A day exploring the flanks and waterfalls of this gorge, and the trailless crags above them, was a fine introduction.
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He led me down the side of a trailless canyon on one bright morning, as we stayed on the slick-rock and off the fragile biological crust that secures soils against erosion.
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The different outcome is largely because the Catskills' more open forests mean that its trailless peaks actually are trailless, whereas it has been hard to say that of the Adirondack trailless peaks for some time now.
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Two approaches that are at least partially trailless have been used by those seeking greater challenges.
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Doll Mountain, , is a prominent peak in the Taconic Mountains of western Massachusetts. The mountain is located in Pittsfield State Forest. The summit is wooded and trailless, but the multi-use Doll Mountain Trail traverses its northern slopes. The mountain is wooded with northern hardwood tree species.
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Trailed and trailless routes exist to the summit. To protect the higher-elevation forests, DEC regulations prohibit camping above 3,500 feet (1,067 m) anywhere on Forest Preserve land in the Catskills except between December 21 and March 21. Open fires are banned in those areas all year round.
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There are four available routes up Hunter. An unlimited number of trailless routes also, of course, exist but the mountain is rarely bushwhacked. Two offer the possibility of climbing Southwest Hunter on the same trip as well, an option frequently taken by peakbaggers aspiring to join the Catskill Mountain 3500 Club.
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Common recreational activities in the Stephen Mather Wilderness include backpacking, camping, wildlife watching, climbing, and hunting. There are some of trails in the wilderness, include the Pacific Crest Trail, which crosses the southeastern corner of the park for about . Much of the area can only be reached by multiday hikes, often combined with mountaineering, through remote, trailless territory.
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Boulder River Wilderness boasts approximately of trails, though the central core of the area remains rough and trailless. A short trail extends up Boulder River for through old- growth forest. Three short trails climb toward the high crest and eventually peter out. Another trail crosses the northeast corner of the Wilderness over Squire Creek Pass, with outstanding views of the high crest.
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Fort Mountain is a mountain located in Piscataquis County, Maine, within Baxter State Park. Fort Mountain is flanked to the southeast by North Brother Mountain, and to the north by Mullen Mountain. Although officially trailless, a well-defined herd path leads to the summit of Fort from North Brother. Fort Mountain stands within the watershed of the Penobscot River, which drains into Penobscot Bay.
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This has left a series of prominent, bare rock scars on the upper slopes. There are four trailless peaks in the area — South Dix, East Dix, Hough and McComb — that are over 4,000 feet in elevation. Many approach these mountains from a popular, unmaintained trail off NY 73 which provides access to a slide scramble up East Dix. From there, all the major peaks are connected by herd paths.
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At , from the notch, it reaches Devil's Acre, the low point between Hunter and trailless Southwest Hunter. It begins with the junction with the yellow-blazed Hunter Mountain Trail, which leads uphill (approximately elevation, 1.6 miles) to Hunter's summit and its fire tower. Shortly after the junction is the Devil's Acre Lean-To. Past the lean-to is a fairly wet area, a result of all the past logging, then the trail begins to descend.
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As one of the Catskill High Peaks above in elevation, a successful ascent of Halcott is required for peakbaggers seeking to join the Catskill Mountain 3500 Club. It is on public land, part of the Catskill Park Forest Preserve, but has no trail. Hikers bushwhack through the relatively open woods to sign the canister at the summit and prove their climb. It is considered one of the easiest of the 13 trailless High Peaks.
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Blue Canyon Creek and Crown Creek tumble down the north wall of the valley, forming waterfalls before they merge with the Middle Fork. Downstream, the Middle Fork flows through Little Tehipite Valley and then enters a rugged, trailless deep canyon in the Monarch Wilderness just outside the western boundary of the park. It joins with the South Fork Kings River to form the main stem of the Kings River, about upstream of Pine Flat Lake.
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Kudish, Michael, The Catskill Forest: A History, Purple Mountain Press, Fleischmanns, New York, , 2000, 121 Despite an original idea to continue the trail on over North Dome Mountain and Mount Sherrill to the west that led to a sign (still in existence) erected at the proposed junction site, those two peaks remain trailless today. There have been some proposals within NYSDEC of building a modified extension but it does not appear likely to happen at this point.
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The most challenging trailless route is the seldom-attempted approach up this tributary of the East Branch. It begins identically to that route but involves leaving the trail at that crossing and eventually following the brook to the slopes of Slide to the southeast. There is no trail whatsoever through this country and the boreal forest on this part of the mountain itself is reportedly difficult to penetrate, even by the standards of other peaks in the vicinity.
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The 46 highest mountains in the Adirondack High Peaks were thought to be over when climbed by brothers Robert and George Marshall between 1918 and 1924. Surveys have since shown that four of these peaks — Blake Peak, Cliff Mountain, Nye Mountain and Couchsachraga Peak — are in fact just slightly under . Some hikers try to climb all of the original 46 peaks and there is a Forty Sixers club for those who have done so. Twenty of the 46 mountains remain trailless.
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Three of the five people who had played important roles in founding the club were, for various reasons, never able to become members; and Dan Smiley himself died with only one climb left for membership. The peak list would remain in this form until 1991, when Southwest Hunter Mountain, a trailless peak lacking an official name, was added after a contentious membership vote. It had originally been left off the list due to uncertainty over whether it was really a separate peak or not and the difficulty of establishing where its summit was.
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Graham is near the eastern end of the range beginning at Barkaboom Mountain in Delaware County in the west and centered around the lengthy Mill Brook Ridge. A ridge with two summits known unofficially as East and West Schoolhouse mountains connects Graham with Balsam Lake Mountain, the westernmost High Peak. Between Graham and Doubletop, the Catskills' highest trailless peak, to the east is a steep and deep col below the summits on either side. The slopes of the mountain on the north and south alternate between steep hollows carved out by creeks and gentler hollows between them.
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North Baldface lies directly to the northwest. Eastman Mountain, a partially wooded mountain that is climbed by a trail that diverges from the Slippery Brook Trail, is to the southeast. Sable Mountain and Chandler Mountain, two heavily wooded and trailless summits, are to the southwest. The northeast and east sides of the mountain drain into the Cold River watershed, a tributary of the Saco River, which flows to the Atlantic Ocean; the west side drains into the East Branch Saco River, thence into the Saco; and the south side drains into Slippery Brook, a tributary of the East Branch of the Saco.
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This role brought it into conflict with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, which manages the Catskill lands, in 1999 when DEC's Unit Management Plan for the Slide Mountain Wilderness Area called for the removal of the canisters from the trailless peaks in that unit, arguing that they were not consistent with wilderness values and contributed to degradation of the summits. After an overwhelming response in favor of retaining them, DEC and the Club reached a compromise in the pending update to the Catskill Park State Land Master Plan in which DEC would take over ownership of the canisters, the names of mountains would be removed from the exteriors and the canisters themselves repainted a dull grey on those summits that lie within areas designated Wilderness by the DEC.
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Dix Mountain is the sixth highest peak in the High Peaks Region of the Adirondack Park, and is located roughly on the boundary between the towns of North Hudson and Keene in Essex County, New York. The peak was named in 1837 after John Dix (1798–1879), who was the Secretary of State of New York at the time, and later became the state's governor. While it stands somewhat south of the main High Peaks region (and in fact is at the center of its own Dix Mountain Wilderness Area) and is more difficult to reach and steep and challenging to climb, the mountain enjoys great popularity with serious hikers not only due to its status as a required peak for Adirondack Forty-Sixers but for open views of the region from its summit, almost as good as those to be found at nearby Mount Marcy with far less crowds. Dix is also the gateway to four other High Peaks in the Dix Range, all of them, unlike Dix itself, officially trailless: Hough, Macomb, South Dix and Grace Peak.
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A long route that very ambitious hikers have used, especially on multi-day trips with attempts on the range of trailless peaks to Slide's southeast, follows the east branch of the Neversink up to the ridge connecting Slide and Cornell. Starting from the Denning trailhead, the P-EB Trail is followed 1.1 mile (1.8 km) to its junction with the blue-blazed Peekamoose-Table Trail, which drops down to the east 0.35 mile (560 m) into the river valley near the flood plain at the Deer Shanty Brook confluence and its many channels, some of them difficult to cross at high water. After one of the last, alert eyes can find the beginning of the "Fisherman's Path," an unofficial trail following the East Branch far upstream into the wildest country in the Catskills. It takes some skill to follow this trail, as red paint blazes that sometimes appear are often painted out by DEC forest rangers (there are, however, some official campsites along its length) and while it is sometimes wide and obvious it is not always, and switches sides of the river several times.
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