We are running, three of us. The trail is rocky and technical and requires lightness of foot as well as the same fluidity of the water that carved the alleged path we are on. Once a stream bed, the trail rises consistently from its beginning at the end of Mink Hollow Road (which, itself, rises consistently from its intersection with State Route 212). I lag behind, the last in the line of the hard working runners, as we head up the trail. The middle runner, though, pauses often to look back, making sure I am not falling too far off the pace. Occasionally, he even circles back to me before bounding off again. Normally, that behavior annoys me—yeah, I know I’m slow—but Willy is a special friend and I don’t mind. Besides, I don’t think he could help himself if he tried. Willy, after all, is a dog—a yellow lab, to be precise—and his concern for me and my order in the pack goes back millennia, to a time when his ancestors ran wild and hunted and lived as a group. He does what is natural to him—checking up on me—and his concern is heartening, though I can’t help but think I am letting him down a little by lagging behind. I fear that the survival of the pack depends on my participation and I pick up my pace to try and keep up.

Ahead, Willy’s regular partner (I hesitate to say owner, but that is what he is) is leading us—he is the Alpha in this pack—and his strides are strong and smooth. Willy picks his way along the rock-strewn path with precision. I am in awe. Not only does Willy have endurance—he and his partner run long miles together on Catskill trails—but he has a nimble touch too, and his style can make me feel like the bumbling stumbling biped that I am compared to him. We cross a few small streams, trickles really, coming off the mountains to either side of the trail and when Willy pauses to drink I pass him. A few moments later I hear him coming up behind me and I move left, making room for him as he streaks past. He is lean and tempered and he has been on many trails since he came to live with KP and John, his people. On the days he doesn’t run with John, he hikes up Overlook with KP. She has also hiked this trail with him and his familiarity with it seems obvious. I wonder: does he remember the contour of the land? Does the turn left here plus the stream crossing there, followed by the short hard uphill there trigger his memory? Maybe it is the way the trail smells? Perhaps, he just recognizes different landmarks and that is how he knows where he is, though that seems the least likely possibility because Willy is slowly losing his sight.

He is young, maybe three years old, but Willy has a degenerative eye disease that, at some point, may take his sight completely. For now, he still sees things—though how much is anyone’s guess—and he is a happy and very active dog. On the trail, the only evidence I note of his failing sight is a slight pause when we come to a foot-high log across the trail. In a moment, however, he has slipped off the side of the trail and found a lower spot to cross the downed tree. A short time later, after we have reached our turnaround point and are passing this same spot again, Willy doesn’t hesitate at all and he easily and gracefully jumps the same log without breaking stride. We keep a solid pace on the downhill run back to the trailhead and I can see Willy’s taut muscles working underneath his wheat- and rust-colored fur. At some point this lighted world will fade for him, though I think he will always know when he is on this trail. Perhaps his brain will compensate, as the human brain does, for the loss of one of the senses with the sharpening of the others. His canine sense of smell, already far superior to that of ours, will most likely help him recall the places he has been. I’d like to think, too, that his memory will be stimulated by his other senses and bring visual images of these places to his brain when he can no longer truly see them himself. I am saddened by Willy’s condition, though I am also heartened by his adaptation to it and I wonder how I would be in a similar situation.

I don’t think that dogs have a self-pity reflex. Our old dog Spike has had his body start to fail on him. Another degenerative condition, this one affecting the nerve path from his brain to his hind quarters, has taken most of Spike’s back leg function from him. He operates like a hook-and ladder fire engine with no one driving the ladder: the front part goes straight but the back part swerves all over the place, like a scene from an old Laurel and Hardy movie. He is perky and bright, however, and seems as happy now as when he was able to run through the woods himself. Willy, too, seems happy and I don’t think the joy and freedom he feels on the trails will change one bit for him, despite his condition. We finish the run and linger at our cars in the trailhead parking lot. We are glad to be done, happy to have put in an hour’s hard effort. Willy is still humming, though; his body seems to be vibrating slightly, as if a subtle electrical charge is running through it. He is warmed up and in tune and I think he wants to keep going. And he will keep going, though not this day. Instead, he hops into the Jeep and heads home for some dinner and a round, perhaps, of chase the cats.

It’s Real Out There
People recreate in many ways in the Catskill Mountains and surrounding areas. There is hiking, mountain biking, rock and ice climbing, horseback riding, cross country and alpine skiing, snowshoeing and white- and flat-water canoeing and kayaking. The terrain here lends itself to some great experiences in any of those activities and ranges from gentle slope to extreme rock face, with the skill level ranging from novice to expert. Most of the time, the outcome of a day out in the mountains is a rewarding and satisfying feeling, with perhaps some sore muscles. On occasion, however, the realities of outdoor adventure rear its tragic head and someone dies here. That was case last month, when a 57-year-old Staten Island man fell to his death rock climbing in the Shawangunks.

Rock climbing, certainly, has more opportunities for serious consequence than, say, a hike on one of the region’s many rail trails, nevertheless, that climber didn’t expect to die when he set out that day; nor do the people who tumble from Kaaterskill Falls every few years or the skiers who meet their ends on the mountains here every so often. To be fair, the number of people who die in pursuit of outdoor adventure compared to the number of participants is minimal, and these words are not intended to scare anyone away from any outdoor experience. No, the intent here is simply to say: it’s real out there and real things happen.

I suppose that part of what those who adventure outdoors flirt with is mortality, but no one I know who plays in the mountains expects or wants bad things to happen. We all know that it is possible, however, and perhaps that is a part of the experience. Yet whenever some does pay the ultimate price, I am asked—and I ask myself—is it really worth it? Do mountains need to be climbed? Do dangerous paths need to be taken? Can’t you exercise in the safety of a gym?

And then there are those who say things like: Well, at least he went doing something he loved. In fact, a few years ago I was riding a mountain bike trail on Long Island when I came upon an older couple. The man had hit an unexpected bump and had pitched hard and headfirst onto the trail. He lay there unconscious, his head cradled in his wife’s lap. As we waited for help to arrive, my riding companion and I tried to comfort the woman as best as we could. She was understandably distraught, yet at the same time very composed and she said over and over again that if this was how her husband died, it would be okay. He did die, and in a newspaper article about the incident a few days later, his widow reiterated what she had said to us on the trail: her husband had died doing what he loved.

Personally, when my time comes I hope that it is after a long and fruitful life. I am reminded of a scene from old Abbott and Costello routine: A mobster is threatening to do in Costello and asks him how he wants to go. “Of old age,” is Costello’s reply. Nevertheless, I will still be out in these mountains and hills, albeit prudent and aware, and fully cognizant of the fact that is real out there.

Catskills Cred
On occasion here, I have ranted about the lack of respect that our mountains seem to get from national outdoor adventure magazines. So much of the editorial and photographic content that make up of those publications are devoted to the western part of the United States or of far off international locales. Those places are truly spectacular, but so too are the Catskills, Berkshires, Taconics and Shawangunks. To further bolster my quest to strengthen our reputation as an outdoor adventure destination, I often come across many elite adventurers with ties to, and an appreciation for, the region Recently, I interviewed a rock climber named Hans Florine. Florine lives near San Francisco and spends a lot of time climbing in Yosemite National Park, on a big wall of rock known as El Capitan. The Nose route on El Cap, where Florine climbs the most, is 3,000 feet high and the first time it was climbed, in 1958, it took 12 days of climbing over 57 days of planning.

When I spoke with Florine, he and his partner Yuji Hirayama had just set the speed climb record for the Nose: 2 hours 37 minutes and 5 seconds. He was a gracious and compelling interview subject and one of the first things we talked about was about the foliage. His wife, it turned out, was a climber and ultra runner (and former supermodel) who learned her sports in the Gunks and she missed the change of seasons. Florine, for his part, climbed here too and was duly respectful of the challenges we have to offer.

In August, I spoke with Duncan Callahan, of Gunnison, Colorado, a young man who had just won the Leadville 100 Endurance run. Leadville starts at 9,000 feet and ascends to just under 13,000 feet and in between are miles of rugged terrain. Yet it turns out that Callahan grew up in Glens Falls and ran in the Catskills; he even had the Escarpment Trail Run, held annually here in July, on his “to do” list. When I suggested to Callahan that what the Catskills lacked in altitude was more than made up for in attitude, he laughed knowingly.

Jon Bowermaster is a National Geographic writer and explorer whose Oceans 8 project has been chronicling the changes in the world’s oceans due to climate change and the influence of humankind. Bowermaster, who lives in Stone Ridge, travels mostly by kayak for his Oceans 8 project: in the Arctic and down the coast of Vietnam are two of the places he has been for Oceans 8. How does he stay shape for his travels? Bowermaster paddles in the Hudson River often and extols the virtues of the Hudson Valley when asked (as I did in a recent interview with him).

So come on, Outside Magazine and Trail Runner, National Geographic Adventure and Mountain Bike, Bicycling and Backpacker, take notice: Some of the best adventuring in the world is right here in the Hudson Valley and if you don’t believe that, take a trip up our way and I’ll send you out with climbers, hikers, bikers, runners and paddlers who can show you otherwise.