Churchill Mountain, elevation 3058'. Solo bushwhack ascent from Tower Mountain Road. 2.0 mi, 558' gain, 55m round-trip. Catskill Hundred Highest 50/100.
After a drive-up ascent of the nearby Utsayantha Mountain, I parked my car near the base of the summit road and headed straight into the woods. Much of Churchill Mountain is on private land, but the Michael Kudish Preserve is located on its northeast slopes, and I bushwhacked quickly through here, following the treeline at the edge of a field.
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| My route up Churchill in street, topo, and satellite maps. Overlay courtest of CalTopo. |
Uphill from this field is a house which I quite nearly ran into, but managed to circumnavigate it. The east side of Churchill Mountain is consistently steep, with very few ledges or natural stopping points. There aren't any easy-to-follow herdpaths or logging roads either, making it a true bushwhack.
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| Open maple forest of the slopes of Churchill Mountain. |
At this particular time of year, the ground was covered in a carpet of vines that made moving rather difficult at times. Often they would get caught up in my ankles or stuck in parts of my boots. The forest itself is pretty open here, but the vines made going unusually slow.
The forest thickens substantially near the summit until it abruptly stops. For whatever reason, Churchill Mountain has a wide summit clearing. The forest is replaced with waist-high thornbushes and underbrush. Perhaps the clearing was manmade and later abandoned, maybe following some more navigable trail on the private side of the mountain.
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| The thorny summit clearing. |
On descent, I briefly got turned around and started down the south side of the mountain, but quickly corrected course and followed more or less that same route I had taken on ascent. I made it back to my car in just under an hour, now halfway done with the Catskill Hundred Highest.
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