This Saturday, Stephen and I did the 24.8 mile, 18,000 vertical foot (9,000 up, 9,000 down) Devil’s Path in the Catskills. My quads continue to scream two days later. The hike climbs 6 mountains (summiting 5 of them), dipping at least 1200 feet down between each peak. It’s a constant up and down, up and down, all of it on loose, steep, rocky and occasionally slick terrain. I’ve got the High Sierra, Glacier, North Cascades, the Uintas, and a few other spare day hikes to compare it to – it’s the most difficult terrain and probably the most difficult hike that I’ve done.
We started at 0700 at the Prediger Trailhead and finished around 1815 on Spruceton Rd, stopping for an hour or so total in between. The 25 mile day hike is a challenge that is not to be taken lightly. By our lunch date with my family at Devil’s Tombstone Campground off 214 (around 1230 and 14 miles in), my quads were already quivering under the eccentric loading. I was having a hard time visualizing how I’d possibly handle that pounding under a 40 lb pack (a nice example of the terrain). You do not, of course, do it all in one day in that case.
The views were pretty sweet for what they were, though they don’t stack up against the views out west. The hike was perfectly pleasant until it transitioned from “oh, how nice, nature!” to the long, painful slog toward the finishing goal. That was the point of it, so it remains pleasant as I struggle up and down stairs even today. The terrain was definitely interesting, and I enjoyed the uphills. These were on the very edge of what you need switchbacks for – most parks out west would take hills as steep as these tangentially and with switches. Here, probably due to the denseness of vegetation and desire to avoid having to maintain a longer route than minimally necessary, the trail plowed straight up the hill. Down was, unfortunately, just as steep, with loose rocks and crevasses requiring full concentration for huge stretches at a time.
Other than very nearly smashing my camera when I slipped on a wet rock a few miles in (I’m very impressed that it wasn’t destroyed, I really smashed that thing), there weren’t too many noteworthy occurrences. We saw a few small snakes in a tree. We saw a guy with no shirt in a transparent poncho, despite the beautiful weather. Actually, there were TONS of hikers out – we probably saw 50+ folks on the trail, though most doing shorter loops. Apparently a girl that started before us also finished the full trip before us (we never saw her). I can’t visualize covering the distance much faster than we did. We ran sporadically in the very occasional flat portions (maybe 2-3 total miles, and probably no faster than 9:00 mile pace because the terrain was still treacherous), we made very good time up the hills…I was a liability going down the hills, which was never my strength, even in running cross country.
No backpacking this year, given the baby. This was good enough to evoke sufficient physical misery to sustain me for a bit. That’s really all I need.
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