Cat Mountain - 7/4/11

This trip was a chance to explore the entire Cat Mountain & Thomas Mountain loop in the Cat & Thomas Mountain Preserve.  Leesa and I stayed at the Thomas Mountain cabin on 7/3 and were on the trail by 6:30 AM headed for Cat Mountain.  We decided to take the gravel path (orange trail )to the summit and returned via the ridge trail (blue trail) back to Thomas and down.

You could not see Lake George down below from the cabin on the night of 7/3.  Low clouds had settled in. 

You can almost see Lake George from Thomas Mtn.... still some low clouds

Interesting clouds

Looking SW from Thomas Mtn

 The morning of 7/4 promised to be nice. As we headed up Cat, we saw Adirondack photogragher Carl Heilman coming down. At that point we were about 20 or 30 minutes from the summit. He had already been at the summit to take sunrise photos. You can see them on his facebook site Carl Heilman II Photography - Wild Visions, Inc.

We reach the summit around 8 am and got some great views. The clouds were settled in down below, so you couldn't see the valley, but it was great anyways.

Is this heaven?

Leesa taking a great from her own picture taking

Looking W SW from Cat

I should know my flowers, but I don't.  What is it?

The ridge hike back to Thomas Mountain was more difficult, with some ups and downs, but the terrain was varied and interesting, and a couple viewpoints to the west were along the trail.

The entire loop was about 6.5 miles and took about 4 hours at our leisurely pace.  A great trip.