aaron bennett

The Watershed Post's Memorial Day Guide

By Julia Reischel
5/20/12 - 1:30 pm

Summer is on its way in. Memorial Day is a week from tomorrow, and our special Memorial Day Guide is out. We'll be posting stories and events to it all week, so come back early and often to plan your weekend.

One of the big stories of this year's festivities is the opening of three NYC reservoirs to recreational boating. To show us just how cool that is, we've asked expert outdoorsman Aaron Bennett to write about a new route that is now open for the first time.

It's a roughly 30-mile paddle from the headwaters of the East Branch of the Delaware River all the way down to the foot of the Pepacton Dam. To read Aaron's story, part of our Memorial Day boating coverage, click here.

Occupy venison?

By Julia Reischel
12/2/11 - 1:29 pm

Our correspondent Aaron Bennett reports this morning on a dozen signs that have appeared along Oliverea Road in the Big Indian/Oliverea Valley. The signs, which seem to have appeared today, announce that hunters have joined the Occupy Wall Street movement. Bennett snapped this (slightly blurry) photo above.

Anyone have more info on exactly which hunters are feeding the Occupy movement with venison? Email us or comment on this post.

More Catskill Park signage cropping up

By Julia Reischel
10/25/11 - 3:40 pm

Photo of new street sign in Allaben sporting a Catskills Park disc logo. Photo by Aaron Bennett.

Stalwart Watershed Post correspondent Aaron Bennett has noticed a new crop of Catskill Park signage going up in Shandaken this week. (The first batch of new signs went up in June.) Above is his photo of an Allaben street sign with the new disc logo, which you can see large-scale below. 

Bennett writes:

The new brown and whites with the placard on top continue to go up - saw a whole new swath today on my drive in, I also noticed this new street sign with the Catskill Park disc which will eventually make it to all of them - at least in Shandaken where the green/white signs on town-maintained roads are being replaced by brown/white.

In other signage news, Bennett reports that most of the uphill-skiing skiers along Rte. 28 are still skiiing uphill.

It's eagle season

By Julia Reischel
3/1/11 - 4:45 pm

Can you spot the bald eagle in the above photo? Flickr user Ted Kerwin took the picture in the Roundout Reservoir in 2003.

I Love New York wrote a blog post last week to remind likely Manhattan day-trippers that March is prime bald-eagle-watching season, especially in the Mongaup Valley in Sullivan County. According to the story, the number of bald eagles that migrate through New York nowadays is right back up to what it was a century ago:   Read more

Above the snowman line

By Julia Reischel
11/8/10 - 2:37 pm

A snowman at Buck Ridge Lookout on West Kill Mountain, at 3,500 feet of elevation. Photo by Bob Moses. 

Our correspondent Aaron Bennett, the regional director of the Catskill Mountainkeeper, led a hike up West Kill mountain in Greene County on Saturday. He reports that the snowy season has definitely begun up there, and sent along the photo above to prove it:

With two consecutive mornings to recent snow on the high peaks, we encountered up to 2" of powder above 3,500' elevation. Although there were no views because the summit was under the cover of clouds all day, we did enjoy gazing at the fresh blanket of snow beneath out feet and on the red spruce and balsam fir trees.  Read more

View from the High Peaks: Connecting the Dots

By Aaron Bennett
10/6/10 - 12:46 pm

In honor of Lark in the Park, this week's festival of outdoors activities in the Catskills, I'd like to issue a call to arms: If the Catskills are ever going to become an outdoor recreational mecca, we have a lot of work to do.

We need to tear down the walls between hiking, biking, skiing, boating, and other recreational pursuits. We need to tear down the barriers between the entities that manage the resources that all lovers of the outdoors share. The potential is there. But without building intertwined uses of this common playground, our eco-tourism industry will continue to flounder.   Read more

View from the High Peaks: Getting 'skunked'

By Aaron Bennett
6/23/10 - 11:19 am

Ever since its inception back in 1993, National Trails Day has been held on the first Saturday in June. If you have never heard of National Trails Day, it is the only nationwide celebration of trails and was inspired by President Ronald Reagan's Commission on Americans Outdoors, which issued a report in 1987 that recommended that all Americans be able to head out their front doors and, within fifteen minutes, be on trails that weave through their neighborhoods and bring them back home without having to retrace their route. Pretty cool, huh?  Read more

Clearwater

By Julia Reischel
6/21/10 - 6:20 am

Our columnist Aaron Bennett spent the weekend at the Clearwater Festival. Looks pretty idyllic from where he was sitting. 

Greening Greene County

By Julia Reischel
6/10/10 - 4:04 pm

In May, students hailing from Manhattan Comprehensive Day and Night HS trucked up to Greene County to plant trees along the once-degraded Batavia Kill with kids from Jefferson Central and Gilboa-Conesville Schools. Our columnist Aaron Bennett was there with them, and snapped the photo above.

The jaunt was funded by the Catskill Watershed Corporation and led by GrowNYC Environmental Education Director Michael Zamm, who described the trip to us in an email:

They spent half a day doing the planting, then went on the overnight which included hikes and a visit to an organic farm. They planted 2700 total plants -- 250 were trees. They stayed at the Sherwood House, run by the Catskill Mountain Foundation.

250 trees in one day? Not bad.

View from the High Peaks: Seeing Green

By Aaron Bennett
4/30/10 - 12:48 pm

Normally the month of April, or “mud season,” as it is affectionately known, is relatively quiet in the high peaks region. The ski centers close down, many of the restaurant owners and innkeepers shut their doors for a few weeks to seek out warmer and drier weather, and Easter recess is a welcome reprieve for local teachers and students.

Residents in the Catskill Mountain region begin getting re-acquainted with the natural world this time of year as well. The longer days enable the chlorophyll to turn that brown grass green again, and the first buds and flowers (like red trillium) announce nature’s emergence from winter. People emerge too – raking leaves, picking up branches, planting flowers, and of course fishing for trout.

This time of year, everyone is focused on "green.” Today is Arbor Day, and Earth Day turned 40 years old last week. To celebrate Earth Day, the commissioner of our Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) started a blog called “State of Green," to show residents just how “green” New York is.  Read more

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