Top 8 day hikes in the Catskills

Two hours north of New York City, a plateau ends in a wall above the Hudson. There are five restored fire towers up there you can still climb, and the tallest waterfall in the state. Eight day hikes inside the Catskill Park, with the state's own mileage and climb for each one.

DestinationsPublished August 30, 202614 min read

Photo: Daniel Case — CC BY-SA 3.0

Drive north out of New York City for two hours and the land on your left stops being hills and becomes a wall. That is the Catskill escarpment. It looks like that because the Catskills are not really a mountain range at all. They are a plateau that streams have been cutting into for a very long time, so the summits are rounded and the valleys between them are absurdly deep. New Yorkers call those valleys cloves. Stand at the top of one and the ground just leaves.

Nineteenth-century painters worked this out before anyone was calling it hiking. The Department of Environmental Conservation puts it plainly on its own page for Overlook Mountain: the view of that mountain from the Hudson River appealed to so many writers and artists that it made the area famous and, in DEC's words, laid the foundation for a wilderness concept and ethic in the United States.

Kaaterskill Falls, a few miles north, drops 260 feet in two tiers and is the highest waterfall in New York State. People have been coming here on purpose for two hundred years.

What they get is 288,000 acres of Forest Preserve inside the Catskill Park, protected as forever wild by Article XIV of the state constitution, and free to walk on. The peaks are modest by American standards. Slide Mountain, the high point, is a little over 4,000 feet. The trails are not modest at all. Catskill paths were mostly laid up old carriage roads and stream beds, and they go straight at the mountain. A climb here costs you what a much bigger mountain would somewhere else.

We have not walked all eight of these. What we have done is read what the agency that manages them actually publishes, because in the Catskills that is the part the roundups get wrong. Half the famous summits have no view. One of these trailheads needs a paid permit in summer, and a fire tower that everyone photographs has been boarded up since February.

Destinations

What are the best day hikes in the Catskills?

Eight of them, spread across the whole park: Balsam Lake Mountain, Blackhead, Ashokan High Point, Hunter, Giant Ledge, Overlook, Slide, and Table and Peekamoose together. They run from a 3.2-mile walk to an open ledge up to an 8.6-mile day with 2,820 feet of climbing, and seven of the eight are free and need nothing booked.

Below they are ordered by how much the trailhead asks of you, from a lot you can roll into at noon to one that needs a permit bought a day to a week in advance. Every distance and every climb is the figure DEC publishes, and where DEC's own pages disagree with each other, we say so.

A restored steel fire tower with an enclosed glass cab at the top, rising above spruce trees against a blue sky with light cloud — The Balsam Lake Mountain fire tower. The present steel tower went up in 1930; the first tower on this summit, built of wood, dates to 1887.Photo: Daniel Case — CC BY-SA 3.0

Balsam Lake Mountain

Balsam Lake Mountain Wild Forest, Hardenburgh, Ulster County

Round trip: 6 miles from Mill Brook Road
Climb: 1,120 feet
Summit: 3,723 feet
Trailhead: Dry Brook Ridge Trail, Mill Brook Road
Permit or fee: None

The first forest fire tower in New York State was built on this summit in 1887, out of wood, by the Balsam Lake Club. The state took the operation over in 1909 and added telephone lines, an observer's cabin and a road. The tower standing there now is steel, 47 feet tall, and dates from 1930.

DEC calls the route from Mill Brook Road the most popular one: a moderate six-mile round trip on the Dry Brook Ridge Trail with 1,120 feet of climbing. There is a shorter way in from Beaverkill Road, 3.5 miles round trip, and DEC gives its climb as either 1,200 or 1,250 feet depending which of its pages you read.

But the eastern end of that road is only seasonally maintained and is not plowed, and DEC calls that trailhead generally inaccessible through the winter, so for a good stretch of the year Mill Brook is the answer whether you wanted it to be or not.

Think hard about the summit before you drive out here. The Catskill 3500 Club, which keeps the list this peak sits on, says flatly that no views are available from the top without climbing the tower. The mountaintop is dense balsam fir and it is lovely, and it is also a green wall. The tower is the hike.

Why it's here: This is the far western Catskills, an hour's drive from the crowded side of the park. Noon on a Saturday is still a reasonable time to start.

Blackhead Mountain

Windham-Blackhead Range Wilderness, Greene County

Round trip: About 4.8 miles from Big Hollow
Climb: About 1,570 feet
Summit: 3,940 feet
Trailhead: Big Hollow Parking Area, Big Hollow Road
Permit or fee: None

DEC describes this one in three legs rather than one number, so here it is in its own words: from the Big Hollow Parking Area the Black Dome Trail runs 0.6 miles southeast to the Batavia Kill Trail; the Batavia Kill climbs 510 feet in 0.9 miles to the Escarpment Trail, passing a lean-to about halfway; and the Escarpment Trail then climbs 1,060 feet in 0.9 miles to the summit. That is 2.4 miles and a little over 1,570 feet each way.

The last of those three legs is what people remember. A thousand feet in under a mile is a staircase, and in the Catskills a staircase means hands as well as feet in a couple of places. This is the northern end of the park, where the Blackhead Range throws up three summits over 3,900 feet within about a mile and a half of each other, and where the escarpment falls away east toward the Hudson.

The summit itself has no vista. The club's own note is that the views are along the trails rather than at the top, which is true of most of the high Catskills. Blackhead is also one of four peaks the Catskill 3500 Club makes you climb a second time in winter, and given what that last leg is like, doing it again on ice sounds like the point.

Why it's here: Nothing else here climbs as hard for as long: 1,060 feet in the last 0.9 miles. The trailhead is free and unregulated, in the corner of the park most people drive past on their way to Kaaterskill.

Ashokan High Point

Sundown Wild Forest, Town of Olive, Ulster County

Round trip: 7.5 miles
Climb: 1,480 feet
Summit: 3,080 feet
Trailhead: Kanape Parking Area, County Route 42
Permit or fee: None

For the first 2.65 miles this is not really a mountain hike. The red-marked trail follows Kanape Brook up an old woods road that used to be Freeman Avery Road, past stone walls and the foundations of hillside farms, past a spring box the Civilian Conservation Corps built, and through a dark plantation of Norway spruce that once sheltered a farm from the snowdrifts. It is a gentle 500 feet of climbing over that stretch.

Then the trail leaves the old road and DEC's description turns blunt: the last 1.25 miles is very steep. The full climb to the summit is 1,480 feet over 7.5 miles round trip on DEC's Catskill Hikes page, though its Sundown Wild Forest page rounds the same walk to approximately 7 miles. Either way, most of the work is in that final 1.25 miles.

The top is unusual for the Catskills. Repeated fires and thin soil have left a ridge-top blueberry heath with scrub oak rather than the usual fir wall, so there are real westerly views across to the Rocky-Balsam Cap-Friday ridge. The famous look down at the Ashokan Reservoir and the Rondout Valley, framed by the Shawangunk Ridge, is a short but hilly bushwhack northeast to a big blueberry patch. DEC says so, and it is worth knowing before you stand on the summit wondering where the reservoir went.

Why it's here: Come in August and the ridge-top heath is covered in blueberries. It is also one of the few open summits in a range that mostly does not have them, and the first half is gentle enough to work as a walk on its own if the weather turns.

A narrow rocky footpath climbing through bright green summer hardwood forest, with a small round red DEC trail marker nailed to a tree beside it — The Devil's Path climbing the lower slopes of Hunter Mountain. DEC marks its trails with color-coded discs like this one rather than painted blazes.Photo: Daniel Case — CC BY-SA 4.0

Hunter Mountain by the Spruceton Trail

Rusk Mountain Wild Forest, Town of Hunter, Greene County

Round trip: 7 miles
Summit: 4,040 feet
Trailhead: Spruceton Road, 6.7 miles from Route 42
Fire tower: 60 feet, built 1917 — cab currently boarded up
Permit or fee: None

No fire tower in New York State stands at a higher elevation than this one, and the tower has a long history of being moved around. The original went up in 1909 and was built of logs, 40 feet tall, the first of three towers put up in the Catskills that year. A 60-foot steel tower replaced it in 1917, standing at 4,000 feet about a third of a mile short of the true top, and it was not until 1953 that anyone moved it onto the actual summit.

Check its condition before you commit, though. DEC says the cab windows were damaged in a sustained windstorm in February 2026, staff have boarded them up to prevent further damage, and there is no timeline yet for a full repair. The tower is still there and the hike is still worth doing. You just cannot get the 360-degree view through the glass right now.

The Spruceton Trail is the one DEC leads with: a moderately difficult seven-mile round trip on an old woods road with blue markers, passing the John Robb lean-to at 2.1 miles. The Becker Hollow Trail off Route 214 is shorter at 2.2 miles to the junction, and DEC is candid about the trade. It calls Becker Hollow the second hardest route to the top, says it gets very steep near the top, and elsewhere lists it among trails that are very steep, very difficult and not recommended for children.

Why it's here: One mountain, two very different ways up: pick the long gentle road or the short brutal one. It is the second-highest summit in the Catskills, and the tower on top sits higher than any other in the state even with the cab boarded up.

A wide summer view from a rock ledge over deep green forested valleys to the long ridge of Wittenberg and Cornell mountains under a cloudy sky — Wittenberg and Cornell from Giant Ledge. This is roughly a mile and a half of walking from the road, which is why the lot fills.Photo: Ben Perry, edited for Wikipedia by Daniel Case — CC BY-SA 2.0

Giant Ledge

Slide Mountain Wilderness, Town of Shandaken, Ulster County

Round trip: 3.2 miles
Climb: 1,100 feet
Elevation: 3,200 feet
Trailhead: Oliverea Road North, County Route 47
Permit or fee: None

Giant Ledge buys more view per foot of climbing than anything else in this range, and everybody knows it. From the Giant Ledge trailhead on County Route 47 you follow the yellow Phoenicia East Branch Trail east for 0.75 miles, turn left onto the blue Giant Ledge-Panther Trail, and climb to a series of open rock shelves with views east and west. Wittenberg, Terrace, Cornell, Spruce, Hemlock and Balsam are laid out in front of you.

DEC publishes two versions of the same walk and they are close enough not to matter much: its Slide Mountain Wilderness page gives 1.6 miles each way, 3.2 miles round trip and 1,100 feet of climbing, while its Catskill Hikes page gives 2.7 miles round trip and 1,000 feet. Call it three miles and a thousand feet and you will not be far off.

Continuing north to Panther Mountain doubles the day and adds a 3,724-foot summit with its own view from a small ledge. DEC publishes no round-trip figure for that extension from this trailhead, only the full 7.45-mile trail length measured from Fox Hollow at the other end. Plan it off a map rather than off a number you read somewhere.

Why it's here: Under two miles of walking buys a view that peaks 700 feet higher in this range do not have. If you have one afternoon in the Catskills, spend it here.

Roofless concrete walls of an abandoned hotel standing in summer woodland, empty window openings framing blue sky and trees — The Overlook Mountain House, begun in the 1920s and never finished. DEC asks you to look at it from the outside.Photo: Otherlleft — CC BY-SA 3.0

Overlook Mountain

Overlook Mountain Wild Forest, Woodstock, Ulster County

Round trip: 4.8 miles
Climb: 1,370 feet
Fire tower: 60 feet, at 3,140 feet
Trailhead: Meads Mountain Road, about 2 miles above Woodstock
Permit or fee: None

This is the one everybody's cousin has done, and it earns it. The Overlook Spur Trail is an old carriage road that once carried hotel guests up the mountain, so the grade is even the whole way. DEC calls it a gradual but nonstop incline, 1,370 feet over 2.4 miles. At 1.6 miles you walk into the massive castle-like ruins of the Overlook Mountain House at 2,900 feet, begun in the 1920s, never completed, and now being taken back by the forest.

Look at it from outside; DEC asks that you not go in.

Above the ruins is a 60-foot fire tower that has been on this summit since 1950 but was originally built in 1927 on Gallis Hill west of Kingston. From the ledge on the spur trail beside the ground cabin you get the Hudson River, the Ashokan Reservoir, the central Catskills and, on a clear day, up to five states.

Two warnings that come straight from DEC rather than from us. The ledges and drop-offs up there need care. And on the subject of leaving the path, DEC's fire tower page for this mountain does not hedge: stay on the paths, venomous rattlesnakes are common in the area. Timber rattlesnakes are not aggressive unless provoked, and DEC's advice if you meet one is to keep six feet back and let it move off on its own.

That sentence is on the page because the eastern edge of the Catskills is one of the pockets where the species still hangs on, and rocky ledges with a southerly exposure are exactly what it dens and basks on.

Why it's here: DEC ranks this summit among the three most-visited places in the whole Catskill Forest Preserve, so go early or go midweek. You get a ruined hotel on the way up and a five-state view from the ledge beside the tower at the top.

A wide stony path climbing through dense mossy balsam fir forest, the trees short and close on both sides near the top of the mountain — The trail up Slide. The forest closes in as you gain height, which is why the summit itself has no view.Photo: Acefilmco — CC BY-SA 4.0

Slide Mountain

Slide Mountain Wilderness, Town of Shandaken, Ulster County

Round trip: 5.4 miles
Climb: 1,780 feet
Summit: About 4,180 feet — the highest in the Catskills
Trailhead: Oliverea Road South, County Route 47
Permit or fee: None

The highest point in the Catskills is a surprisingly civil walk. From the Slide Mountain trailhead on County Route 47 you take the yellow Phoenicia East Branch Trail southwest for 0.7 miles, turn left onto the red Burroughs Range Trail, and climb two miles east to the summit rock. That is 2.7 miles and 1,780 feet each way, to a top that once carried a fire tower of its own.

Set on the summit rock is a plaque to John Burroughs, the naturalist who wrote of this place that here the works of man dwindle, in the heart of the southern Catskills. He was right and he was also being tactful, because the summit is completely enclosed by trees. The Catskill 3500 Club puts it without ceremony: the top of Slide, once the site of a fire tower, is viewless.

The views are on ledges and openings scattered around the peak rather than at the highest point. The best of them are on the Curtis-Ormsbee Trail, a 1.6-mile blue-marked alternative with 900 feet of climbing and three panoramic outlooks, named for two men who blazed it and then died on a mountaineering trip in the White Mountains in 1900.

On the elevation, nobody quite agrees. The Catskill 3500 Club's own prose says Slide tops out at 4,180 feet, its peak list says 4,185, and DEC declines to publish a number at all, calling it only the tallest peak in the Catskills. Anything precise you read about Slide's height is somebody picking a side.

Why it's here: It is the highest ground in the range and the walk is easier than the number suggests. Go up Curtis-Ormsbee, or come down it, so the day includes a view.

An enormous angular gray glacial boulder resting on the forest floor, hemmed in on all sides by young balsam fir trees — The glacial erratic that marks the actual summit of Peekamoose. The 3500 Club puts the view near the summit rather than on it, and this is why.Photo: Kevin Kenny, cropped and colour-corrected by Daniel Case — CC BY-SA 2.0

Table and Peekamoose

Slide Mountain Wilderness, Town of Denning, Ulster County

Round trip: About 8.6 miles
Climb: 2,820 feet from Peekamoose Road
Summits: Peekamoose 3,819 feet, Table 3,825 feet
Trailhead: Peekamoose Road (County Route 42)
Permit or fee: $10 vehicle permit, 15 May to 15 September

This is the biggest day of the eight, and probably the quietest. DEC's line on this corner of the park is that it presents a sense of remoteness, and the ground backs it up: a red pine plantation and old stone walls low down where there used to be pasture, and old-growth forest in the interior.

From the Peekamoose Valley a 4.3-mile trail leads west to the views on Table and Peekamoose, which makes a round trip of roughly 8.6 miles, and DEC puts the climb from Peekamoose Road at 2,820 feet.

Peekamoose gives you views south from ledges around 3,500 feet and one more near the top, where the summit proper turns out to be a large glacial erratic hemmed in by balsam fir. Table is named for its long flat summit plateau and carries the Bouton Memorial lean-to just to its west. The Catskill 3500 Club lists them at 3,819 and 3,825 feet; DEC rounds both to 3,800.

This is also the one trailhead in this article with paperwork attached. Between 15 May and 15 September, DEC requires a $10 permit for the entire Peekamoose Valley Riparian Corridor, the stretch of Rondout Creek that includes the Peekamoose Blue Hole, and the rule names hikers alongside campers and picnickers. There is a single 60-car lot serving both the Blue Hole and the Peekamoose Table trail, roadside parking is a tow-away zone, and there is no cell service in the valley.

The block below has the details. Outside those four months, no permit is needed at all.

Why it's here: Buy the permit before you drive out and the day takes care of itself. Nearly 3,000 feet of climbing gets you two summits over 3,800 feet, with old-growth forest in the middle of the walk.

How big are the Catskills?

288,000
Acres of Forest Preserve: 4,180 ft
Slide Mountain: 33
Peaks on the 3500 list: 260 ft
Kaaterskill Falls

Do you need a permit to hike in the Catskills?

No, almost everywhere. Every trail in this article is free and needs no reservation, with one exception: between 15 May and 15 September, DEC requires a $10 permit for anyone using the Peekamoose Valley Riparian Corridor, hikers included. Some neighboring New York City watershed land also needs a free DEP access permit, valid five years.

The Peekamoose permit is worth reading properly, because it does not work like a park entry fee. It costs $10, and it must be bought at least 24 hours and no more than a week in advance through Reserve America. There are no walk-in registrations: DEC says permits will not be available for purchase onsite. Each one is tied to a vehicle, covers a maximum of five people, and has to be displayed in the car. Licensed hunters and anglers are exempt. Outside those four months nobody needs anything.

Parking is the real constraint, and the northern Catskills are where it bites. The Town of Hunter has parking restrictions on Route 23A and Platte Clove Road, and parking is banned in every vehicle pull-off on Route 23A in Kaaterskill Clove from May through October. DEC's advice is to park only at designated lots, come prepared with backup options, and move on if the lot is full.

That last part has teeth: illegally parked cars get ticketed and towed to the Town of Hunter impound lot in Tannersville. The Molly Smith lot on Route 23A has been closed outright to improve visitor safety.

None of the eight hikes above sits in that pinch point, which is partly why they are the eight. DEC publishes lot capacities almost nowhere in the Catskills. The 60 spaces at Peekamoose and 10 apiece at Red Hill and Mount Tremper are the only figures we could find. So on a bright October Saturday, treat every small trailhead as an early-morning proposition and have a second plan in the car.

Note

The most famous walk in the Catskills is not on this list

Kaaterskill Falls drops 260 feet in two tiers, an upper fall of 175 feet and a lower fall of 85 feet into a rocky basin, and it is the highest waterfall in New York State. The Hudson River School painted it repeatedly. From the Laurel House Road parking area it is also a 0.3-mile walk on firm crushed gravel at about a 7 percent grade to an observation platform, with a wide enough tread and a gentle enough slope that DEC lists it as wheelchair accessible.

Going down to the lower pools at the base makes it 0.7 miles and a good deal steeper.

It belongs on any list of things to do in the Catskills and it is not a day hike, which is the only reason it is down here instead of up there. Go, and go early: this is the corner of the park where the parking rules above apply hardest, and DEC's own recommendation is to use the Laurel House Road, Schutt Road or South Lake lots.

There are specific rules at the falls too. No glass, no alcohol, no fires, stay at least six feet from cliff edges, and stay out of the water within 150 feet upstream of the top. If you want a full day on this side of the park, our New York State roundup covers the Escarpment Trail above Kaaterskill Clove.

Which Catskill summits actually have a view?

In the Catskills, height and view are close to unrelated, which is worth knowing before you pick a hike. The three highest summits on this page all keep their views somewhere other than the top, and the best outlook of the eight is a 3,200-foot ledge that is not on the peak list at all.

Where you get the view

Giant Ledge, 3,200 feet. DEC's own words are excellent views to both the east and west, from open rock shelves a mile and a half from the road.
Overlook Mountain's spur-trail ledge, 3,140 feet. The Hudson River, the Ashokan Reservoir, the central Catskills and up to five states.
Ashokan High Point, 3,080 feet. A ridge-top blueberry heath burned open by repeated fires, with westerly views over the Rocky-Balsam Cap-Friday ridge.
Panther, 3,724 feet. The Catskill 3500 Club says the summit offers excellent views from a small ledge.
Peekamoose, 3,819 feet. Views south from the ledges around 3,500 feet, and one more near the top.

Where the trees win

Slide, about 4,180 feet. The highest point in the range, and the 3500 Club describes the summit itself, once the site of a fire tower, as viewless.
Blackhead, 3,940 feet. No vista at the top; the views are scattered along the trails on the way up.
Balsam Lake Mountain, 3,723 feet. No view at all without climbing the 47-foot tower that stands on it.
Peekamoose's actual high point is a large glacial erratic. The club puts the view near the summit rather than on it.
Hunter, 4,040 feet. The view is from the tower, and its cab has been boarded up since February 2026.

Which Catskill fire tower hike should you do?

Overlook, if you want the biggest view for the least walking. Red Hill, if you want the shortest day of the five. Balsam Lake Mountain is the quiet one, out west. Hunter stands at a higher elevation than any other fire tower in the state, but its cab is boarded up at the moment, so the climb is currently better than the view. Nineteen fire towers once watched the Catskills.

Five still stand on summits inside the park and all five are hikeable, which is unusual enough that DEC runs a fire tower challenge around visiting them. The list it uses grows: for 2026 it is eight towers, adding the one at the Catskills Visitor Center and two more just outside the park boundary, so check DEC's page for the year you are hiking. Three of the five below are numbered items above.

Fire tower	Summit	Round trip	Tower	What you see
Balsam Lake Mountain	3,723 ft	6 miles from Mill Brook Road	47 ft, built 1930 — the first NY tower stood here in 1887	Pepacton Reservoir; nothing without climbing it
Hunter Mountain	4,040 ft	7 miles by the Spruceton Trail	60 ft, built 1917, moved to the true summit 1953	Highest tower in New York State — cab boarded up since February 2026
Overlook Mountain	3,140 ft	4.8 miles	60 ft, built 1927, on this summit since 1950	Hudson River, Ashokan Reservoir, Devil's Path, up to five states
Red Hill	2,990 ft	4 miles from Denning Road	60 ft, nine flights of stairs	Catskill peaks north, Rondout Reservoir south — staffed most weekends, Memorial Day to Columbus Day
Mount Tremper	2,740 ft	6 miles, gaining 2,000 ft	47 ft, believed original, used until 1971	The surrounding mountains — and a 10-car lot at the trailhead

Elevations and distances are DEC's. The sixth tower in the park, at the Catskills Visitor Center in Mount Tremper, is a short accessible loop rather than a hike; the two added for 2026, Mount Utsayantha and Bramley Mountain, sit outside the park line.

A sweeping view from the Overlook Mountain fire tower over the Hudson Valley, with shafts of light falling through heavy gray cloud onto the Ashokan Reservoir and forested ridges — From the top of Overlook Mountain, looking east and north over the Hudson Valley with the Ashokan Reservoir catching the light. This is the payoff for 1,370 feet on an old carriage road.Photo: Mister.ev — CC BY-SA 4.0

Safety

The Catskills ice over before the snow arrives

These are northeastern mountains with a lot of exposed rock and a lot of running water, and the freeze-thaw cycle turns steep trails into luge runs from late fall until well into spring. DEC's standing advice when overnight temperatures drop below freezing is that traction devices are highly recommended for safe travel on icy trails. On a Catskill grade, treat that as required gear rather than a suggestion. The Catskill 3500 Club, for its part, defines winter as 21 December to 21 March, which is optimistic about both ends.

Two other seasonal facts worth knowing. Several trailhead roads are only seasonally maintained and are not plowed. The eastern end of Beaverkill Road below Balsam Lake Mountain and Dinch Road below Red Hill are both generally inaccessible in winter, so check which trailhead you are actually driving to. And there is no cell service in the Peekamoose Valley at all. Report a backcountry emergency to the DEC Forest Rangers on 833-NYS-RANGERS, or call 911.

Gear these eight actually ask for

Catskill trails are steep, rocky and wet more often than not, and half the year they are icy. Ice is the one condition here where the right gear changes what you can safely do.

Best Microspikes of 2026

Read the guide →

Best Hiking Boots of 2026

Read the guide →

Best Day Hiking Backpacks of 2026

Read the guide →

Questions worth settling before you drive up

Do you need a permit to hike in the Catskills?

No, with one exception. Catskill Forest Preserve trails are free and need no reservation. The exception is the Peekamoose Valley Riparian Corridor, where DEC requires a $10 vehicle permit for all visitors including hikers between 15 May and 15 September, booked in advance through Reserve America. Neighbouring New York City watershed lands marked Entry by Permit need a separate free DEP access permit.

What is the highest peak in the Catskills?

Slide Mountain, in the Slide Mountain Wilderness. DEC calls it the tallest peak in all of the Catskills without publishing a figure; the Catskill 3500 Club gives 4,180 feet in its prose and 4,185 feet on its peak list. It is a 5.4-mile round trip with 1,780 feet of climbing from the County Route 47 trailhead, and the summit itself is enclosed by trees.

How many Catskill peaks are over 3,500 feet?

The Catskill 3500 Club's official list holds 33 peaks. It used to be 35: Graham and Doubletop were closed to public access in January 2021, and that March the club dropped the extra South Doubletop and Millbrook Ridge requirements and cut the tally to 33. Fourteen of the 33 are climbed to a summit canister you sign rather than to a trail sign, and the club names all fourteen.

Which Catskill hike has the best view for the least effort?

Giant Ledge. DEC gives it as 3.2 miles round trip with 1,100 feet of climbing from the Oliverea Road North trailhead on County Route 47, and the open rock shelves at the top look east and west over Wittenberg, Terrace, Cornell, Spruce, Hemlock and Balsam. Several Catskill peaks 700 feet higher have no view at all.

How long is the walk to Kaaterskill Falls?

From the Laurel House Road parking area it is 0.3 miles each way on firm crushed gravel at roughly a 7 percent grade to the observation platform, which DEC lists as wheelchair accessible. Continuing down to the lower pools at the base of the falls makes it about 0.7 miles from the lot on a moderately steep, more natural trail.

Can you hike in the Catskills in winter?

Yes, and it is quiet and beautiful, but the trails ice over rather than simply filling with snow. DEC recommends traction devices for safe travel on icy trails whenever temperatures drop below freezing. Check your trailhead road too: several access roads, including the eastern end of Beaverkill Road and Dinch Road, are not plowed and are generally inaccessible in winter.

Are there rattlesnakes in the Catskills?

In places, yes. DEC's fire tower page for Overlook Mountain tells hikers to stay on the paths because venomous rattlesnakes are common in the area. The eastern edge of the Catskills is one of the pockets where the timber rattlesnake still hangs on, and it dens and basks on rocky ledges with a southerly exposure. It is a threatened species in New York and not aggressive unless provoked; DEC's advice on meeting one is to keep six feet back and let it move off.

Staying on the marked trail handles it.

How far are the Catskills from New York City?

DEC's own distance table for the Peekamoose Valley puts it at 110 to 130 miles from New York City for most of the Catskill campgrounds and day-use areas it lists, which is roughly two to two and a half hours of driving. There is no train to any of the trailheads in this article, so all eight are car trips.

Sources

Facts on this page were checked against these. Conditions, fees and rules change — check the official page before you go.

Slide Mountain Wilderness — New York State Department of Environmental Conservation · checked August 30, 2026
Windham-Blackhead Range Wilderness — New York State Department of Environmental Conservation · checked August 30, 2026
Sundown Wild Forest — New York State Department of Environmental Conservation · checked August 30, 2026
Balsam Lake Mountain Wild Forest — New York State Department of Environmental Conservation · checked August 30, 2026
Overlook Mountain Wild Forest — New York State Department of Environmental Conservation · checked August 30, 2026
Rusk Mountain Wild Forest — New York State Department of Environmental Conservation · checked August 30, 2026
Hunter-West Kill Wilderness — New York State Department of Environmental Conservation · checked August 30, 2026
Kaaterskill Wild Forest — New York State Department of Environmental Conservation · checked August 30, 2026
Peekamoose Blue Hole — New York State Department of Environmental Conservation · checked August 30, 2026
Catskill Hikes — New York State Department of Environmental Conservation · checked August 30, 2026
Catskills Fire Tower Challenge — New York State Department of Environmental Conservation · checked August 30, 2026
Fire Towers — New York State Department of Environmental Conservation · checked August 30, 2026
Catskill Backcountry Information — New York State Department of Environmental Conservation · checked August 30, 2026
New York's Forest Preserve — New York State Department of Environmental Conservation · checked August 30, 2026
Welcome to the Catskills — New York State Department of Environmental Conservation · checked August 30, 2026
Timber Rattlesnake — New York State Department of Environmental Conservation · checked August 30, 2026
The Catskill High Peaks — Catskill 3500 Club · checked August 30, 2026
Membership Overview — Catskill 3500 Club · checked August 30, 2026

The Appalachian Trail, explained

2,197.9 miles of continuous marked footpath from Georgia to Maine, free to walk and open year-round. What the corridor actually crosses, the three honest ways to hike it, and the places along it that ask for a permit or a fee.

Photo: Bernard Spragg. NZ — CC0, cropped

Destinations

Top 5 day hikes in Zion National Park, from a paved mile to the chains

A paved mile beside the river, an hour to a ledge on the east side, a day spent wading upstream, and half a mile of chains on a sandstone fin. Five day hikes worth planning a Zion trip around, with Park Service mileage, the shuttle stop for each, and the permit and river rules that decide whether you walk them.

Photo: Ronnie Macdonald — CC BY 2.0

Destinations

Day hiking the Grand Canyon, and how far down to turn around

From the railing the Grand Canyon is a photograph with no scale in it. Twenty minutes down the trail it has heat and grain and a floor. Eight turnarounds on the South Rim's day trails, ordered by how deep each one takes you, with Park Service mileage and the rule that shapes the whole day: coming up takes about twice as long as going down.