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Overlook Mountain Fire Tower Road 1/8/2005

catskills

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Ski Area: Overlook Mtn Fire Tower Road near Woodstock, NY

Date(s) Skied: 1/08/2005

Conditions: Center of road PP, sides of road powder/loose frozen granular

Trip Report: Awesome day for hike up the Fire Tower road to the Overlook Fire Tower. This is not a ski resort. So I had to earn my turns. I put my alpine ski boots and skis on my back pack and hiked up. The fire tower road is not used by any motorized vehicles in the winter. It is well hiked and the center of the road was packed down by foot traffic and snowshoes. No other ski or snowboard tracks other than mine. Most frequent question was, "have you done this before". My answer, "yes".

I did meet this couple on the way up. I said to the guy I know you somewhere. He said, " did you ever give blood" Oh yeah your one of the nurses that takes my blood donation.

Back to the report here are some pictures from the top of Overlook Mountain near Woodstock, NY today.

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Skis on Top of Overlook Mtn

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Overlook Mountain Fire Tower

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View of Hudson River from top of Overlook Mountain
 

catskills

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I am not as young as I use to be. Summer time I can hike Overlook in 50 Minutes. Sunday with packed snow trail, and 40+ lbs of ski boots and skis on my back, it took me 1.5 hours. Nice slow easy hike up. If you are going to go up you better hurry before the big melt this week.

I need to get a set of skins, which should make it easier. Having ligher AT boots wouldn't hurt either but then again I don't do this enough to justify it right now.

The other trail I want to ski is the PlatClove mountain road from the Police Camp down to West Saugerties. This road is closed in the winter to motorized vehicles. Probably some snowmobile trafic. Looking at the topo map it should be close to 2000 feet of vertical.

BTW it was either do this or watch the Giants loose on Sunday. Sorry I couldn't resist :wink:
 

JimG.

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catskills said:
The other trail I want to ski is the PlatClove mountain road from the Police Camp down to West Saugerties. This road is closed in the winter to motorized vehicles. Probably some snowmobile trafic. Looking at the topo map it should be close to 2000 feet of vertical.

BTW it was either do this or watch the Giants loose on Sunday. Sorry I couldn't resist :wink:

Be careful on Plattecove...there are more than a few Hunter regulars who drive up/down regardless of the fact that it is closed in winter. And there is some snowmobile traffic.

I made the same move Sunday regarding the Giants...I'd rather ski than watch anyway.
 
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