Once the travel moxie starts, it’s hard to turn off. Despite the odious heat, now the time of travel has begun. Now is when we need to get it out of our system, when the warmth goes from sunup to sundown and the light is long and forgiving. Once September rolls around, biking is far better but the days are shorter and the weather sometimes less predictable. With that, we’re off to the Catskills for a weekend of biking & camping.
We pack in the morning, after we get out of bed at 7:00. Even though this is an eager trip, we’re pretty lax about the whole thing. We bring enough stuff to bike, camp, get dressed, and even work. Other than that, plus a credit card, what else do you need? For the most part, it is a “wing it” sort of weekend.
We swing by DD on the way and grab breakfast then drive up the NYS Thruway before stopping to grab a slice of pizza before we hit the trails. 87 is not my favorite road in the world, but it’s been some time and I’m ok with it today. We’ve been surfing Trailforks along the way and almost decide to change course. But in the end we stick with our original plan, Elm Ridge. We’d been there a few years ago and were looking for a rematch.
We get there with no issues and hit the overly full parking lot and the heat punches us when we get out of the car. Back in NJ it’s going to be well into the 90s today, which is a part of why we’re coming up here. Temps are mid-low 80s, and in the woods it would be even cooler. But in the sun-backed parking lot it feels like 1000. We do our best to gear up quickly then hit the trails.
D is on the new-to-her Pivot, which she picked up yesterday from Jay at Halter’s. It is a move from a straight XC race machine to the larger, more comfortable, and in my opinion, more awesome bike. We’ll see how that goes.
This will be the first real trip with some new functionality we found in the Trailforks app, which is a sort of heat map in which you can see the trails color-coded in terms of how much they’re ridden. So the “hot” trails are red and it goes down from that. Red first, then orange, then yellow, and finally green which I guess indicates that grass is growing on them. This, plus memory, is how we plan to string the day together.
In the end, this approach works wonderfully. We manage to put together a really solid loop and I think we will be able to raise that a notch next time, to put together a nearly 2 hour loop that would hit everything the park has to offer in all the right directions.
D liked her new bike on day 1, even though it’s heavier. IMO the weight is offset by the ease at which it pedals and the smoothness of the climbing. It’s just 1 day but it was a good start.
We managed to find Berm Out which is a new (to us) trail. This raises the fun factor considerably.
The Strava link can be found here.
For future reference, a trails recap below.
| Trail | Comment |
| Gold Mine (up) | probably take this down to end next time, or skip it and exit another way |
| Fun Loops Trail 6 (up) | |
| Levitate (up) | Easy enough climb |
| Run Noot (up) | Same, a reasonable climb up |
| East Gauntlet Trail | Mostly pure XC, connecting A to B |
| Lollipop | Same |
| West Gauntlet Trail | Same |
| The Bee | A mistake turn, nice connector, up and down |
| North Face (upper) | |
| Big T Trail | |
| Berm-Out (down) | The target for the day! Good stuff |
| Berm-Out (up) | We had to turn around at the dead end sign. Maybe next time go all the way to the end of it? |
| Uphill | Not an easy climb |
| Berm-Out (down; only half) | Just to the Uphill intersection |
| Uphill | |
| Big T trail | Finishing up the second half of this trail |
| Black Bear Hideout | Next time, take Mid Mountain, and Lower Trail |
| Lollipop | |
| East Gauntlet | |
| Run Noot | This was a fun downhill, 1 of the 2 best in the park |
| Levitate (down) | Next time consider going to the far end, and take North Face down |
| Fun Loops (down) | |
| Outerloops South (down) | Would take this up next time and skip Gold Mine |
| Outerloops North (down) | Same as above |
We’re done around 3:30 which is far later than we expected, but we have no rush on the day so whatever. We have very little going on other than to figure out where to sleep, buy food, cook food, and hike for an hour. No pressure.
We swing by a Stewart’s Shop to get some popcorn, pretzels, and tea for the next drive.
On the drive across the state we hit a Price Chopper and grab some food for dinner. The plan is to find a spot to camp in Beebe Hill State Forest. In NY, you can primitive camp in any state forest so long as you’re 150 feet from any roads, trails, or water sources. This is our plan for the day. We’ve both been reading A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson so we’re on the outdoors trip right now.
We get there and it is still hot out.
We then go on an hour long walk because D is on some Strava challenge for 2 months where you have to walk an hour 2 days a week for 2 months. The hill goes right up soon after we start. My legs are none too happy about this. I lag behind like a caboose.
We get to the lean-to which is generally where all the mice in a 7 mile radius live. I’ve camped in these in the past and it’s a bad idea unless it’s raining out. This was not in the equation today due to the distance from the car. But we swung by to see it anyway.
After the lean-to we make it to the top and the tower. Up top the wind is wonderful and it cools you off a bit, though by now I’m sweating profusely again. This is what I do. It’s summer. The views are pretty nice from here, and we can confirm that nothing is on fire. So that all works out for the best.
We end the hike where we started, down bottom near the lake. It’s not so much a lake as a murky pond, bordering on a swamp in a sense. There’s a guy in a kayak fishing. Seems like a decent idea, if we had a kayak. And a fishing pole. And a desire to be on a mosquito pitch. So yeah, we skip that idea.
The Strava hike link can be found here.
After the hike we start to come to terms with the idea that finding a place to put a tent randomly in the woods is easier said than done. As we get closer to the car I’m starting to doubt this idea, which is only exacerbated by the heat and my fatigue. But just as we’re almost to the car D sees a small side path which leads to a spot which will be just fine, and bonus is that it’s 2 minutes from the car.
We then haul everything in that we need. We’d brought backpacks but really, that was overkill and since we didn’t actually pack anything, it was a bit of a theoretical effort. One day we’ll backpack but probably not with bikes in tow.
So dinner. Dinner is almost always good in nature. One time while backpacking, we had plain pasta and a can of tomato soup which we combined to make one of the greatest meals in the history of man. When I later got back to civilization I tried this idea and it was, to be quite honest, flat-out terrible. We had the liberty of a supermarket so we didn’t need to go that route tonight.
D started us off with some cucumbers, tomatoes, and avocados as a salad.
We then added some fresh tortellini which was very good. I ate far too much and I really don’t feel the least bit bad about that at all.
We have a cup of tea as the sun starts to set, and bring back everything to the car in the event that animals find the site and try to eat our stuff. In theory we can hang it from a tree but with the car 2 minutes away, why would we do that?
In the lot we meet 3 guys who just rode their bikes here and they talk up Norbrook Brewery trails in Connecticut which plants a seed in our heads for tomorrow. We have plans, but you never know what will happen. They’re friendly kids and talk about the trails in the area.
After this we get cleaned up and lay in the tent to read.
The night is littered with frogs croaking in a nearby pond as well as either coyotes howling in the distance (or a dog kennel flaring up in the night). We do hear (and I see) a possum in a nearby tree in what appears to be an effort in looking for grubs or something else to eat. But mostly it’s quiet other than the frogs. Sleeping in a tent is never easy, especially on the first night. I do ok, but D is awake most of the night on & off.
I step out of the tent a few times and the night sky is so remarkably clear at night. It’s really pretty awesome. If only the tent had AC and s full size bed, this would be about perfect.
Traveling Normandy 