Balsam Lake Mountain (Catskill Park)
Hike Type: Out-and-Back
Distance: 6.09 miles
Elevation: 1201 feet
Time: 2 hours, 28 minutes
Hiking Challenges: Catskill Firetowers; Catskill 3500 Club
The Hike
I had hoped to hike this mountain the same day I did Overlook, but the weather wasn't looking great for that afternoon. I was headed up to the Adirondacks for my inaugural trip for a few days, so I took the scenic route and stopped at the Catskills on the way up. This was an early Wednesday morning, and I was lucky enough to have the whole mountain to myself the whole day! The temperature was in the mid-50s, which truly felt amazing after the deadly heat from the past few days. I parked at the trailhead, christened the woods nearby, noted the first of my signs indicating that Graham Mountain is closed, and started my hike.
The trail crosses the road immediately and then starts its consistent, gradual climb for most of the journey. About a quarter mile into the woods there is a trail register and another Gramahm Mountain closed sign, so I signed in and kept on. The one downside of having the mountain to myself in the morning is that I had the blessing of eating every single spider web. Thankfully, the trail mimicked the Overlook and Tremper fire tower trails as being part of a wide path that likely was a former road.
The trail was pretty gentle and featureless, but through nice woods. There were two stand-out sections: one area had massive boulders and interesting rock formations, and the other was where the herd path to Graham Mountain branched off. Interestingly enough, there was no closed sign at the fork, even though there were closed signs elsewhere.
Soon after the fork to Graham Mountain, the trail junction with the Balsam Lake Mountain Trail (red). The red trail turns right to climb Balsam Lake Mountain, which I followed. It follows the wide trail to gate, which I believe is meant to stop snowmobilers from going further. The trail then alternates between short, steep climbs, and flat sections. Soon enough the backside of the cabin appears and there's the summit!
The summit has the cabin which was locked, a firetower, a picnic table, a USGS benchmark, and there may have been a privy somewhere off in the woods, but don't quote me on that. The view from the firetower was great! Not Overlook quality, but still a great view. The tall evergreens make for a great foreground. I wandered around the summit area trying to find the benchmark, which did take a minute, but I found it in between the cabin and firetower in the woods. I had a drink and snack and started my return trip.
Not much happened on the return trip - ended up being a quick and easy return. One thing I did notice was that some water bars were made with old telephone poles, some of which still had trail markers on them. Soon later I was signing out, crossing the road, enjoying being by myself, and started my long drive to the Adirondacks!
Step-By-Step
- Cross Mill Brook Road and start hike on Dry Brook Trailhead.
- Sign register, continue hike on blue-blazed Dry Brook Trail.
- At junction with herd path, continue on blue-blazed Dry Brook Trail.
- At junction with red-blazed Balsam Mountain Trail, turn right onto red-blazed Balsam Mountain Trail.
- Summit mountain, turn around, and retrace steps.
"Balsam Lake Mountain" from Wikipedia
"Balsam Lake Mountain is one of the Catskill Mountains, located in the Town of Hardenburgh, New York, United States. It is the westernmost of the range's 35 High Peaks. Its exact height has not been determined, but the highest contour line on topographic maps, 3,720 feet (1,130 m), is usually given as its elevation. Located within the Balsam Lake Mountain Wild Forest management unit of the Catskill Park Forest Preserve, in the late 19th century its summit became the site of the first fire lookout tower in the state, operated by members of a nearby sportsmen's club. It was later taken over by the state's conservation agencies, which built several improved towers on the site, one of which remains, along with its accessory buildings and has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places,[3] although it has not been used for fire detection since 1988. The summit is also the site of a rare sphagnum bog that has been affected by acid rain since a mid-20th century windstorm blew down many of the trees sheltering it at the time. The tower and the views it commands, as well as its ease of access by the old truck road to the tower, have made it a popular attraction for hikers despite the mountain's remote location. Many are peakbaggers aspiring to membership in the Catskill Mountain 3500 Club, for which Balsam Lake is a required peak."
"Geography" from "Balsam Lake Mountain" Wikipedia
"Catskill forest historian Michael Kudish says the Mill Brook Ridge range, including Balsam Lake, is one of the areas in the region showing the fewest signs of human disturbance. The Iroquois who were the first settlers in today's New York only went into areas above 1,500 feet (460 m) to hunt, if they went there at all. European settlers established few farms in the area, both before and after independence. The clearings that give the Quaker Clearing trailhead its name are the only significant past agricultural use that can still be seen today. Limited logging, primarily by farmers procuring firewood, took place above those clearings. A steel frame tower with a staircase climbing the inside and an enclosed cab on top in front of a stand of evergreen trees Fire tower.
The most significant developments in the human history of the mountain took place in 1887. The state bought the southeast slope of the mountain that year for the newly created Forest Preserve, ensuring the land would remain forever wild, always in public ownership and never logged, per a law later added to the state constitution as Article 14. Also that year the Balsam Lake Club decided to erect a crude wooden fire lookout tower on the summit so that an observer could detect fires that threatened the lands around the lake and the headwaters of the Beaver Kill where they hunted and fished. It was the first such lookout tower built in New York State.
Two years later, the state bought more of the mountain, and eventually acquired the summit itself in 1900. At some point before the United States Geological Survey resurveyed the area for its 1901 maps, the Turner Hollow Road, an old, rough turnpike connecting Seager and Quaker Clearing, often used by members of the Balsam Lake Club to get to the train station at Arkville, was rerouted from the col between East and West Schoolhouse mountains to the one between West Schoolhouse and Balsam Lake. The southern portion survives as part of the Dry Brook Ridge Trail.
Eight years later, in 1909, the state's Forest, Fish and Game Commission took over the fire tower; a decade later it built the first cabin and replaced it with the steel tower that stands today. By 1935 the state was maintaining not only the jeep road to the summit but the old Turner Hollow Road south to Quaker Clearing and the foot trail from the summit to the road.
The Great Appalachian Storm of November 1950 took a heavy toll on the summit balsam firs. Blowdown was extensive in both the bog and non-bog areas. The trees that remained standing died more rapidly due to the exposure. It has since recovered, but the bog has become vulnerable to the effects of acid rain in the meantime, possibly changing its growth patterns.
After a series of severe droughts and fires in the early 1960s that led to some temporary closings of the Forest Preserve,. fires and the damage they caused declined due to an increase in public awareness of forest fire danger and the decline in activities that caused them. Staffed fire towers became less essential; the state began closing them down and dismantling them in favor of more cost-effective aerial surveillance.
In 1976 the Balsam Lake Club donated 3,615 acres (1,463 ha) to the Catskill Center for Conservation and Development, keeping all but the immediate shoreline of the lake itself. Three years later, the Catskill Center in turn sold the land to the state, putting most of the mountain in public ownership. When the first Catskill State Land Master Plan was drafted and implemented in the mid-1980s, the 13,500-acre (5,500 ha) contiguous tract that stretched from Balsam Lake Mountain to Alder Lake over Mill Brook Ridge was designated as the Balsam Lake Mountain Wild Forest, a land classification slightly less restrictive than a wilderness area allowing for state vehicular use of the road up the mountain.
The fire tower remained staffed until 1988, one of the last to be closed. Hikers continued to climb it for the views, even though it was no longer maintained. A proposal by the state Department of Environmental Conservation to dismantle the Red Hill fire tower in nearby Denning led to a community effort to save and restore the five remaining towers in the Catskill Park. In conjunction with that effort, the new Mill Brook Ridge Trail was built from Alder Lake in the west across that mountain's two eastern summits to Balsam Lake, to connect the trail system on the hills above Pepacton Reservoir to the central Catskill trail system and provide another link in the Finger Lakes Trail."
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