Lost at 3,700 Feet

Delaware County New York is notorious for its lack of cellphone service. High-ish peaks cut by pristine water formed gorges and valleys, combined with a small population base which discourages cellphone carriers to position towers for continuous connectivity are both a blessing and a curse - especially if you rely on the Google map app on a smartphone.
For those seeking to disconnect from technology and reconnect primitively with nature - Delaware County has it all. But - you better know where you are going.

Maps - the old fashioned kind, the ones that once unfolded are never to be folded in quite the same way again, can be helpful IF you can read them and ONLY IF you are lucky enough to find an actual road sign to tell you where you might be.

Fortune was on my side as I negotiated a "NYC Road" on the backside of the Pepacton - though the map called it a "BWS Road." I have lived in the area long enough to know that the nomenclature is synonymous - one referring to New York City - the keepers and owners of New York City's drinking water supply - the Pepacton and Cannonsville reservoirs, both positioned in Delaware County. The other - BWS - refers to Bureau of Water Supply which is the precursor to NYCDEP or New York City Department of Environmental Protection. This is the county of alphabet agency regulators. 

Balsam Lake Mountain is clearly marked on Catskill Park topographical maps, just over the Delaware County border into Ulster County. However, access roads are not. I eventually came to no-mans-land - Turnwood, New York, where there exists a family trout hatchery, a general store - the kinds that carries everyday necessities at citified prices, a zen monastery 

and The Quill Gordon. These are all necessary landmarks on the quest to Balsam Lake Mountain, the headwaters to the famed Beaver Kill. 

The Beaver Kill is the birthplace of American fly fishing and the landscape is tastefully adorned with an occasional restored farm house, complete with barn - horse or dairy cow - decommissioned and tastefully decorated in a visually non-offensive way.

Nearby Roscoe has capitalized on flash and tourist dollars associated with the recent designation of "Trout Town USA," but purist and hardcore trout fishing, specifically - fly fishing,  takes place just below the headwaters in Lew Beach, just oft Balsam Lake Mountain. There is no public access to these famed waters, however.  With rare exception, all of the real estate in the area has been purchased and posted by latecomers to the country life - those who have lots of money and don't want neighbors, or cellphone service to interrupt their weekend retreats.

A well-worn and easy to miss sign at the intersection of Beaverkill, Alder Lake and Shin Creek Roads points to the trail head - 7.8 miles away. Not a long distance on Beaverkill Road, until the road becomes one lane around blind curves where the Beaver Kill, feeling mighty in a spring storm several seasons ago, jumped its banks and ate the road for lunch. No one bothered to restore the road to two lanes. Orange traffic cones, quite visually offending,  provide a connect-the-dots guide in certain areas along the roadway, to the trail head.  

Extreme care must be taken while traveling this road, which soon divests itself of pavement, then of loose gravel to eventually offer itself up in a raw unrefined form of hard pack dirt, lest there is rain. If it's raining, don't travel this road to the trail head. The road becomes thick, slippery mud just dying to force you into a game of Chicken with unlikely oncoming traffic or the stream itself. The mud will win. The guide rails slid down the stream bank years ago also. No one has fixed them yet either.

If the road and remoteness don't discourage you, the trail will do it's best to succeed. The rocky, steep terrain is relentless. The climb, at times, feels vertical - though there was no actual scrambling involved. There is little time to appreciate the majestic hardwood forests filled with ancient maples, oaks and silver birch trees.

There is a welcomed and poetically timed fresh water spring at the second place one is sure to want to give up, turn around and head home. At this juncture, you have reached 3,500 feet in elevation.

Foolishly, you begin to believe, by a trick of the landscape, that you will crest the ridge of the mountain at any second. It is false hope, but after another couple of hundred yards - that feel like miles, balsam trees start to appear and the boulders become smaller. It is also there that the wind picks up and the weather changes. I hiked in at 40 degrees with a brilliant late-March sun shining high in the sky. As I approached the ridge, occasional patches of dusty snow became inches of snow and ice pack - and just like that - I was in Narnia.

It was like I stepped into Narnia!

 Everything was covered in snow as though it were late January.

It was soon after, a quarter-mile, that I stepped into a small clearing; and just like that, with no warning a fire tower, privy and caretaker cabin appeared in the small circular clearing.  My surprise and joy were short lived. There happens to be cellphone service at the peak of the mountain and I quickly snapped a selfie to prove I made it to the top.  The proof remains, but the temperature, 19 degrees at the cabin combined with sustained and gusting winds put an end to the usefulness of the phone.

The fire tower is the first lookout tower in New York and is on the National Register of Historic Places. The mountain tops out at 3,720 (grueling) feet and is one of The Catskills'  35 highest peaks. Once I am able to use my right knee again without discomfort, I'm going back.

* Lillian Browne works as a newspaper and travel magazine editor to fund her adventure habit - which she indulges every chance she gets. She is exploring the world around her, one step at a time, with her dog - Charlie. Follow her on Instagram or on Twitter @browneinwalton