Some homegrown Catskills trail rocks. We've got a bunch more where they came from. Photo taken on the Escarpment Trail by Flickr user Kevin Kenny; published under Creative Commons license.

Summertime in the mountains got off to a promising start last weekend, with two new annual events that showcase some of the gnarliest terrain the Catskill Mountains have to offer. 

The winner for Most Masochistic New Race, hands-down, has got to be Manitou's Revenge: A 56-mile ultramarathon across the Black Dome Trail and Long Path whose inaugural event was held on Saturday, June 22. Race organizers didn't mince any words in describing the deep hurting involved: 

Just in time for the weekend: A Middleburgh road that was closed for nearly a week after it was damaged by a mudslide has reopened, according to the Schoharie County Department of Public Works. 

A DPW employee told the Watershed Post that Huntersland Road was reopened on Friday, June 21. The road had been closed since Sunday, June 16, when a torrential rainstorm on Friday caused soggy ground to gave way on the road's bank.

Flash flooding also slammed Middleburgh's Main Street on Friday, damaging roads, flooding basements, and temporarily stranding children in the Middleburgh Elementary School.

It's been a perilous week on Greene County roads and trails.

On Wednesday morning, state police say, two Athens women walking along the shoulder of Cauterskill Road in Catskill were struck by a car that drifted off-course. One died; the other was injured.

The car, driven by 36-year-old Frank Savio of Cornwallville, was headed northbound on Cauterskill Road around 7:30am when it drifted onto the shoulder of the road and struck the two women. Patricia Petrianna, 69, was pronounced dead at the scene. Linda Valenchis, 65, was transported to the Albany Medical Center with head and arm injuries. 

An investigation into the incident is ongoing. No charges have yet been filed, and police say there has not been any indication that Savio was using drugs or alcohol at the time.

After a defeat at the polls in May, the Cairo-Durham Central School District passed a revised budget by 472-360 on Tuesday, the Daily Mail reports:

After the $27.7 million budget was voted down in May, the revised budget dropped the tax levy from $12,550,413 to $12,490,413, for an increase of 3.73 percent from last year, rather than the 4.23 percent increase in the original budget.

The reduction was made possible by moving $60,000 from the unappropriated fund balance to the upcoming year’s revenue stream.

The district's board of education has been embroiled in controversy throughout this year's budget process. A cost-saving "Princeton Plan" reconfiguration of the elementary grades, scheduled for this fall, drew fierce opposition from a group of community members who vowed to vote down any budget that included the plan.