Windham Closes Out a Very Catskills 2023

Timeline:

• 10:30 AM Start hiking
• 12:00 PM Summit Windham, take a 20 minute lunch break

• 1:55 PM Back at car

• Tracks: AllTrails
• Conditions: Muddy, cool (high 30s/low 40s) mostly dry but completely socked in by fog

This was it! After lots of planning and hiking, I was down to my final Catskills high peak of 2023. When I applied to the 3500 Club, I listed Windham as my favorite peak because I’d had such a great time hiking it after being couped up during the early days of Covid in the spring of 2020. So it felt fitting that it would be the last of the year for me.

Alex and I were staying at Albergos in Windham this week, so we were able to have a leisurely breakfast and morning before she dropped me off at the Peck Rd trailhead where I was joined by Max and John. This was a reunion from hiking The Nine last fall.

Just like yesterday, it was foggy and we couldn’t see the mountain peaks. It wasn’t raining, though, and I had some hopes that the views would open up by the time we made it to the summit.

Windham is an easy but rewarding hike. I’m always struck by this transition from a more open wood to a much denser, darker one:

Entrance to the dark, spooky woods — the stone fence is on the other side

It coincides with a stone fence (on the other side), so perhaps this was the edge between pasture land and a logging area? Surely Kusish could say!

Soon we were at the summit. Sadly, no views.

We had lunch and made our way back down. The fog did lift a bit, but Windham doesn’t have openings lower down, so there were no spectacular views for us today.

After some more muddy hiking, we were back at the cars and my 2023 goal was complete! As a bonus, this was a new winter peak for me, and Windham became the first peak that I’d climbed in all four seasons: spring, summer, fall and now winter. My Catskills hiking project and this blog were largely inspired by the NJ/NY Hikes blog and its author’s goal of hiking all the Catskills high peaks in 2013. Now I’ve done the same!

Here are some stats on my hikes this year:

• 22 Hikes in the Catskills
• 5 solo hikes
• 1 overnight hike
• 2 Catskills 3500 Club hikes
• 23 hiking partners
• 3 repeated peaks (Panther 3x, Fir and Blackhead 2x)
• 187 miles hiked
• 129 hours spent hiking
• Longest hike: Kaaterskill/Indian Head/Twin at 13.3 miles
• Shortest hike: Halcott at 4.4 miles

I doubt I’ll do this much hiking next year, but who knows? Maybe I’ll try to finish off my winter peaks in early 2024. After today I’ve only got 15 to go. I may also pull Alex and John G into the 3500 Club. Each of them only has 11 peaks to go!