Sorens First Hike

Last weekened, Aviva and I took Soren up to the Catskills to spend the weekend with Abby, Ilana, Amy and Abby's dog Monkey at a house on Esopus Creek near Phoniecia. Beautiful little house, great company and an overall fabulous weekened .... but the highlight of the trip was definitely our hike on Saturday afternoon to the Giant's Ledge in the Slide Mountain Wilderness.

The hike was relatively short, at most 3.5 miles round trip (including our accidental detour on the way back), but it was pretty steep and quite rocky, so getting up there still took a while. Plus we forgot Sorens Becco carrier, so we ended up carrying him on our shoulders and in our arms the whole time ... he is not as light as he used to be :)

But carrying him was actually a ton of fun. And other than a little vomit in the hair, it was really no problem and he had an absolute blast. He as so fascinated by the trees and plants and all the other things to see. I think the thing that most captivated Soren throughout the hike, and perhaps the weekend, was Monkey ... Soren just loved watching that dog run back and forth as we hiked. Monkey seemed to love it also, he spent the whole time running from the front to the back of us, lapping up the outside.

The hike itself was really pretty, we passed over a small stream and then headed up the mountain from about 2200 feet to around 3000 feet at the 1st Giants Ledge where we stopped for lunch and some great views. Apparently there are 4 ledges, but we were very happy to take over the first one when we got there.

While we were there we saw a family of garter snakes, which Soren probably would have loved, but he missed them entirely. Then we headed back down, which went quite a bit faster ... or would have if we had not missed the turn and spent a while hiking down the wrong, unmarked trail. But we figured things out and got turned around pretty quick. Soren was completely wiped out by the time we got to the bottom of the trail, and actually fell asleep in my arms for the last 20 minutes of the hike. It was adorable.

The views from the top were a pretty great reward for the ascent.

It was pretty cool to see the garter snakes, but unfortunately Soren was not interested.

He was pretty happy with the view though, and we were certainly happy to have him up there.

And the hike back down was just as fun as the way up!

Yup, the sign is pretty obvious, but we all missed the turn on the way back down.

Taking care of Soren throughout the hike was definitely a multi-person job, and we are so glad we were with such caring, wonderful friends to help us out with it.

And, being that we were in the Catskills, the trip ended with a breakfast at Sweet Sues (of course), for the best pancakes in NY. Sorens butternut squash, zucchini and salmon mush may not have been quite as delicious as Abbys corn cakes, but Soren still had a pretty good time at breakfast :)