2021 Catskill Bikepacking trip

The concept

Bob's concept was to follow the 255-mile Catskill Bikepacking Route , over six days, or about 45 miles per day. The video made it look like it had some rideable single track, but we really found out that  some selective editing had been done. Much of the single track was not ridable--at least by me. 

The crew was organizer Bob Nunnink, Ernie Bayles, Bill Erickson, and me. 

Day by Day

Day 1 Ellenville to Kenneth Wilson Camp

I was up at 3:50AM and backing out of the driveway at 4:03AM for the 5.5 h drive to Ellenville. My dread and anxiety were at their normally high pre-event levels. Would I be the weak link? Would my car get towed while we were riding? Too much obsession. 

We were loaded and rolling around 10:25. Bill E. and I immediately overshot the first turn and got in a couple extra miles. But soon we were climbing up Mine Rd, which looked promising. But it rapidly devolved into an extremely steep, boulder-covered hiking path.

Mine Road outside of Ellenville (photo credit Bob Nunnink)

Sometime in the 19th century, Mine Rd took carriages from Ellenville to hotels of the Shawangunk ridge. The first eight miles took more than two hours. 

Ernie Bayles at the end of Mine Rd. I can assure you that we hiked to the top

The trip through the Minnewaska State Park Preserve was astounding. The former carriage roads  are immaculate and the Shawangunk Ridge vistas and escarpment are indescribably beautiful.

In the park. Bob Nunnink photo.

We worked out way down the the park and through the Mohonk Preserve at the base of the escarpment past the rock climbers and down into New Paltz. There Ernie and Bob replaced their non-functional water filtration systems. I admit to having some more anxiety, since it was already 4PM, we had gone 30 miles, had 35 miles to go, and the skies were rapidly darkening. 

We waited out the thunderstorm under an awning, and worked our way north on the rail trail. I was firmly in the throes of "Let's get this over with," and kind of fell apart after an hour. After a long climb in the drizzle, and a stretch along the Ashokan Reservoir we came out on the depressingly busy NY 28.  We opted for indoor dinner at the Santa Fe Restaurant, which pushed our arrival at the Kenneth Wilson campground until after 8PM. I got the tent up as quickly as possible in the fading light, wishing all the time that it was a free-standing model instead of an ultralight with a zillion guy lines and stakes. I collapsed into the tent, even though the campground had showers.

Fun fact: The NYC water supply is fed by gravity from reservoirs like the Ashokan, and is not filtered, though it is UV-disinfected.

Map

Total Distance: 63 miles

Day 2 Kenneth Wilson to North/South Lake 

We enjoyed a great 2nd breakfast at Bread Only, a very unexpected pastry/food truck on NY 28 in Boiceville. Even their chickens were entertaining!

Chickens at Bread Only

At Mt Tremper, the road turned uphill on pavement until we reached the entrance to the Primitive Bicycle Corridor/Overlook Mountain trail at the Zen Monastery. 

The entrance to the Overlook Mtn trail--the "Primitive Bicycle Corridor." It doesn't look so bad now.

The PBC was 2.2 miles of 11 % gradient. In itself, the gradient wasn't so bad, but I was out of gear and only pedaling 60 rpm, so I frequently stalled after hitting rocks and ruts. 

The PBC was the carriage road access to the creepy ruins of the early 20th-century never-completed Overlook Mountain House at the summit. 

Ruins of the Overlook Mountain House.

The ruins are a reminder that the Catskills were a destination resort area in the late 19th century.

We lunched at the summit, but the clouds enveloped us and obscured the promised views of the valley around Woodstock. We actually rode right past the goat path down the other side of the mountain. The first mile or so of single track was eminently ridable and fun, but after that we were reduced to pushing downhill in a stream bed. It was more than two hours and 4.5 miles until we came out other side.

Bridge at the end of the trail at Platte Clove Rd.

The route back down to the Hudson River valley and West Saugerties was Platte Clove Rd, made famous as the Devil's Kitchen climb in the 1990 Tour du Trump. Sections of the descent were more than 20 %; I did not like the way the front end squirmed in the turns. 

We made good time into Palenville, and I began to think that the day was nearly over. I ate the best sandwich of the trip at the Circle W market in Palenville. Unfortunately, the day was far from over, as the route departed the road, and returned to the eroded carriage roads. 

As at the entrance to the Harding Rd Trail, the NYS employee who was tidying up the parking area asked "Are you going to ride up that? I wouldn't do it." Our local intel from the Circle K was that the first segment was ridable, but after crossing the falls, the path turned rocky and narrow. We started at the same time as a woman out walking her dog. She consistently outpaced us on the ridable sections. After 1:15 of pushing, the trail finally leveled out. We proved the locals wrong and rolled into camp at North-South Lake, after a short detour to the Kaaterskill falls (and another abandoned hotel).

More information on the Overlook Mountain House.

Maps

Total Distance: 43 miles

Day 2 is broken into halves because I was trying to save Garmin battery. 

Part 1

Part 2

Day 3 to North-South Lake to  Diamond Notch Lean-to

Everyone was ready for a rest day after two solid days of late-evening finishes. We all agreed to skip the trail section in the middle of the route near Windham especially because the day was going to end with another uphill trail section to the Diamond Notch lean-to. 

After leaving North-South Lake campground, we descended on the rail trail (complete with the original ties) that once brought visitors to the Catskill Mountain House resort, which NYS burned to the ground in 1962.

After leaving Hunter, a spoke on the rear wheel broke, which put an end to the bombing of single-track and gravel segments for the rest of the trip. The wobble of the rear wheel was almost 20 mm. 

Early in the afternoon, we arrived at the base of the final climb up to the Diamond Notch lean-to. After the roadway ended, the trail appeared pretty ridable.

The base of the Diamond Notch trail. Looks pretty ridable! photo credit: Bill Erickson 

The ridability ended quite suddenly, and we were once again reduced to pushing. The situation deteriorated significantly at this portage.

Our first significant obstacle.

The only way to get up was to remove all the gear from the bikes and ferry it up on multiple trips. Crossing and recrossing the stream in MTB shoes was pretty sketchy. And I really feared that we would cross and recross the stream farther up the trail. We were fortunate that although nothing beyond the portage was ridable, it was a steady gradient with no more crossings. We reached the overlook after only about 50 minutes of pushing. Several groups of hikers were quite surprised to see MTBs on this section of the trail. 

Dinner was dehydrated Chili-mac, which was surprisingly good for a product whose "sell-by" date was in 2050. 

Links:

• Catskill Mountain House

Maps

Total Distance: 33 miles

Day 4 Diamond Notch Lean to to Bloomsville, NY

After a long downhill, some gratuitous uphills to avoid the highway, we arrived in Prattsville, and the famous Pratt Rock. They should really advertise this as "New York's Mt. Rushmore.' 

Some of the carvings on Pratt Rock. He was proud of having sponsored the legislation to create the "Bureau of Statistics." And he liked the working man. One might interpret this tableau as "Workers smashing part of the government," though.

Zadock Pratt founded the town, ran the largest tannery in the US in the mid-19th century, and served in the House of Representatives. He also survived four of five wives, two sets of whom were sisters. 

Lunch was at the Prattsville Diner, where I ate another sandwich (roast beef on toast), and recharged my Garmin. 

The afternoon was hot, and we fought a 20 mph headwind on the Catskill Scenic Trail, a railtrail that parallels 23 to Stamford and Hobart. As the afternoon wore on, I started to come unglued. I had one speed. Sometimes it was faster than everyone else, and sometimes it was slower. We had no fixed end point for the day. The plan was to find some public land (undoubtedly tick-infested), push off the road, and camp there. Fortunately, the world is populated by people who are much nicer than I am. Bob chatted up a gentleman on the path in Hobart, who invited us to camp on his property, which was literally on the route we planned to take. We refreshed at Sal's Traditional Meat Center (#2 rated sub of the trip!) and ground out that last 2.5 miles. 

Our host's property was like a living landscape architecture magazine photo essay. 

Our host on Bramley Mountain Rd. The landscaped gardens extend down the hill to the right. 

Maps

Once again the day is broken in two to save battery. 

More information

• Catskill Scenic Trail 
• Zadock Pratt and Pratt Rock

Day 5 Bramley Mountain Rd to Little Pond campsite

This section of the trip was the closest to what I envisioned it would be like. The hills are not as high, and the roads were perfect gravel. We stopped for second breakfast at a diner in Andes. 

The remains of second breakfast in Andes, NY

The climb out of the Pepacton Reservoir was long and hot.  I'm pretty sure that I rode past here in 1983 on my insane "Making a plan is planning to fail" ride from Ithaca to Poughkeepsie to visit Maria Laurendeau. 

The Ithaca guys had arranged for some friends from Ithaca to meet us at the campsite, so there would be real dinner and beer for a change. Since the day was short, we were in camp, after the world's longest lecture about the campground rules, by 2:15. 

Little Pond campsite and one of our saviors, Ruth Sherman.

Maps

Day 6 Little Pond to Ellenville

We had explored having Jim and Ruth ferry us to Ellenville, but in the end we made the right decision and rode the 55 miles. Again, the roads were empty, especially the segment on Pole Rd after Willowemoc. Using the original route was a non-starter: it contained a 1 mile segment that was not marked on Ernie's hiking map, followed by 5 miles of snowmobile trail. The modified route avoided the big climbs by adding miles.

I did find a road bra just outside of Parkville, NY. (#90 of all time). 

We arrived in Ellenville and our untowed cars around 1PM, had a quick lunch, and I hit the road. 

Maps

General observations

Riding a MTB felt painfully slower than riding a touring bike. It was hard to get used to going so slowly. Given the amount of pushing we did, I'm not sure that I wouldn't have been better off on my CX bike. 

My fitness was really poor. Usually on a multi-day tour the first couple days are rugged, but then the fitness comes around. On this trip, my recovery degraded from day 1 until day 3, and then plateaued. 

The grips on my MTB were designed by a sadist. I was worried that they might be bad, but they were awful. Even a week later my right pinky finger is still tingling. I really needed the 1990's bar-ends.

Camping is fun. But I don't want to do it on every trip. 

Fifteen years ago I would have been stoked about how epic some of the segments were. Now, not so much. 

Apparently no one lives in the Catskills. Even on the numbered county highways we saw almost no vehicles. 

The number and variety of abandoned buildings was quite notable, especially compared to Northern Virginia, where they are quite rare. 

Sandwich rating system

I ate a lot of sandwiches during the day. I've ranked them from best to worst. 

1. Italian Sub. Circle W Market Palenville, NY. Best Italian sub I have eaten in several years--better than the Westover Italian Store. The roll was critical and awesome. The second half of it even tasted great after riding in my jersey pocket for 2.5 h. 
2. Italian Sub. Sal's Traditional Meat Center, Bloomville, NY. Pretty good, but maybe I expected more from a guy named Sal. Good banana peppers. 
3. Italian Sub, Arianna's Restaurant, Ellenville. Uninspired, but acceptable. 
4. Roast beef on rye, Prattville Diner. It was very OK. 
5. Roast beef on rye, Hensonville Food Lockers, Hensonville, NY. Meh. I was going to get an Italian sub, but the guy making the sandwiches seemed overwhelmed, so I just had him make what Bob was having. 

Other food

• Pecan sticky bun. Only Bread, Boiceville, NY Great chickens, and a very sweet sticky bun, served from a food truck that had an air-conditioned trailer mounted portajohn. 
• Rossili's diner, Andes NY. Tremendous oatmeal. Google lists this place as Woody's Country Kitchen, but that sign was definitely gone.
• Steak Burrito, Santa Fe, Woodstock NY. It was fine in the way that Chili's is fine. 

Gear

I forgot to weigh the bags at the start of the trip. Bob totally outdid me with his to-the-gram spreadsheet of gear. But at the end, everything weighed 19.7 lbs. I ate about 3 lbs of food. The bags alone were 2.5 lbs. 

Bike

• 50 mm Panaracer Gravel King tires @50psi.  I felt totally confident on these tires on the rare occasions that it was possible to ride the trail sections. 

The Stumpjumper on day 1, while it was still clean.

Bags

• 16.5 liter Ortlieb seat-pack https://www.ortlieb.com/en_us/seat-pack+F9902 460 g
• 15.0 liter Ortlieb handlebar-pack https://www.ortlieb.com/en_us/handlebar-pack+F9922 420 g
•  4.0 liter  Revelate medium Tangle frame bag https://www.revelatedesigns.com/index.cfm/store.catalog/frame-bags/TangleFrameBag 250 g

The Revelate frame bag made it impossible to pull bottles out of the frame, and I even broke one of the cages at some point while wrestling a bottle in and out. Next time (?) I'll strap the bottle cages to the fork legs. The size of the frame bag made it too tempting to over-fill it, which frequently caused it to  rub my calf, which was pretty annoying.  Other than those small problems, the bags were bomb-proof and problem-free. 

The Revelate Terrapin seat bag system that Bill Erickson used seemed to sway less, probably due to the plastic housing for the dry bag. 

Very little room remained at the start of the trip. 

Food and Clothing

Although the composite image above doesn't show it, I ended up taking two jerseys, and two Craft white base layers instead of the gray baselayer. I used every thing I took, except the Castelli leg warmers. I wish I had taken regular synthetic cycling socks instead of wool socks, because the wool socks took forever to dry. I was risking a case of trench foot for a while. 

By the end the only food that remained was the freeze-dried Kung Pao chicken.

Stuff I should have taken, but did not:

• a tiny line for drying clothes and hanging the anti-bear food bag,
• a chamois cloth for drying off after showering,
• a trail spoon (I lost mine and had to borrow one from Bill E.),
• duct tape,
• spare spokes (it turned out that I had them at home).

I had bought some Al bar stock to make adapters to drop the bottle cages down the frame more, but I never got around to making them. 

Health

The grips on the MTB were punishing. My hands fell asleep every time we were on a road section. Even a couple days later both hands are still tingling. On two successive days, I nearly gave myself an upper back spasm while trying to wrestle my sleeping bag into the handlebar bag. That back weakness is certainly related to the hand problem. 

Usually on bike trips, the day 1 and day 2 are a bit rugged, and then the fitness comes around. This time I felt progressively worse each of the first three days, and then just plateaued at a low level. 

The ride was hard--much harder than I expected it would be.