Catskills: Slide Mountain, 3/19/25

After 58 years and 9 months, it was time to finish my Catskill 3500 list! Slide Mountain, at 4180 ft. the highest peak in the Cats, was the last of the four winter season peaks I needed to complete the list requirements. Because its main trailhead is located at 2420 ft. on CR 47, Slide is the easiest of the Northeastern 4000-footers, with an elevation gain of only 1760 ft. over 2.8 miles. The day was bright and warm as Carol dropped me off for my late morning start and then headed out for a day of geocaching. Based on recent reports and my experience the previous day on Panther Mountain, I left the snowshoes and crampons in the car and brought spikes and Hillsounds. 

The crossing of the West Branch of the Neversink River by the trailhead was an easy stone hop this day, though it had been troublesome for others a few days earlier after heavy rain.

The stiffest climb of the day, with rocky footing, comes in the first 0.4 mile.

The next leg of the hike is an easy jaunt along an old woods road on the Phoenicia-East Branch Trail.

At 0.7 mile the route turns left onto an old wagon road (later known as the Truck Trail) for a long, moderate climb with fairly rocky footing, leading up through an expansive hardwood forest.

Partway up this section I went off-trail to find a geocache that honors James Dutcher, a local guide who led tourists to the top of Slide Mountain in the late 1800s. A year after geographer Arnold Guyot determined that Slide was the highest peak in the Catskills in 1879 (previously it was believed that Kaaterskill High Peak was #1), Dutcher built a trail up Slide featuring many stone steps for the convenience of his guests. This became known as the "Steps Trail." When I climbed Wittenberg, Cornell and Slide on a Boy Scout backpacking trip in 1966, we used this trail to descend off Slide. It still exists today in some form, but is located on private land and not open to the public. The Dutcher geocache is found in this web of mossy tree roots.

This  tree is tenacious.

The hardwoods extend to above 3500 ft. on this trail.

The first ice appeared as it entered the conifers.

In this section I had a nice chat with Nikki Albanese and her partner, who, with their canine companion,  were on their way down after completing their 3500 list on the top of Slide. Congratulations!

 

The last bare stretch of trail was up around 3700 ft.

I came around a bend, and suddenly there was snow.

And plenty of it.

Would want snowshoes if I was going out there.

With the spring-like temperatures and predominantly bare ground on Panther the day before and on Slide so far this day, I was feeling a little sheepish about counting these as winter hikes. With a monorail flanked by fairly deep snowpack for the last mile, it felt more legitimate.

Monorail express.

After the junction with the Curtis-Ormsbee Trail, the trail leading ahead to Slide (officially called the Slide-Cornell-Wittenberg Trail) becomes quite gentle on Slide's high, fir-cloaked ridge.

Easy walking through here, though I had to focus on staying atop the solid balance beam.

Previous hikers had misstepped in a few spots.

Approaching the final rise to the summit.

 

The only real viewpoint on top of Slide is reached about 0.1 mile below the summit. It's a great one, facing north, with many peaks and ridges visible beyond a steep dropoff to a wild valley below.

There's a great angle on Panther Mountain and its long eastern ridges flowing down to Woodland Valley.

 

Wittenberg and Cornell are seen close at hand with the eastern Devil's Path peaks on the horizon. The NW ridge of Wittenberg looks like an interesting bushwhack route.

Westkill, Hunter and Plateau Mountains along the Devil's Path, with Windham High Peak, Black Dome and Blackhead peering over in back. Nineteen of the 3500-ft. peaks can be seen from this spot. It's said that when there was an observation tower on the summit of Slide, all of the 3500-ft. peaks except Thomas Cole were visible.

A deep old drift on the way to the summit.

This wooded spot is the true summit of Slide. Apparently a footing of the former observation tower is visible when the ground is bare. This was also the location of a lean-to, long since abandoned.

The trail descends slightly to a clearing and adjacent flat ledge - what most hikers think of as the summit. When I climbed Slide on our Boy Scout backpacking trip in June, 1966, our group camped at the summit, after spending the previous night at the summit of Wittenberg. Those days are long gone, as camping is prohibited above 3500 ft. in the Catskills except from December 21 to March 21.

There used to be excellent views from this ledge - I enjoyed them on my second climb of Slide in 1985, but today the vistas are virtually nil. I love this quote from the 1966 edition of the booklet, Catskill Trails, published by the State of NY Conservation Department: "The panorama that greets the eye on all sides from the mountaintop beggars description and has few equals in the eastern United States."

On the front of the ledge is a plaque honoring the great Catskill naturalist/writer John Burroughs, who climbed Slide several times and extolled its virtues in his essay, "The Heart of the Southern Catskills."

The slide for which Slide Mountain was named fell in 1820 on the steep northeastern face of the mountain. It is seen here in this sketch that appeared in the popular guidebook, Van Loan’s Catskill Mountain Guide, by Walton Van Loan (1879). As John Burroughs described the slide: “The mane of spruce and balsam fir was stripped away for many hundred feet, leaving a long gray streak visible from afar.” In June, 1885 he and a friend descended it after he had made his first ascent of the mountain. “It dropped down from our feet straight as an arrow until it was lost in the fog, and looked perilously steep,” wrote Burroughs. “ The dark forms of the spruce were clinging to the edge of it, as if reaching out to their fellows to save them. We hesitated on the brink, but finally cautiously began the descent. The rock was quite naked and slippery, and only on the margin of the slide were there any boulders to stay the foot, or bushy growths to aid the hand.” They made their way down carefully, in and out of the clouds, enjoying intermittent views of valleys and mountains, eventually dropping down to the creek on the floor of Woodland Valley . Burroughs estimated the slide to be 1,200-1,500 ft. long and 500 ft. across at its widest. Two centuries after its fall, the slide is fully revegetated, though occasionally ardent bushwhackers ascend the mountain via its extremely steep track through the forest.

Before heading back, I dropped a short distance below the ledge to the sign indicating the steep descent off the east face of Slide towards Cornell Mountain.

I returned to the north outlook for an extended late lunch break. As I sat here, I thought of my friend and fellow Catskill fan Mark Klim, who passed unexpectedly a year ago. I was with Mark when he finished his 3500 list on Rocky Mountain in 2018, and he and his wife Marilyn accompanied me for my last two all-season peaks, Balsam Cap and Friday, in 2019. R.I.P.

At mid-afternoon I headed down the ridge to the Curtis-Ormsbee Trail junction to check out that route for a potential loop descent, about a mile longer than the direct trail down.

The first part of the trail had a choppy but firm monorail.

Once over a low rise, there was bare ground, even at 3900 ft. I checked with a hiker who had come up this trail about conditions farther down, and he assured me that the areas of snow and ice were easily passable. It's a go! The Curtis-Ormsbee Trail has a New Hampshire connection, albeit a tragic one. The trail was laid out by New York hikers William Curtis and Allan Ormsbee. This duo lost their lives in a freak wintry storm in the Mount Monroe-Mount Washington area in June, 1900. This sad event led the AMC to build the original Lakes of the Clouds Hut for shelter in this exposed area.

An initial steep drop led down to a bare hardwood shelf. According to Dr. Michael Kudish's amazing book, The Catskill Forest: A History, all but the very lowest part of the Curtis-Ormsbee Trail is in first growth forest that has never been logged.

At 3700 ft. the trail leads across a long, nearly level shoulder clad in dark fir woods. Through here the trail was a ribbon of ice, easily passable in spikes. 

Nice feeling of remoteness in this area.

Farther along, the trail breaks out into a glade of wonderfully gnarled hardwoods.

A mile down from the trail junction on the ridge, a side path leads to "Paul's Lookout." When I traversed this trail in 1985, there was a great view here looking across the remote valley of the East Branch of the Neversink to Rocky, Lone and Table Mountains. The vista has now been fully obscured, though the outlines of Lone and Table can be seen through the leafless branches.

One of a few short, steep pitches along the trail.

 

This ledge once had a good view of Doubletop Mountain and other peaks to the west. It's still a nice spot for a break.

Looking back at the steepest scramble on this generally moderate trail.

 

At the bottom of the descent the trail passes by a striking rock cut, which you can walk right into.

 Memorial for Curtis and Ormsbee.

 

 

 

 

 

Turning onto the mellow Phoenicia-East Branch Trail.

Tis the season for running water.

And some pleasant walking, too.

 

Rocky descent to the trailhead.

 It's official when you sign out! A big thanks to Carol, who took this photo, for her steadfast support as I slowly worked through this list over the last 20 years.💓the Catskills!