Phoenicia

She was twenty-eight and living in Kingston, and on weekends she hiked the state land west of the city, mostly the lower peaks where the trails stay quiet.

And that Sunday she'd picked a trail up a mountain near Phoenicia that she'd done twice before.

She had a shepherd mix named Beau on a leash and a pack on her back, and she started up around eight in the morning with the leaves mostly down and the air cold and clear.

The trail climbs through hardwoods for a mile and a half and then levels off into a saddle between two summits.

She said she didn't turn around for a long way, that she walked backward with the leash wrapped around her hand, and that it leaned out one more time to watch her go before the trail bent and the saddle went out of sight.

At the bend she turned and ran, and Beau ran ahead of her the whole mile and a half down, and the leash tore the skin off her palm, and she didn't notice until she was at the car.

She sat in the car with the doors locked and looked at her phone, and it said nine twenty, so she'd been on the trail eighty minutes, and she drove down to Phoenicia and sat outside the general store for an hour before she drove home.

On Monday, she called the state park office and asked if there'd been a bear reported near that trail, and the woman told her there were always bears in the Catskills.

Those wind up at the mentor site.

I just did a talk in Phoenicia for the Phoenicia Arts Festival, a two-hour talk with Linda Montano and Phoebe Legere, and that will wind up at the mentor site.

Mm.

Mm.Such richness.

So it was him and I sleeping together.

in the lean-to waiting for the lights and then he said when we saw the lights he got so excited he had a caffeine pill and he was like all ready and the first thing kumi comes in and all she wants is i need my medical kit i need to sleep and i need to eat and we're not going to leave the lean-to because if we leave the lean-to i'm going to drop out so i'm not going back down to the trailhead where the car is or where the van is and I'm not going back to Phoenicia to sleep on a bed I'm going to stay here in this lean-to so we stayed in the lean-to Probably two hours, three and a

half.

I think an hour and a half.

So they had some night stuff.

And then they had a plateau and then an overpass.

back towards Tremper and Phoenicia.

So the one part of the story that we're still missing, I mean, we got that you were at Mink Hollow, you're waiting for Kumi and the pacer to come, you're hanging out there with Ed, the Ed that we know and love.

true.

So last week, last Tuesday, I drove my art out to Phoenicia, nearby town, maybe 35 minutes away, for the Phoenicia Arts Festival.

That's what I

wondered about.

That sounds amazing.

Totally, totally amazing.

So as I drove home from Phoenicia Tuesday, I felt worse and worse.

I noticed a little lack of energy Sunday night.

And, uh, [sighs] [clears throat] went to the three-year program, [clears throat] which was a little just quick fascinating.

Um, I had been doing some weekend workshops at the place called Phoenicia.

Mm-hmm.

Up in Phoenicia, New York.

[clears throat] And I did a journey, "Am I supposed to do this?"

Mm-hmm.

So, Yeah, with all these budgetary cutbacks, especially on the federal level, it's interesting to point out that the Catskill Club's Trailhead Steward Program, now in its fifth season, have people at the two busiest access points in the Catskills, one being, of course, Slide Mountain.

and the other at the Woodland Valley Trailhead in Phoenicia on weekends and holidays from Memorial Day through Columbus Day, Indigenous Peoples Day weekend.

In the summer of 2025, they had 47 stewards working the trailheads doing hiker counts.

On-the-spot education, lead-no-trace principle, campsite impact reduction, dog-leash compliance, staying on designated routes, map use, turnaround planning, and hydration.

Then they go from Notch Lake up to Hunter and down to Spruce and then they run a short section of road on Spruce Road to the western terminus of the Devil's Path.

Come back on the western side, back to Notch Lake and then come down.

Is it the Phoenicia East Branch Trail all the way down to Phoenicia? OK.

And then once they're in Phoenicia, they go down to woodland valley campground and then do the bur come back up do the burroughs range yeah