Fire Tower Challenge – Blaze To Blaze

Overlook Mountain Wild Forest – Overlook Mountain Fire Tower

Trail Map: I used the NY NJ Trail conference maps – a free map for the Fire Towers can be found here.

Miles: 4.98

Trails: Overlook Spur (red)

Mountain: Overlook Mountain.

My map:

[TL;DR – This is an easy path, following the old fire tower road straight up. There wasn’t much to see on the path, save for the ruins of the Overlook Mountain House hotel. Views were opening up when we got to the top. There were no snakes at the top (even though it was mating season) due to impending rain.]

This was one of those hikes where if it was called off, it wouldn’t rain all day. And if the trip stayed on, there would be rain. Fortunately, that rain held off until we were most of the way home. And when it rained, it poured. I wouldn’t have wanted to be on the mountain when it hit.

The parking lot is right across the street from a Buddhist temple, complete with prayer flags and prayer wheels. It is open for visitation, and while we were there, there was a ceremony taking place. I did not have the time to stop over and take a look, but I highly recommend it.

So, what is this hike like? This picture is all you need to know (until you get to the top.)

The hike follows the Overlook Spur trail, which uses the road to the fire tower. It rarely changes. And it is uphill the whole way, I don’t recall any level sections. It was interesting that there were electrical wires overhead the whole way up. I could have taken this picture ten more times to fill up space.

Fall is definitely coming though.

Just before reaching the top you will come to the ruins of the Overlook Mountain House, one of the old Catskill Hotels. From reading in the fire tower keeper’s house, this was the third iteration of the hotel. The trail goes through the ruins, so it is worth checking out.

Shortly after the ruins, I had two interesting finds:

The Hen of the Woods is edible, but it looked like it had been there a while.

As we neared the tower, these signs became more numerous:

Apparently, there are numerous snake dens near the top of the mountain and it is advised to stay on trail. At the top, the Fire Tower keeper mentioned that this is mating season, and the snakes are usually out and about the top of the mountain. However, with rain coming in imminently, they were tucked away in their dens. I would have liked to have seen one or two…from a distance.

The Overlook Mountain Fire Tower:

Beyond the fire tower, and the fire tower keeper’s cabin is a nice viewpoint overlooking the Ashokan Reservoir.

Here is my first shot from when we first got to the overlook.

And here’s a picture I took before leaving.

This was trip four for the County Parks System fire tower challenge, we’ve been to five of the six towers. Our last trip will be to Balsam Lake Mountain.

Ticks: 0

Blazes:

Hiked: 9/9/2023

I’m not dead yet…

I’m not.

Weather and multiple trips to Michigan have conspired to keep me from getting out as much as I would like. I’ve had a bunch of hikes planned for the weeks where I was not travelling, but weather has been crazy wet around here cancelling everything. It has been a wet and cold spring; which probably doesn’t bode well for the summer. So, WHERE have I been in the last three months?

I was thrilled to snowshoe in the Catskills, enough so that I got a pair. Of course, that just ensured we wouldn’t see snow for the rest of the winter. I used snowshoes on Red Hill Mountain as part of the County Park System’s / New York State’s Firetower challenge. It was definitely a blast, and has changed my perspective on winter hiking completely. Here are two shots from Red Hill:

A couple of weeks later I climbed Slide Mountain in the Catskills. While I was hoping to snowshoe, we only needed microspikes. What a great day, with great weather, and great views.

Including my favorite sign in the Catskills:

The week after Slide Mountain I traveled with the Park System (again) to Katterskill Falls. This was a great hike, but Katterskill Park just gets too crowded for my taste. The falls were awesome, as were parts of the Escarpment Trail that we hiked. But there were just too many people.

Almost a month later, I traveled to the Millbrook area in order to hike some trails, hike Van Campens Glen, and see Millbrook village. The village was neat. Van Campens Glen and the falls were neat. But stay away from both the Pioneer Trail and the Hamilton Ridge trail. Both trails are massively overgrown, and I stopped counting how many ticks I pulled off at 20. Further, the Watergate area is STILL closed, which means a long road walk back to your car if you parked at the village.

Yesterday, I saw another bear in Harriman, just before the rains came down (again.) No pictures because it happened so fast.

I’m hoping for better weather in the future so I can get out more.

Phoenicia – Mount Tobias Wild Forest – Mount Tremper

Park Site

Trail Map – from the site, I used the NY NJ Trail conference map

Hike Distance: 6.19 miles

Trails: Red (Phoenicia?)

Mountain: Mt. Tremper

My map:

This was hike 1 with the Monmouth County Park Systems on their Fire Tower Challenge. They are running trips to see the six fire towers in the lower Catskills. The challenge description can be found here. While there are five towers on top of mountains, a sixth is right next to the visitor’s center which we drove right by. I suppose, if you live in the area, this is not that bad. Coming from the Jersey shore, this is a bit of a drive, and makes the challenge more interesting. There are trips all throughout the year. Trip 1 was to Mt. Tremper and the visitor center.

The Catskills got snow on Wednesday and Thursday before our trip. The weather called for sun in the morning, with partial clouds in the afternoon. Fortunately, that didn’t happen; it was sunny all day. However, this would be a microspikes day – up and down in microspikes. And, we had snowshoes strapped to our packs. That wasn’t a problem for me, I was testing a new pack. It actually came last Saturday, but I was already out and it was too late to use. I’ll review it down the road after a few more trips. The bottom of the mountain was mostly snow and ice and microspikes definitely helped. As we got higher on the mountain there was more snow – we estimated about eight inches at the top. I never used the snowshoes – I should have, I don’t know when I’ll get the chance again.

Zoom in on the picture of the kiosk. At the lower left you’ll see a warning about timber rattlesnakes. Supposedly, around the 1450 mark there is a quarry to the left of the trail housing a den of almost 100 timber rattlesnakes. During warmer times, the snakes are out on the rocks and trail sunning themselves. Obviously, at this time of year, we didn’t see any. Maybe I’ll come back to check that out.

Mt. Tremper from the Catskills Visitor Center

This would be a relatively easy walk up. The trail follows an old Jeep road up the mountain. There were a couple of steep sections, but not for too long. At the top, with more snow; the snow covered all the rocks we would have had to deal with. Because of the snow we basically walked up a hill. On the way down, the temperatures warmed up to the high 40s and the snow became much softer. The bottom of the mountain became a mud puddle.

The higher we ascended, the more snow we found and the less ice.

Before reaching the top, at around 1.8 miles, you will come to the Baldwin shelter (and privy.) Just above the shelter is a spring that had a lot of water running through. At the top of the mountain, you will find another shelter. From there it’s about 250 feet to the tower.

As I am not one to climb towers, here’s a view from the first landing.

Here’s what the tower looks like.

There wasn’t much of a view from the top of the mountain, even with the leaves down. I heard from our group that the view was much better all the way at the top of the tower; but the trees are almost as high as the tower.

We made quick work of the descent. I was able to grab a few more pictures. I took pictures through the trees while the leaves were down. I suspect that during the spring and summer, you can’t see much.

While I took a picture of these rocks due to the ice, I think the snake den would be a little above this (towards the right.) Our trip leader mentioned it on the way up.

Life: None, it was too snowy. Not even any tracks.

Blazes:

Hiked: 1/28/2023