Ticetonyk Mountain(Phoenicia/Mount Tobias Wild Forest-Catskills)

With a forecast for 100% sun and temps soaring to near 50 degrees, I knew today would be a great day to get out and do some exploring.  Headed down into the heart of the Catskills to explore 2510 foot Ticetonyk Mountain, a peak I had hiked previously but from a different direction.  I had been itching to re-climb this for a while, and a recent fellow blogger's trip report helped moved this trip up to the forefront.
There is access to this mountain from both NYC DEP land and NYS DEC land along Peck Road, each with their own parking areas.  Having already hiked from the DEC parking area, I would be starting today from DEP land just east of the YMCA at an elevation of about 1300 feet.  As with many of these Catskill peaks, I passed by snow covered stone walls standing stoic, rugged and handsome. 

While this hike is considered a bushwhack, much of the mountain is laced with old woods roads and paths that make for very easy traveling.  With old roads this good climbing the mountain, it might as well be a trail.

It's small things like this that satisfy the explorer in me. A frozen over vernal pond on NYC watershed land was as beautiful as it was unexpected.

On my ascent there were several woods roads and paths that branched off the road I was on, but I stayed on the most direct route up.  The woods road petered out into more of a foot path up hgih, but surprisingly continued all the way up to Ticetonyk's far western ridge, near 2100 feet.  Within moments it was clear why there is fairly well trodden path here....

...a jaw dropping view south from a clearing just off the ridge.  Many of the Catskills highest peaks rise in front of you from this vantage point, including much of the Burroughs Range.

I saw various herd paths exploring this clearing, leading to several different spectacular view points.

This was quite a spot, with a unique and pretty incredible view.

A small portion of the Ashokan Reservoir is visible with South Mountain and Ashokan High Point rising beyond.

After enjoying the views, I began my true bushwhack east/southeast towards Ticetonyk's summit, which sat just over half a mile away. The woods were very open and easy to navigate, with sparse mountain laurel scattered about. 

As I neared the summit area, I could no longer avoid the mountain laurel.  It was fairly thick in spots, but luckily I stumbled across several game paths that helped me elude the worst of laurel. 

After fighting my way through the nasty mountain laurel, I hit the summit area, with open hardwoods and very pleasant conditions. 

After hitting the summit, I dropped down towards the steep east/ southeast slopes in search of views.  I found mostly screened views to the east until I hit an open area of ledges with amazing views SE down towards the Ashokan Reservoir and beyond.  In the foreground are Little Tonshi and Tonshi Mountains.

A zoom view towards the tower atop privately owned Tonshi Mountain, which sits just below 2000 feet. 

This view=my early Christmas gift to myself!  Wow!

With temps soaring into the upper 40's, I decided to take my lunch break from this open ledge, basking in the full sunshine.  A sweeping view, stretching as far as the Taconics near the Connecticut state line was quite the reward.

After finishing my quick lunch and a drink, I decided to drop down to the near vertical southern slopes below the summit and caught interesting views down towards the large, frozen pond at the foot of the mountain as well as the dividing weir across the Reservoir.

Eventually made my way over towards a gentler descent down the peak's southern ridge.  Once below 1900 feet, I headed more SW, bushwhacking more directly towards my car.  Picked up various old woods roads along the way, leaving each of them until eventually hitting my original route up.  2 to 3 inches of firm, crusty snow early on in the day had turned to much and gloppy snow on the way down making for a couple of tricky spots.

A beautiful spring feeling-early winter day in the Catskills.  This mountain had a little bit of everything and was extremely enjoyable.  Hiked about 4.6 miles RT with about 1450 feet of ascent.
Today's route below.  Blue=Ascent   Red=Descent