Recently we spent spent a long weekend up in the Catskills Park, a mountainous region of New York. Specifically, we stayed near the village of Saugerties.
Home base for the next several days
Kaaterskill Falls is near Saugerties. The 260-foot falls descend two tiers into a creek that runs through a ravine. In the 1800s there was a 50-room boarding house at the top of the falls, Laurel House. After the land was acquired in 1967 by the state of New York the derelict building was burned down to make room for a camp ground. If you go off-trail a little bit you can find the old stone foundations (which we did). The very steep cut-stone steps to the base of the falls were slightly treacherous but worth the effort of carefully picking our way down. After having the place to ourselves early in the morning we walked back up to the viewing platform. The sun was fitfully trying to break through the clouds and we were treated to some rays of warmth.
View from the bottom of the first tier
Bottom of both tiers and the creek
The Catskills were well past peak fall foliage but there were still some spots with a little bit of color
Next we drove out to the trail for Giant Ledge, a three-mile round trip hike that involved a bit of rock scrambling and some steep inclines for a total gain of 1,000 feet. Our reward was panoramic scenery from an elevation of 3,200 feet.
For lunch we treated ourselves to the suds of Woodstock Brewery, which is actually just outside of Phoenicia. They had a seasonal Baltic porter that we wished was being sold in cans but alas, it was not.
Is this where Rip Van Winkle fell asleep?
Coming back down some of the rocky bits
For dinner we went out to a cozy place in Saugerties called The Dutch and had an awesome meal. in the evening the stove made the cabin very toasty.
The next morning was spent reading and sipping coffee during an hours-long deluge of rain. I filled the tub with the hottest water that we could get and lit a fire. Quickly, we took turns in the tub and tried not to freeze our ***s off before leaping back into the warm cabin to dry off! Once the skies cleared we went back into town for a lunch of bagel sandwiches followed by a little shopping. The town of Woodstock is still the home of many artists and artisans so we enjoyed a light afternoon of browsing and a little pick-me-up at a pub.
This place in Woodstock was covered in the best decorations!
Saturday was our last full day in the Catskills so we hiked up Overlook Mountain. The five-mile round trip trail is relatively easy but after the ankle busing rocks of Giant Ledge I was looking something a little easier. Even though Overlook is a little shorter (3,150 ft) than Giant Ledge (3,200 ft) we upped our elevation gain and hiked up 1,400 feet. The ground have the remnants of a never-finished hotel from the 1930s. Previously the site had a Victorian hotel that was dubbed the "summer White House" while President Ulysses S. Grant famously stayed there. When the hotel was abandoned it was used by the State of New York and it became a sanatorium, which eventually burned down. Property developers were in the process of building the Overlook Mountain House when WWII's demand for labor and resources brought the project to a halt. It was never finished and now the stone skeleton remains. There is a 80-foot fire tower at the nearby peak of Overlook Mountain.
We had a rather large repeat lunch at Woodstock Brewery and spent the afternoon hanging out back at the cabin and took baths again, this time in 38-degree blowing wind and rain! In the evening the clouds scattered just enough for a little bit of night-time photography. The next morning we had excellent bagels for breakfast and walked out to the Saugerties Lighthouse which sits on the Hudson River. On weekdays you can pay to stay overnight in the well-preserved 1869 building.
That pretty much sums it up! I've always wanted to see the Catskills region of New York. It was much more rural and undeveloped than I expected. Most of the time we were out of the range of any cell service which is perfectly fine these days. I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for an escape from the East Coast that's a reasonable half-day drive away.