If you want to know the truth, the whole thing depressed the hell out of me right from the start…read more People talk about the Devil's Path up in the Catskills like it's some kind of grand, soul-searching experience, but mostly it's just thousands of feet of jagged rock sitting there waiting to break your ankle while some guy in brand-new high-tech hiking boots tells you how "restorative" the fresh air is.
It's phony as hell.
The trail isn't even really a path, it's just a continuous, miserable scramble over gigantic stone slabs, wet roots, and sheer drop-offs. You go straight up a mountain like Indian Head or Twin, huffing and puffing until you feel like dying, and then the trail just dumps you right back down into a ditch, forcing you to turn around and do it all over again on the next peak.
You're grabbing onto tree roots and in the late fall,your sliding down slick, icy rock chimneys, trying not to pitch off the side of a cliff, while wet pine needles drop into your collar.
Every time you finally drag yourself up to a ledge where the view is supposed to be "life-changing," you end up sitting on a damp stone next to three guys discussing their GPS watches and showing off their expensive trekking poles.
It kills me, it really does. The forest itself is nice enough if everybody would just shut up for five minutes. Plus it smells like balsam fir and ancient damp earth, and when the fog rolls in through the hemlocks, it finally feels right to me because its dead quiet and honest.
But then i ran into a troop of weekend warriors yelling across the ridge about their lap times.
If you're crazy enough to tackle all twenty three miles of it which i certaindid not, you'll end up exhausted, soaked in sweat, and covered in mud, wondering why you didn't just stay in the city and get a sandwich and a beer.
It'll test if you're tough enough, surelyim not anymore, it just makes me want to go lie down in a warm room by a fireplace with a little glass of brandy where nobody is talking about elevation gain.
