Cotton Hill Hike

We were trying to think of something cool to do for Valentine's Day (I know, we're mushy like that) when a friend suggested we put our new camping gear to the test. We settled on doing a hike, and what a hike it was.

Jon began researching The Long Path, which runs 350+ miles from New Jersey to Altamont, and decided that checking out the Cotton Hill lean to would be an excellent place to start.


The Cotton Hill section of the Long Path is a 12.8 mile stretch that begins in downtown Middleburgh and heads up the cliffs of Middleburgh, which has sweeping views of the Schoharie Valley. This first 1.65 miles are incredibly steep, and required us to scale some rocks to get to the top. We also noticed that someone had electricity running up the mountain, which initially we blamed on punk kids, but then realized it was there to illuminate the star that is visible from Route 30 in the winter months. We continued along the edge of the cliffs, stumbling upon random camp sites.

The trail, well marked with the turquoise paint swatches on trees, winds through the hills ascending and criss-crossing the gorge and old logging roads. It wasn't until we were making our way off the backside of the cliffs where we ran into some um, er, navigation difficulties.

As it turns out we missed one of the turn offs that would have taken us along the Long Path. Instead we ended up in the back 40 of someone's farm at the end of Durfee Road. This wouldn't have been a big deal, as we knew we weren't too far off track, except there were probably 20 sows and more piglets than we could count running loose throughout the woods and for a quarter-mile up the road. We knew that this could be incredibly hazardous for our health, as you don't mess with a momma pig. Armed with our hiking poles we confidently (I use this very loosely)head through the hoards of pigs up the road to pick up the trail again and head into Cotton Hill State Forest. No joke, had a sow felt that we threatened her babies, we would have been attacked by ginormous pig, charging, biting, stinky pig.

Back on the trail again we made several more steep ascents up Cotton Hill with the shadows growing longer by the minute. We knew we were only about two-miles from the lean to, so we picked up the pace and hiked on. We made it to the lean to a bit after dark. Jon began scavenging for wood to make a fire, and I began clearing snow out of the lean to so we would have a dry-ish place to sleep. Hunger pangs finally got the best of us, so we boiled some water to add to our mountain meal on Jon's homemade camping stove. We quickly snuggled into our sleeping bags as the wind was picking up and the sun was long gone and enjoyed a warm meal of rice, beans, dehydrated veggies and chicken. Hey, we never said we were classy. By that point it was pitch black and time to sleep, yes, and that was at about 7:30 p.m.

We figured we'd be warm in our 20-degree and zero-degree sleeping bags - man were we wrong. We shivered our way through the night, even contemplating packing up camp at 4 a.m. to just get on the trail so we could warm up. We managed to get a couple more hours of sleep, gobbled up warm-ish blueberry granola and coffee and then headed out to finish the last 5 miles.

By the time we were hiking we were so excited to be warm again we weren't paying attention to the six-inches of snow in the woods, and yet another steep ascent of Canady Hill looming in the distance. Knowing we were only a few miles from the Jeep made it easy to ignore the snow, wind and hills.

The last mile and a half is a nice walk along a hedgerow in a field that leads to Canady Hill Road, which was only a mile from where we parked. The Long Path follows Canady Hill Road and turns east on Lawton Hollow Road. While we were walking up the road a vehicle slows down to talk with us. "Hey, is that your Jeep up there," asked the local. "Yup, it is, we were hiking," we responded. The local proceeded to curse and explain that he noticed our vehicle parked on the side of the road yesterday morning and last night and figured we were hiking, but when he saw that it was still there Saturday morning, he got worried and reported it to the Sheriff. Oh great, just what we need is a search party out there looking for us. We thanked the local for being concerned and hiked on, devising a plan of what to do about the Sheriff. Just as we were getting to the Jeep, the Sheriff crests the hill and we flag him down. "Is this your car?," he asked. "Yeah, we were hiking on the Long Path and spent the night at the Cotton Hill lean to," we replied. "Wow, heh, okay... well I'm glad you're both okay. I still need to get your names and dates of birth for the report," he said. So we obliged by giving him our information.

We threw our packs into the back of the Jeep, excited to ditch the weight off our backs, and climbed into the Jeep, reveling in the wind-free, heated zone.

As we headed back up Route 145 we decided that the past 24 hours were interesting and an experience that we're not sure we'd like to do again - the hike was great, but the overnight temps made it unbearable. Thanks but no thanks winter camping.