Weekend Adventures
Around the world with Posie Strenz
Welcome back to our Weekend Adventures with Woolpower series! In this series, we are travelling around the country to meet some of our Woolpower users and see how they use their gear during an adventure. This weekend takes us up to the Catskills in New York for a chat with Posie Strenz – @posiestrenz – about a trip around the world in Woolpower! 
Woolpower – Hey Posie! Thanks for taking the time to chat with us today. We were excited to hear you and your family took a trip around the world with your Woolpower a few years ago. Tell us a little bit about that adventure…
Posie: We hadn’t been able to travel much in years and rented out our house for nearly a year. We wanted to fulfill a long-time goal of getting to places we’d never been. It’s actually a very economical way to travel. Our younger son was happy to be world schooled for half of fifth and sixth grade. He enjoyed taking a break from the traditional school routines. The route was tremendously educational!
My husband and I each carried a backpack and our son carried his travel guitar on his back. We left on January 1st, 2016, first basing ourselves with friends in Malaga, Spain, then moved on to Morocco, Tanzania, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Borneo, Australia, New Zealand, with a final quick stop in Hawaii on the way home. We met new friends and saw old friends too. 
Annapurna Base Camp 2016 | Photo by Posie Strenz
Woolpower – What an amazing experience for your family! When did you first discover Woolpower? Has it become an integral part to your family adventures?
Posie: In 2015, I was driving from the Catskills to Hudson, NY for a meeting when my tea thermos cup popped open spilling all over me as I was driving – right down to my socks. Having no time to spare, I called the shop owner of the store in the building I was meeting at and he told me to go in and take what I needed. I got a pair of Woolpower socks and soon discovered they were the best socks I’d ever found. I was leaving to go around the world on January 1 carrying only a backpack, and knew they had to be among the few pairs I brought!
During our trip we stopped in the Himalayas. After a whole day of hiking, it was great to put on my Woolpower socks to keep me warm all night in the unheated lodges, or to have them on to be cozy while doing snowy parts of the trek. My first pair made it all the way around the world, and I was still using them in the Catskills four years later with no holes! Finally, one disappeared but I had kept the packaging because I knew I wanted to order more, which I did! 
Last Day in the Himalayas | Photo by Posie Strenz
Woolpower – Sounds like you really love our socks! Which pair are your favorite?
Posie: My favorite pair would be the black 200 socks.
Woolpower - Tell us about your favorite spot or a special moment
during your trip around the world!
Posie: My favorite adventure was the 8-day trek in the Himalayas doing the Annapurna Base Camp trek with my husband and eleven-year-old son. We carried our own gear. The combination of hiking in a location with such striking scenery, while physically challenging ourselves hiking all day long for eight days straight, where you can only go on your own two feet, and experiencing it with loved ones made for an extremely special experience.
Woolpower – We know travelling around the world is a little challenging at the moment due to COVID-19 restrictions. What are some of your favorite spots in New York to adventure or hike?
Posie: I’m fortunate during this time especially to be living in the Catskills, where hiking trails abound. I do the Overlook hike pretty much every week,
and other longer trails whenever possible.
On the Overlook hike, you can see the ruins of an old hotel
and views of the Hudson River, Ashokan Reservoir and the surrounding Catskill Mountains. 
Posie at Overlook Mountian 2020 | Photo Courtesy of Posie Strenz
Thank Posie! What a unique world adventure in Woolpower. Have a Woolpower Weekend adventure you’d like to tell us about?
Email or tag us on Instagram @woolpowerus for a chance to be featured.
Stay Warm!
– Team Woolpower
Let’s go
Want to see the Ashokan Reservoir?
Take a Virtual Bike Tour and experience the Ashokan Reservoir
with narrators Chris White, Kevin D Smith and Posie Strenz
Virtual Bike Tour
Enjoy a Virtual Book Reading of
Nina Shengold’s “Reservoir Year.”
📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖📖
https://youtu.be/_0RdpUlkoms | Book begins at 4:06
On the eve of her sixtieth birthday, Nina Shengold embarked on a challenge: to walk the path surrounding the Catskills’ glorious Ashokan Reservoir every day for a year trying to find something new every time. Armed with lively curiosity, infectious enthusiasm, and renewed stubbornness, she hits the path every day with all five senses wide open, searching for details that glint. As Shengold explores the secrets of this spectacular place, she rediscovers the glories of solitude and an expanded community, both human and animal. Step by step, her reservoir walks rekindle connections with family, strangers, and friends, with a landscape she grows to revere, and with a new sense of self. Her personal journey will resonate with outdoor enthusiasts and armchair hikers alike.
Hike the Ashokan Rail Trail
The Ashokan Rail Trail (ART) is open to the public from sunrise to sunset year-round. The 11.5-mile recreational trail runs along Ashokan Reservoir between West Hurley and Boiceville. The ART trail surface is 12 feet in width and surfaced with highly compacted fine crushed stone. Both the trail and trailhead parking areas (including the portable restrooms) are ADA compliant and accessible for persons with disabilities. The ART is open for non-motorized uses, including hiking, walking dogs on leash, bicycling, running, nature observation, cross-country skiing, and snowshoeing. The ART trailheads are plowed in winter, but the trail itself is not.