Doing West kill for the month of March of the 5th grid. Then down to the Catskill Visitor center to see what’s new and pickup a few brochures before visiting the Esopus Fire Tower for the 2023 Fire Tower Challenge. Finally up to Overlook for fire tower #4 of 6 of the FT challenge.

Because of my late start, 9:30 am, I missed helping breaking out the DP to West Kill which was nicely done by the folks just ahead of me. To add some fun I detoured off the trail near the spring to bushwhack down to the end of Spruceton road as a shortcut. The dense cement-like snow made the plunge a bit challenging.

On Overlook the usual parking on Meads road was full so I dropped down to the new, lot which is much larger, then headed up from there and adding 0.7 miles each way. The remainder of the Overlook Spur trail was a combination of boot-packed track and mine field of deep gopher holes which slowed forward progress considerably.