Headed south to explore 1924 foot Pine Mountain, an obscure peak nuzzled between Route 30 and 23 just east of the hamlet of Grand Gorge. The mountain sits on NYC watershed land and is really just a small peak with a long, flat plateau on top. My access point today was from scenic dead end Van Aken Road, where public land is nestled among the rolling pastureland of an active farm.
I parked on the shoulder of the road(Elevation 1380 feet), just past the public land boundary, where an opening in a barbed wire fence provides the point of entry. Within just a few moments of climbing through the open pastures, a great view west beyond the working farm opens up. Grand Gorge sits snug in the valley between Irish Mountain(left) and SE Morseville Range(right), with much smaller Jump Hill down below. In the distance to the far right is some of part of the rest of the Moresville Range.
Beyond the open pastures, I hit the open woods, where the mountain's namesake pine trees began to take over.
A steady but uneventful ascent brought me up to an enormous meadow at just over 1800 feet. The meadow is quite open and flat and seems like a perfect place to spot a deer, which is exactly what I did when I arrived here.
A few yards past the open meadow sits a large vernal pond, which had a light coating of ice on this frosty morning.
I circled around to the western shoulder of Pine Mountain, where I found some impressive, enormous old wolf trees in a clearing.
Continuing east through the open woods, I made my way past a maze of stone walls and woods roads to arrive at the plateau like, pine covered 1924 foot summit.
On the descent, which I kind of zig-zagged my way around, I stumbled upon the remnants of a small, old, long abandoned quarry.
A light coating of snow on the tree branches overlook this stone wall on the steep southern slopes of the mountain. Stone walls literally dotted nearly every corner of the mountain I hit.
Eventually made my way back down to the open pastures and accompanying great vista into the western Catskills. By this time of the day, the sun had melted away all of the morning frost and warmed the temps into the mid 30s.
A nice and easy day of meandering around in the woods for a total of 2.8 miles and over 600 feet of ascent. Map below. Red P=Parking Blue X=Summit
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