Why
Fire Towers, A Fear Of Heights And 3rd Time Lucky On Hunter Mountain
wasn’t going write another blog about my winter backpacking experiences no matter what happened earlier this week. But after looking back at another successful 24 hours how could I not?
The Numbers
Hunter Mountain is the second highest in the Catskills at 4040ft, and I climbed it twice on this trip for sunset and sunrise. We camped in the Devils Acre shelter at 3500ft with an overnight temperature of 13 degrees Fahrenheit that’s -11 Celsius for my English readers. The overall route was 12 miles with a total elevation gain of 2700ft, with my only concession to the weight that I had to carry was to leave my tripod in the car.
Basically this trip was the furthest I’ve snowshoed, the coldest I’ve camped and also the second time I’ve climbed a fire tower without freezing in fear from vertigo. The resulting imagery meant I finally managed a few bucket list images from the summit of Hunter Mountain………………….. I’m still on a high a few days later writing this in a nice warm house.
The Winter Bucket List
This was born a year ago, 13th Feb 2024 to be precise, when I took the photo below over at Boyce Park just around the corner from my house. It was the only decent snowfall we had last year – about 6” and I rushed to get the driveway cleared so I could get out and take a few photos. Looking at the row of evergreens I longed for a mountain scene behind it – I suppose I could turn to AI and artificially add something but where’s the fun in that?
I knew then that my Catskill photography project would have to include Winter camping in order to give me a chance of photographing alpenglow up close and personal …. ie golden hour light illuminating snow covered evergreens with some sort of mountain backdrop. How hard could that be!!!
Sunset after a fresh fall of snow at Boyce Park, Dover Plains, NY
3rd Time Lucky At Hunter Mountain
During the last week of March in 2024 I set off up Hunter Mountain with my good friend Amy with an aim to camp in the John Robb shelter overnight and then climb up to the fire tower the next morning. There were a few inches of snow on the ground and the temps were just below freezing that night – I did everything wrong! My camping gear was only rated for 3 seasons, but how hard could it be to throw on a few extra layers and tough it out? Not only that my water supplies froze and I didn’t eat enough, overnight I was a mass of cramps, it was miserable!
The next morning we got up to climb the remaining mile to the summit fire tower, my body just ran out of energy and I’ll admit now that we didn’t quite make it up the last steep incline, so I never saw the sunrise that morning. I was angry with myself on the way down later that day, I don’t like to fail, but looking back now it was a vital step on the road to where I am and what I do now.
The trek wasn’t a complete failure though, as I did manage some photography at sunset from the ledges near the shelter.
Spruceton Valley and the Westkill wilderness
The second time Hunter Mountain beat me was in September 2024, and this time it was the weather that didn’t play ball. I was overnighting with Moe again hammocking at the John Robb Shelter. My aim was to climb the fire tower to record the first color in what would become a beautiful autumn. As the day wore on the blue skies receded, we hiked up to the fire tower but by late afternoon the cloud cover had killed any chance of sunset photography. The following morning we didn’t even bother to get up for sunrise the shelter was deep in cloud and it was raining, the forecast had indeed let us down.
Fall color in the Spruceton Valley and Westkill wilderness
What is it about a Fire Tower?
Before I detail my third and most recent hike up Hunter I just wanted to take a minute to consider my interaction and relationship with fire towers
I hate them!
Well maybe hate is too strong a word, but climbing them is definitely THE most uncomfortable experience. I think it goes back to when I was a kid and a department store in the town where I grew up had an open staircase leading up to the first floor. Being dragged along behind my mum and looking through the empty risers down onto the floor we had just left was simply terrifying!
Fire towers are the same but on steroids! They are completely open, they sway in the most gentle of breezes and they just don’t seem safe …… but … wow once you can drag yourself up above the tree line the views are so worth it!
Overlook Mountain was my first fire tower and since then I’ve dragged myself up Tremper Mtn, Balsam Lake Mtn and Hunter Mtn with each one proving to be a great location for golden hour photography.
““Without a fear of heights there can be no appreciation for the beauty of high places” ”
So we come to this week and my 3rd time lucky. The forecast was for calm dry conditions although it was touch and go re the cloud cover with the sunrise forecast looking better than sunset. It was going to be cold so we decided to camp at the Devils Acre shelter on the eastern side of Hunter. At 1.7 miles from the summit It was a slightly better option than the John Robb shelter, being more sheltered and a slightly easier gradient to cover the remaining 600 feet of elevation gain to get up to the fire tower. There was a reasonable snowshoe trench most of the way to the shelter and although it was a tough climb we weren’t really breaking trail. We climbed steadily but had allowed enough time to set up at the shelter before carrying on to the summit for sunset if we felt the weather was going to work for sunset photography.
It took longer to set up than anticipated, the floor of the shelter was covered in ice which we tried to break up and remove before setting up camp. At least it was an activity to keep us warm! After everything was in place we knew it was touch and go as to whether we could make the summit in any sort of daylight, but again it would be something to keep us warm for the next couple of hours and give us an idea of conditions / timings for the morning.
The Winter wonderland in the video was encountered just before we made it up to the fire tower …. It’s Moe’s video and listen for a very faint but excited exclamation from me a fair way behind him as I saw it!
It’s the little things that keep me motivated!
In the end we missed the actual sunset by about 30 mins. In one sense this was a shame because from what we did see it could have been pretty good, however in such cold temperatures there’s no waiting around to see what will develop so what we DID see and photograph was good enough.
The photo below was shot handheld at 6400 iso at 1/25th second and f 3.5 – those are settings that I would never normally choose for landscape photography but by this time it was getting pretty dark and I had to push the camera to deal with the conditions the best I could. Remember that I left the tripod behind purposely to save a bit of space and weight in my pack, but it was also left behind because it takes time to work with a tripod and in cold conditions half way up a fire tower I’ve discovered that time is something the photographer doesn’t have!
After a bit of noise reduction I’m happy with this, I don’t think I’ll ever do a super large print because of the camera’s settings but it does record a nice moment on a memorable trip – and yes the sky was pretty radio active at this point!
Blue hour afterglow at sunset in the Catskill Mountains of New York
The next morning the alarm went off at 5am and we set off a little while later aiming to make it back to the fire tower for 7am and hoping to see a view of the sun coming over the distant mountains. The forecast had 60% cloud cover which could be pretty epic, depending upon conditions at the horizon.
In the end what we experienced was pretty good, maybe a 7/10 with the high level haze helping to spread the color beyond the area around the sun. Unfortunately the haze also. meant that there was no direct sunlight nor distinct alpenglow on the snow and the tree tops – ah well I guess that means there is another trip in my future!
On my first foray up the fire tower and to the west I was struck a rather beautiful moonset in the hazy, clear blue sky
Moonset over Plattekill
Of the three photographs below my favorite is the first, larger image with the profile of Windham Mountain in the background. I like the balance provided by the evergreens on the left of the image.
Then to geographically orientate the 2 additional photographs that I’ve placed below it, you have the Jewett Range which is situated to the left of the Windham mountain photograph and then the unmistakable profile of the Blackheads which are situated to the right of Windham.
Windham Mountain Sunrise
Looking back I can’t believe how calm the conditions were that morning and as I took a last look around before going down off the fire tower I was struck by the view below. The Spruce were so motionless and looked just like the little trees you can put in dioramas alongside railway tracks or Victorian villages! I like both versions – the portrait and landscape format – perhaps you’d like to drop a comment and let me know which you prefer…
Dismount
When the cold and the discomfort fades from my memory something that will stay with me from this entire experience is the stillness, the quiet, the absence of breeze and the absolute calm that we experienced on the top of the mountain that morning. I would have loved to stay longer but there’s a limit to the effectiveness of hand warmers in sub zero temperatures. Thankfully this time was third time lucky and I have the photographs to remind me of the experience
“The Third time pays for all”