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Vent: I hiked the same 12 mile loop for a decade before a stranger showed me a use trail that cut it to 8
I used to do this loop in the Catskills every summer, same trail, same campsite, same view from the same rock. Been going since I was about 19, so figure 10 or 11 trips. Two Augusts ago I ran into a guy near the second creek crossing who asked why I was heading up the long switchbacks when there was a use trail that went straight up the drainage. I told him I'd never seen it. He walked me maybe forty yards off the main trail and pointed at a faint path between two boulders. I tried it the next morning and it cut almost four miles off the whole loop, plus it dropped me at a better spot to filter water. I felt dumb, but mostly I felt like I'd been sleepwalking through my own backyard. Turns out the old trail gets covered by blowdown every spring and nobody clears it, so most people never spot the turn. Now I watch for cairns and worn dirt way more than I watch the blazes. Anyone else got a shortcut they found by accident after years of doing it the long way?
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dakota_rivera27d ago
Wait, are you sure that drainage trail is really the same route everyone thinks it is? Honestly, use trails in the Catskills are usually not official paths, they are just herd paths that form when enough boots wear down the dirt, and the DEC actually asks people to avoid them because they cause erosion and confuse lost hikers. That shortcut you found might feel like a win, but if it goes straight up a drainage it's probably tearing up the soil every time someone walks it, and it can wash out bad after a heavy rain. The blowdown thing makes sense too, since those old herd paths do grow over fast once nobody keeps them open. Tbh I'd still rather take the long way than risk getting cliffed out or stepping on a protected plant up there.
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