With a surprise tour guide in the Catskills!

This video took three trips to the Catskills to film.

First, I messed up completely. I came in early spring forgetting that the Catskills, being a mountainous region, was still covered with snow and ice that time of year. I could barely make progress on the treacherous trails looking for the waterfall on Hunter Road which no one on the Internet seemed to know where other than stumbling upon it by accident. Although I eventually found the waterfall, I could not risk injury hiking any further for a closer experience on the steep inclines toward the falls. Frick Pond Loop was the same, the trail was covered with packed snow and ice. I should have brought my crampons but did not.

Then, on the next trip, after making sure that all the snow was gone, came a pleasant surprise. A friendly dog—somebody’s dog as he wore a collar around his neck—guided me the entire 2.2-mile hike around Frick Pond. Because I did not want the dog to wait too long while I flew the drone and perhaps spook him by the drone’s racket, I did not fly the drone.

So, I had to come back a third time. I had to give you, my viewers, a bird’s-eye view of Frick Pond. This video simply would not be complete without some aerial footage.

There. Frick Pond and Hunter Road Falls are an hour away so that’s 6 hours of driving just getting there and back for a 14-minute video. I hope you enjoy it.

But regardless, and perhaps even more important, I enjoyed it.

A big part of making these videos, as any YouTube vlogger will tell you, whether viewers loved them or not, is to make memories sweet and lasting that they can look back to in later years. If viewers found entertainment and value in them, then that was a welcome bonus. And with a too-friendly dog showing up out of nowhere, guiding me (he knew the turns at three different intersections or I might have gone on a much longer 8-mile hike), accompanying me for the entire duration of the 56-minute hike, and seeing that he was having as much fun with me as I was with him, the memories I garnered from this hike couldn’t have been any more lasting and any sweeter.

Thank you, Dog. You made it very much worth the three trips!