North Dome and Sherrill

[mountainmeijin]

I applied a complex series of algorithms to choose this hike for today. First, my six friends who insisted I take them to visit the Burroughs Range after seeing some of my pictures of the area suddenly wanted to reschedule today's hike for next week (I hate scheduling group hikes)...but of course, I would never waste free time on a day like today. Second, I wanted to catch up on my trailless peaks, since I had 9 left (7 after today). Third, seeing the recent trip report for Graham and Doubletop, which were my original choices, I decided to go elsewhere, owing to phobia of looking like a Johnny-come-lately. Fourth, the southern-most Cats tend to appeal to me less than the rest of them...I think I just find the Peekamoose Valley unattractive for some reason. That left North Dome and Sherrill for a multi-peak bushwhack.

I started out of the Devil's Path PA on Spruceton Road at 10:10 AM...later than I would have liked, owing to a combination of oversleeping and failure to find the camera. I made a mental note to angle off toward North Dome before reaching height of land at the Westkill-North Dome col in order to avoid the steepest parts of the east side...then completely forgot about it, reaching that little pond at the col by 10:50. There was minimal snow on the lower slopes, making for steep, slippery but not overly troublesome going. The first complication was that huge cliff at 3,000 feet. It seemed like any part of it that was less that vertical was thoroughly iced up. As a result, my inattention to my own route planning advice wound up costing me about 30 minutes of crashing around the eastern face in slippery sidehilling hell looking for a way over the cliff. After passing the steeps, the hike to the summit was easy, since the highest point was quite distinct. I reached the canister at 12:30. I found a decent herd path leading in a westerly direction nearby, and followed it intermittently to the summit of Sherrill...the ascent up Sherrill was not nearly so complicated. At the Sherrill canister I took a quick break to rejuvenate myself, but realized that seeing as how it was now 1:40 I was rather behind schedule and would have to work faster to get back down before daylight started running out. I pulled out my compass (only the second time that day, and took a line almost due west back to North Dome. I worked quickly down into the col and up again, eventually finding my own footprints and retracting them back to the North Dome canister by about 2:25PM. I took a compass line slightly north of east to avoid the same problems going down. Going was still steep, but not nearly so intimidating. The cliff at 3,000 feet was still tricky. I found a passage down and suffered my most colorful injury of the day. Attempting to lower myself down an icy rock chute I grabbed onto a 3-inch diameter fallen limb that had fallen across the lip with the idea to lower my legs down, hang by my arms and do a sort of monkey-bar swing-jump onto the level below. The branch shifted, came unstuck, bonked me on the head and started me on a 30 foot slide until I stopped myself against a tree. In any case, I got down the cliff. From then on the descent was much simpler. By 4:00 I had reached the Devil's Path about 200 feet below the col. By 4:45 I was signing out at the register. As I reached into my backpack to find my car keys, I noticed they were just sitting there...right on top of the camera. In case you haven't gathered it from my trip reports yet, I'm a complete idiot. I've had more trouble with that camera lately...been on three hikes since I opened my Webshots account to share pictures on here and I haven't been able to upload one! I promise I'll get nice ones next time, so you have can have real pictures of the action, and not just my dull ramblings.

I'll be back again. Time constraints prohibited me from doing much exploring, and I'm told there are good views from the top of that east side of North Dome. I get knocked around plenty on these hikes...but I would be lying if I said that I didn't absolutely love winter as my favorite season.

[mudhook]

Northdome usually has something in store; cliffs, nettles, side slabbing, thunderstorms. To avoid the cliffs, take a bearing from the trail a little past where it first meets the stream and go straight up. This misses the views however. Or go past the little pond in the col and head straight for the ridge coming from the TimberLake camp. (left of the cliffs you can see). This avoids the nettles and you get the views. Its a nice mt., different each time. Good TR.

[daLunartik]

Yikes, a 30' slide! Honestly part of why I've put off doing these two solo a few times now. Glad to hear you made it back, er, safely.

Thanks for the TR - we'll let you slide on the pictures this time, but next time

[rockysummit]

Nice TR. Glad you made it out in one peice. Also, there's a ledge on the eastern side of Sherril with excellent views, although a little hard to find. Next time, with a little more daylight, should do the trick.