comeau Property.

The Comeau property where the Town of Woodstock’s Town Offices are. It's across from the Woodstock Library, and behind the Christian Science Church.

The Yerry Hill Road Bridge. Turn left on Yerry Hill Road on the Bearsville Flats and park somewhere near the bridge.

The Rt. 212 Bridge in Bearsville.

The parking spot on the left heading toward Mt. Tremper just after the Rt. 212 Bridge between Shady and Bearsville.

The Shady Bridge where Glasco Turnpike intersects with Rt. 212.

The McDaniel Road Bridge.

The Old Keefe Hollow Road Crossing (bridge is washed out).
Echo Lake. But be careful not to branch off on the Beaverkill, though if you do you'll come out in Mink Hollow after passing through some really gorgeous mountains.

Generally speaking, an hour of rockhopping will be plenty for almost anyone who has not been rockhopping quite a bit lately. Rockhopping really does work muscles you don’t know you have. So, “easy does it” on the first go round is a pretty good rule.

Trespassing issues. The Sawkill is probably navigable water all the way to Echo Lake and thus its stream bed, in my opinion, is probably not covered by any trespass laws, even in its upper reaches. It was used continuously during the spring freshets by loggers who used to float logs down to the Rondout Creek in Kingston.

Thus, you may be well within your rights to rockhop the stream. However, very few people will want to go rockhopping in Keefe Hollow as a first excursion. The rocks are bigger, and the rockhopping might be more fun, from the McDaniel Road Bridge down.

Be careful! Don’t fall! Don’t get your feet wet! Good hopping!

!

Bostock Road

Bostock Road is a fun ride in either direction.  I start out heading East from the corner of Brunel Drive on Upper Boiceville Road and then, depending on how the legs are feeling and on whether I want a long moderate workout or a shorter savage workout, I either (a) follow Upper Boiceville out to Route 28 and then on a nice slightly downhill stretch that last several miles and is a good workout along past the Puie View Bakery until I eventually turn left on Bostock Road before the hill up into Shokan starts, or (b) I turn left on Bostock Road and pedal, mostly standing, and mostly darting back and forth as if I were going up one of the Alps to the summit and then coast down Bostock -- a nice whiz! -- to Route 28 and then pedal back along route 28, a reasonably easy uphill.   Mostly I incline towards (b) -- it starts easy, therer's a long easy pedal on 28, and then the uphill on the "back" side of Bostock, though sometimes taxing, is a very good workout.  And then coming down the the steeps after the summit, there's a really gorgeous view of the Catskills behind and east of Samuels.  I think that's Wittenberg, but .... hard to tell.  Of course, you can get the same view on route (a) if you stop and look back as you approach the summit.  This takes me about 45 minutes in either direction, and it's one of my favorite rides.  But I wouldn't call it easy. 

Biking from Shady to Boiceville

Boiceville seemed like almost the end of the earth to me when I was going to High School at Onteora.  But it’s not a bad ride: Google Maps for Bicycling reports it at a bit over 11  miles, and it only took an hour. I don't pedal that fast.  I was happy to find I could still pedal up the Cooper Lake hill despite a three month winter layoff.

As Gray Harrison at Worcester Earn A Bike says, "You can always walk."  I am thinking I might start an Earn A Bike chapter in Woodstock, and anyone interested should contact me.

Cooper Lake still had a skim of ice on it last week, but this week all the ice is gone and the cove nearest the road is a big algified green.  After passing what used to be the Lake Hill Store, I turned left on Sickler Road.so I could enjoy the view of  the long back slope of Mount Tremper that eases down into Silver Hollow  and also the view of Olderbark Mountain (between Lake Hill and Willow, across from Mt. Tobias).  After Sickler Road rejoins Rt. 212, at the foot of Mt. Tobias, Rt. 212 follows the Beaverkill all the way into the hamlet of Mount Tremper. This stretch of Rt. 212 is mostly slightly down hill, there's little traffic, and it seems a fun pedal.

Mt. Tremper to Boiceville is also mostly level.  Rt. 28 has such wide shoulders that it’s actually more comfortable for biking than some of the county roads.  All roads should have shoulders wide enough for bikers and hikers, RIGHT?  Send the governor a letter.   In Boiceville, you can find excellent sandwiches, Jarritos soda and even organic snacks at the Boiceville Market, or you can eat a tasty Chinese lunch at the Hong Kong Restaurant.  Or just a pork bun (bao) (only $1.15) and a cup of tea.  Hong Kong is a nice little Chinese restaurant with a steady flow of business that indicates it has steady customers.  Look for it behind Sands Salvage -- the telephone number is (845) 657-6711. 

Google Maps for Bicycling reports this as an 11.3 mile trip, and it took hour, going at an easy pace while I enjoyed the gorgeous spring sunshine in the Catskills.  From Woodstock, it would be about an hour and twenty minutes

I rode this twice.  The first time I came back via Winnie Road and the Wittenberg Raod to Bearsville.  This did not save any time and the hills were a bit steeper.  I had to walk up part of Winnie Road and also I had to walk up one big hill near the Mt. Tremper end of the Wittenberg Road.  There were some entertaining ups and downs on the Wittenberg Road, and going down the hill into Bearsville was fun.   There was little difference in the amount of traffic on the Wittenberg Road and Rt. 212, even though the Wittenberg Road might be slightly quicker by automobile.  Rt. 212 is slightly up hill from Mt. Tremper to Willow, and that makes foir a good (but relatively easy) steady-paced workout.

From Reynolds Lane to the Old Swimming Hole

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Just yesterday morning, I woke up before dawn -- as usual these days -- and after chunking wood into the stove, I went for a walk up Reynolds Lane.  A brief half hour, I thought.  Up to the mill and back.

But then the dawn looked so pretty -- light was blooming up over the shoulder of Mt. Guardian, which rises steeply from the Sawkill gorge across the meadow -- that I kept going up Hutchin Hill Road past the fascinatingly tacky giant blue globe wrapped up with a golden ribbon on the left and then past the mill on the right and on up a hundred yards of hill before veering off on the old dirt logging road to the right and on into the woods, thinking I might get down to the old swimming hole on the Sawkill where Aly Lent and the Steinlauf girls used to cook s'mores on a hot rock that summer when Yehudi Wyner, now a famous composer, was living in the mill with his wife Nancy, whose career as a coloratura soprano was just beginning to develop.

Yehudi Wyner became one of the best  known and well-respected  American composers.  I am pleased  to admit that the last concert I heard of his music -- at Brandeis about ten years ago -- really sounded nothing like two cats yowling, although it was not nearly so sweet as one of the Mozart operas I first heard played under his direction  back in the Sixties whenYehudi was the musical director at The Turnau Opera, a two piano summer stock opera company in Byrdcliffe.  My first  girlfriend Aly was one of the ushers, so I watched a lot of opera that summer.  Cosi  Fan Tutti was my favorite opera back then, though these days I prefer The Magic Flute.

And of course Aly and I went swimming at the mill as often as possible, though we preferred swimming a bit upstream, where the Sawkill makes a right angle bend before flowing down past the mill.  There is a road on the right -- a dirt track, really -- branching off from the Hutchin Hill Road about halfway up the first hill.  It's posted -- I think more or less improperly -- but you should check with the landowner even though the Sawkill is navigable water and riparian access could possibly be permitted under New York State law.

There was a solid glacier of ice covering the steep path we used to climb down to swim at the bend in the river, so I just kept going on into the woods.  The road is relatively level and there wasn't much snow cover, though there were a lot of trees tumbled across the first stretch, as well as one little  rivulet to cross.  Fortunately, the rivulet was frozen solid.  I walked this route with Kitty Montgomery several months ago.

So you keep on in there a good way -- while the Hutchin Hill Road climbs very steeply on the left -- not far, really, no more than a quarter of a mile, and at last you come to a wonderful old house site on a level expanse that maybe used to be a meadow, tucked away in a little bowl in the hills with the Sawkill chuckling where it  makes the first of three right angle bends coming out of Keefe Hollow.

This is about as far away from people as you can get without trekking  into the mountains.  Not a house in sight.  A lovely spot for contemplation.  There were fairly fresh (day old) tracks of a few other walkers and a dog,  but I met no people. The Sawkill was frozen over pretty solid.

This gorgeous morning walk took an hour and ten minutes (counting the return) from the junction of Reynolds Lane and Rt. 212; there are no really steep hills to pull and it's a pretty good early morning  ramble  when you're thinking of an old friend, sadly far away,  who's too ill to write back much these days.

Near Colgate Lake

A great walk yesterday with Kitty on the Dutcher Mountain Trail up near Colgate Lake. A great easy hike into the vast snowy bowl of the Catskill Mountains, not a house in sight, and bear tracks on the meadow near the trail head. We walked slightly up hill for about an hour, ate lunch sitting on a log and walked out. The snow crust was just thick enough to hold our weight -- in most places.

Colgate Lake itself has been euthanized and bermed by unknown miscreants with good intentions; the parking lot is now below the enormous dam, for which the earth was taken from the far side of the dam. It's hardly a wild lake any more.

Coming back down Route 214 to Phoenicia we passed The Devil's Tombstone, which is where The Devil's Path begins.

Striebel Road from Shady to Bearsville

Great Views of Bearsville and the Wittenberg

Striebel Road runs parallel, more or less to the the Sawkill and Rt. 212 from Shady to Bearsville. There is a steep hill at each end of the road. The Bearsville is busier than the Shady End, but there are several parking lots in Barsville near the Bear Cafe and the Bearsville Theater. In Shady, you can park in the vacant area at the intersection of the Sawkill and Glasco Turnpike, or at the top of the hill where Striebel Road meets Glasco Turnpile. I like walking up the hill. Although it’s rare tfor more than one or two cars to pass during the few minutes spent walking up the hill, they do come zooming along in both directions. Once you start on Striebel Road, however, it will be rare to see more than one or two cars in half an hour.

As you start down Striebel Road, the Sawkill runs parallel at the bottom of what was once probably one side of a very steep and narrow hemlock gorge that has now opened out a bit to include other types of trees. There are some magnificent old hemlocks quie near the road. A bit farther along, the Bearsville Valley opens out on the right, and you can see all the way to the steep flanks of the Wittenberg.

Dawn breaks very beautifully across the wide meadow where Striebel Road intersects with Glasco Turnpike. This meadow has been clear, with no houses on it, for a long time – at least sine the sixties, when I used to visit my first girlfriend Aly at her mother Lillian's house, the last on the left before Striebel Road drops down the last very steep hill into Bearsville. Lillian was the head of the printmaking workshop at the Woodstock Artists Association in those days, and Aly was an usher at the Turnau Opera in Byrdcliffe the summer that Yehudi Wyner, now a famous American composer, was the musical director. Al Grossman, for a time Bob Dylan’s manager, lived one house up the hill, and some of our friends claimed to have heard rumors that the Beatles had been seen there during their first visit to America.

Striebel Road is an especially lovely walk at sunset because the Wittenberg and other high peaks are directly to the West, which makes for a long and very tranquil twilight. There are no houses on the west side of Striebel Road because the drop is too steep/ and starts right at the guard rail.

Walking from Shady to the last steep hill above Bearsville and back to Shady takes about an hour at an easy pace. Or starting from Bearsville, you can make the return trip to work up an appetite for eating lunch or dinner at the Bear. The first hill, though very steep, is short.