South West Escarpment Trail
After Hunter Mountain, I wanted to hike West Kill Mountain, which is right behind Hunter. When I was looking into it, there was a forest fire going on on the southwest side of Hunter Mountain. I thought that after a few days of rain and containment, I would be able to hike it. But when I arrived, the trails were still closed off. So I had to think of another option since I was in the area. I wasn't going to waste a trip to the Catskills without hiking!
I had looked into hiking part of the Escarpment trail, which was about 20 minutes away in the beautiful town of Tannersville. There are different parts to the Escarpment trail. The whole trail is about 24 miles long and runs on the easternmost part of the Catskills. I definitely wasn't going to to that in one day, so i decided I would do part of it.
Once again, I am lucky that I can hike during the week days and not the weekend. Usually, the Escarpment Trail is filled will people. It's close to the Hudson Valley, it's right next to the very popular Kaaterskill Falls and it's a very easy hike. Also, it includes some of the most stunning views in the Catskills. The hike starts off on a downhill slope that leads you to a trail junction for Kaaterskill Falls and the Escarpment Trail. Like I said, Kaaterskill Falls is probably the most popular hike in the Catskills, so if this was on a weekend, the trail would be filled with hundreds of people. But.....there wasn't a single person on that trail. Didn't even see a single person for the whole 6.5 mile hike!! It was great.
I decided to skip Kaaterskills Falls because my wife wants to see it also and I didn't want to enjoy that moment without her. After the trail junction you stop at a monument built for Frank Layman. Frank Layman died during a forest fire in 1900 that took down some of the forest by Kaaterskill Falls. After the monument, you start climbing uphill a little bit. Not too much, but enough to wear you down a little bit. After around a mile, you come to your first viewpoint:
It was beautiful. It opened up to a huge panoramic view of Kaaterskill High Peak and Roundtop Mountain. There are three huge waterfalls in that mountain that your looking at too. You can see them carved into the mountains side. They are very dangerous to access and they have limited water, so they aren't always flowing and one of them is on private property. On this day, none of them had any water so I couldn't see anything. Bummer. Along some parts, you are standing on the side of huge cliffs, which have a very good 50-100ft drop to them. Slip on this and it could cost you your life! After the viewpoint, you start climbing a little bit in elevation and along that climb are four to five views of that mountain range. Trust me, it didn't get boring! Here are some pics of the beautiful views a long the way!
After all the stunning views, you come upon a trail junction that you could either keep going straight or go left and see the site of where the Kaaterskill Hotel burned down in the late 1800's. This was a very famous hotel because it was one of the largest in the United States at the time and it stood overlooking the Hudson Valley and the Catskills. Even though nothing was left, it was still cool to visit such a historic place! There are so many trail junctions around the escarpment trail that it gets very confusing. Either way, if I got lost, some part of the trail would lead me to someplace I would recognize so I could get myself home.
After the hotel site, it was an easy hike. No real gains in elevation and no difficult sections. This trail is usually filled with people, but I had the trail all to myself. Later on I came to an amazing viewpoint overlooking the Hudson Valley. It was a great place to stop, rest and have lunch. The view was phenomenal. I read that on some clear days, you could see at least 3 states from this viewpoint: Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut.
After lunch, it was a still an easy hike. You start decreasing in elevation and you come along some more great viewpoints that you can't pass and interesting rock formations that are really cool to walk by. When you come out of the woods at one point, you enter on open field that also has a huge area overlooking the Hudson Valley. This is the spot of another old hotel called The Catskill Mountain House. The hotel was built in the mid 1800's and was a place that everyone famous had to visit. It was one of the most important places in the United States at one point. The hotel continued to operate until 1941. World War II caused them to close due to so many people fighting in Europe and the Pacific. In 1952 the land was bought by the New York State DEC and they burned the hotel down in 1963. Very sad, but the cost to keep that place up and running would of been too much for someone to handle. The view from where the hotel stood was phenomenal:
Just imagine waking up in the morning and coming out to that view! It overlooks the Hudson Valley and it feels like the view never ends. After that I still had a good 1.5 miles to get back to my car. It was a very easy walk going by the North/South Lake and cutting through the forest to get to the car. Nothing to amazing to see, but yet very peaceful and quiet. Just the way I like it. I also thought I would run into a bear or two on this hike but no luck!! Maybe next time :-)