Firetowers and Waterfalls in the Catskills

Hello fellow hikers, campers, and waterfall…ers. Today I want to write about my recent trip: the last three days (May 09 – 11) and the adventures my friend Dan and I went on. We had decided that while Dan had a break from law school that we wanted to hit the woods and go explore a couple fire towers in the Catskills. Dan lives outside of Philadelphia, PA so we thought that the Catskills was a good place, equidistant to check out. I only needed 2 more towers down in that region of NY towards the fire tower challenge so that was what we were shooting for.

Dan and I met at the base of Hunter Mountain early Monday afternoon. There is a trailhead parking area down a winding and often rough but scenic Spruceton Road. We went over our gear to make sure we had enough food and clothes for an overnight stay at the top. The weather was clear and a beautiful high 60s low 70s temperature… great for hiking. We proceeded to climb up to the lean-to which happens to be just below 3,500’ in elevation and about 1.5 miles from the top (where the tower is). It was decided to stay the night here under the cover of the lean-to and take pictures of the sunset as our site was pointed west and overlooked the valley that we had just circled. We ate a dinner of ham and instant potatoes which were delicious and afterwards had a couple of visitors: two friendly hikers that had started from another trail and were going the opposite direction from Dan and I. We shared the lean-to and had a nice night of chewing the fat… and chocolate… around a campfire. It was a short night, as I only got about 4 hours of sleep due to the cold. The alarm sounded at quarter after four in the morning in preparation to climb the remaining 1.5 miles and get up in the tower to shoot some pics of the sunrise. After facing the wind from on top of the tower, we returned shivering to our campsite and ate some oatmeal and packed the remainder of our gear for the hike back down Hunter.

Dan and I had been talking about what was next in our journey on the way down and we decided to try and find a couple waterfalls that Dan had passed on his way north. We retraced his route and discovered Halcott Falls which can be seen from State Rt. 42 and runs into Bushnellsville Creek. After eating lunch made up of tuna and chips, we followed the falls upstream and found one after another.

Not far up the road Dan remembered passing another falling stream before we met at the Hunter parking area so we found and hiked that as well. Again, this unnamed falls could be seen from the road while looking into the woods but it had no trail along it. In relation to Halcott Falls, this stream was about a half mile south on 42 and seemed to be public land (Halcott Mountain Wild Forest). We spent another couple of hours tracking upstream and taking pictures of the many slopes and falls along the way. There were a lot of flowers in bloom at the time, but most notably: the Red and White Trilliums and Witch Hobble were very prominent around the area. Afterwards, we continued our travels and found the parking area for the Red Hill fire tower trail. It was dinner time by that point, and we were exhausted from the previous night’s lack of sleep, so we made up some pasta and stayed at the parking area overnight. We didn’t really feel like setting up a campsite or tent so I just threw a tarp over the bed of my truck and slept there while Dan used his car.

In the morning, after oatmeal, we hiked the 1.4 mile trail to the top of Red Hill and were pleasantly surprised to find a couple guys opening up the facilities for the season. We helped them carry a few things to the top and as a reward we were the first to enter the top of the tower for 2011. The view was very nice and after taking our fill of pictures, we bid the workers farewell and went back to the parking area. The day previous I had bought a great topographic map of the whole Catskill Park that is put out by a company called “Venture Out Maps Corp”. I really like this map because it has hiking trails, major waterfalls, and fire towers all listed and mapped for easy viewing. I would definitely recommend this item for any visitor looking for things to do (which isn’t hard) around the Catskills. Anywho… we found four waterfalls nearby on the map, all within a stretch of a few miles, and decided to go exploring again for the rest of the day. One word would sum up the experience… Wow! The map labels the first as Buttermilk Falls and all of the four run into Rondout Creek which flows along Peekamoose Road. Traveling East, three of the falls lie on the left side of the road, while the other we had to cross the Creek to get to.

I’ll let the pictures do the talking but we hiked upstream on all but the last and saw so many falls that it’s hard to keep track of which was which. It was a great day and after a dinner of more pasta we parted ways and I made it home to central NY by around 10 Wednesday night.

I hope you enjoyed the overview of my trip and I would recommend these exploits to anybody who enjoys being able to see 360 degrees for miles and miles… or who enjoys watching water tumble down rocks. If you are considering a visit and would like additional detailed information please feel free to contact me via the information listed in my profile. My next planned expedition is the last week of this month (right before I leave for HI) with Matt and Caitlin for a few days in PA where we will be hiking a 7 or 8 mile loop that follows a chain of 21 waterfalls!