Whittenberg/Cornell/Friday/Balsam Cap 4/16

[billandjudy]

We arrived at the Woodland TH at 7:15 and were on the trail at 7:30. We shared the trail with a couple members of the KEDS team. It's a long steady walk up Whittenberg w/ a nice slope. The rock ledges near the summit are a nice change to normal trail walking. We hit Whittenberg's summit at 9:40. It really is a great view from there. It was much cooler than Saturday, with a stiff wind and high clouds. We took some pics, ate a little bit and headed for Cornell. Again, the ledges and cliffs down from Whittenberg and then up to Cornell are a fun part of the trail. We made the summit and took the spur trail out to the lookout. The girls from the KEDS team were there waiting for the guys to join them after taking a car to the Peekamoose They were doing 8 summits that day, our route of Whittenberg, Cornell, Friday, and Balsam Cap, but then on to Rocky, Lone, Table and Peekamoose. We left the girls and started down to our bushwack start at the ridge line leading to Friday. Within the first 10 yards we realized it was going to be a long tough walk to Friday. It was incredibly thick. We took our bearings on the GPS and compass, put our heads down and just bulldozed through. There were several spots where we had to detour from our course as it was just too thick to get through. We ended up dipping down to the Neversink side a bit to find better conditions. It was an improvement, but not much. We eventuall made the summit of Friday at which point the KEDS team caught us. They had walked the ridge line and had made better time than us. We found the canister, all signed in, took pictures and off we went. We shared the trip over to Balsam cap with them. Compared to the trip to Friday it was a relatively easy walk to Balsam Cap--many herd paths and the understory is not nearly as thick as the approach to Friday. Found the canister, more pics. we said our goodbyes and headed back. In hindsight (considering the distance and combined vertical) I suppose it would have made more sense to leave a car as they did and just continue on, but neither of us really like driving home alone. So off we went--made good progree back to Friday until we lost the path we were on and ended up too low on the east slope and were staring straight up at the cliffs. What a sight! We followed the base of the cliffs back to a spot where we could gain the ridge again--found a path--and came out at the cannister again. It was getting late and we knew we had a rough go ahead of us so we took off to Friday. We tried to stay closer to the ridge and it help some. We had a few more "open" areas than our original approach, but at the same time it some areas than were impossible to get through--so more detours--my GPS kept losing signal (more later) so we followed a NNE 20' course as best we could. Eventually we hit the trail about 100' down from where we had begun. It was 5:00 and we still had to reclimb Cornell and Whittenberg. We booked! Made it back to the car at 7:15, legs cramping, cut, scraped, jackets torn--we looked like a war zone! All in all an incredible day--12 miles roundtrip, 4400 vertical, by far our toughest day of hiking ever. We came out feeling great though. We navigated well w/ compass and map, so now we know we don't have to rely on a GPS. A side note--I have a Magellan Explorist 300. Up until now it has performed pretty well. But this trip it lost signal in heavy cover quite often. The KEDS team was using a new Garmin GPSMap 60CSX--He was tracking 8 signals on Fridays summit--I was tracking 4.
What a day!-Some pics http://community.webshots.com/album/549567603GwqVnj

[Mark Schaefer]

I saw your TC report on VFTT late last night, and was glad that you made it out of that thick mess alive. It never ceases to amaze me how those trees can grow so thick. It seems like there is more wood than air in some places. There really is no good way between Cornell and Friday. A few may be more luckier than others I suppose. A loop or through hike is often easier if for no other reason than you know you don't have to go back through that thick stuff again. Nice pictures. Thanks for sharing.

[Tmax]

Nice trip report and great pics! I did the Slide, Cornell, Friday hike last year with my dog. We got trapped below the cliffs too when trying to get back to Cornell and had to retrace our steps back up to the summit. Unfortunately, I tried to climb up some of the real cliffy stuff and dropped the dog off one of the ledges... thankfully he was fine but he is now skiddish on that sort of stuff!