Hike of the Week 1/20/2005

A tribute to Bob Consadine

Editor's note: This is a special tribute to Dutchess County resident Bob Consadine, who died earlier this month. This tribute is written by fellow hiker Ralph Ferrusi of Stormville.

A good guy remembered: The local hiking community lost one of its Good Guys last week. Bob Consadine passed away, at the too-young age of 67. He complained of stomach pains around Christmas. The diagnosis was kidney cancer. There is no treatment.

Bob loved the mountains: The Catskills, the Adirondacks, the Hudson Highlands, New Hampshire's White Mountains, Vermont's Green Mountains. He was a Catskill 3500 member, a Winter 35er, an ADK 46er and a New England 111er. Everyone in the hiking community knows what these are, how difficult these quests are, and how much time, energy and determination they take to accomplish. Bob took one of these to a new level and achieved something truly extraordinary.

Catskills were his playground: The Catskills are the Big Leagues in this area: Two peaks exceed 4,000 feet, and there are many challenging 3,800 and 3,900-footers. Bob, like many of the local hiking community, often climbed in the Catskills. He noted the peaks that he had climbed and when he climbed them. At some point, he decided to embark on a truly daunting goal -- to climb each of the 35 Catskill high peaks, peaks that exceed 3,500 feet in elevation, each of the 12 months of the year ... a total of 420 climbs. He did it, and then some. He eventually climbed each of the peaks at least 20 times. This is super-human ... an astonishing accomplishment.

Helping others on the trail: Bob did not do it for the glory, or for any kind of self-aggrandizement. He was a strong, competitive man -- he played basketball and football -- but was also unassuming and low-key. He did it because he loved to hike and he loved the mountains; he loved those beautiful Catskill peaks. Bob was always looking for new people to introduce to his sport, and to introduce to the Catskills. No one but Bob will ever know exactly how many people he took on their first hike, and how many people are enjoying the good-for-the-body, good-for-the-soul sport today because Bob took them out on their first-ever climb up a peak.

Always on the trail: You never know when you were going to run into Bob somewhere in the Catskills ... way up on a ridge, at a trailhead, or on the summit of a high peak on a bitter cold winter's day ... sometimes with his wife Dorothy, sometimes with his hiking buddies, sometimes with first-time climbers. It was always good to see him, and to shake his hand and share his love of the high places ... the quiet places, far from traffic and crowds and congestion.

He will be missed: Bob was a good man. A lot of people are going to miss him. Those high peaks won't be quite the same without him. But, on second thought, he will always be there -- on Southwest Hunter, Kaaterskill High Peak, Slide, Wittenberg, Cornell, Friday, Balsam Cap... Yes, he will ...

About the New York - New Jersey Trail Conference : The NY-NJ Trail Conference is a federation of hiking clubs, environmental organizations and individual members who volunteer their time and resources to build and maintain hiking trails and protect related open space in the bi-state region.

Information : For a more detailed description of this hike including a map, visit www.nynjtc.org and click on Hike of the Week. For information on NYNJTC activities, call 201-512-9348 or email info@nynjtc.org.

Hike of the Week is a regular feature in the Poughkeepsie Journal Players section, call 845-437-4848. This hike is contributed by NYNJTC member Ralph Ferrusi.

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